When 10-year-old John and 12-year-old Sheila Lucas woke up Thursday morning, the siblings went out of their Blaine Street home to check the weather and to make plans to ride their bicycles. But not only was the sun missing from the sky, their bikes were missing from the front porch.

According to their mother, Olive Brest, this is the third set of bikes stolen from their home since they moved to Grove City from Greenville in May.

"My bike just got fixed (Wednesday) yesterday," Sheila said. "It was the first time I started to ride it. It hadn't been used before that and then it was gone. It actually scares me. I don't know if they're going to steal my bike or not."

The kids drew up fliers and duct-taped them around town to get the word out about their stolen rides, but their mother wasn't too optimistic about recovering them.

"When we first moved here, they had two brand new bikes. They got stolen within three weeks. We went out and I bought them another set and those were stolen three weeks ago. And then I bought them a set of used bikes thinking they wouldn't be stolen and now they're gone," said Mrs. Brest, adding that the six bikes have cost her family over $500.

"The neighborhood's really good up here, but neighbors up the street said it's been happening for at least five or six years, but some of them haven't reported it because the cops couldn't do anything about it," she said.

Police Chief Dean Osborne said he and his department are well aware of the bike theft problem in Grove City which has gotten worse during the summer.

"We've had five or six in the past month," he said. "To be honest with you, some of these bikes are pretty valuable and they're selling them somewhere."

Osborne said the borough has a stash of unclaimed bikes that were found or turned into the department. They'll be donated to a worthy cause, such as the Secret Santas, if the owners can't be found.

"People can come during business hours and they can describe" their lost bikes, he said. "If we can get it back to the owner, we'd much rather do that."

Osborne said people who steal bikes often sell them elsewhere and it's possible that some of the bikes the department has came from other communities.

One theft-prevention tip he gave had to do with the serial number which is attached to the frame.

"We encourage people who purchase bikes to put the serial number somewhere, to write it down, so that if it gets stolen it's easier to track," Osborne said. "I mean for example, Wal-Mart sells 30 of these red bikes that all look alike and only about 2 percent of the people write down the serial number. It would help us and help them."

Another thing he emphasized was locking up bikes. "Most of the ones that are taken are left lying somewhere or left in the yard. For the most part, if (thieves) can't ride it immediately, they aren't going to take it," he said.

But Ms. Brest said one of the sets of stolen bikes were locked up and someone must have used bolt cutters. The other two times they were either on the front porch or in the back yard. She didn't report the first two thefts but did report the last one.

"This time I finally did because I had enough, because this is ridiculous. They said that they'd look into it," she said.

As for her kids, taking rides to the local McDonald's, the park or just "all around town," according to John, will have to wait while their family decides what to do next.

"We used them everyday," he said.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Sherris Moreira-Byers at sbyers@sharonherald.com