Do you sometimes find yourself wishing you live in a major metropolitan city so that you could ride your bike everywhere? If so, the recent news out of England might have you rethinking your stance.

How many bicycles do you think were stolen last year in the metropolis of London? More than 26,000 bicycles were reported stolen last year in London. As reported in online.wsj.com.

The news gets even worse for cyclists as arrests for thefts and numbers of bikes recovered by the police are also down on last year.

Making it even worse news for cyclists is that police estimate that barely a quarter of all bicycle thefts ever are reported. So that means more than 100,000 bikes may have been stolen in London alone!

Just under 1,000 bikes - less than 4% - were tracked down by Scotland Yard in the last financial year.

The government's spending a lot of money encouraging people to ride their bike and when their bike is stolen about two-thirds of them don't get back on a bike.

Bicycle security is a fast-growing industry. Very soon cyclists will have Lo-Jack capability to track their bikes if they are stolen.

I am a strong proponent of education. I think London should mandate 16 hour theft classes for all children from the age of 12 to 17.