CASSIE TOMLIN/Arizona Daily Wildcat The Tucson Police Department invited the public to look through about 450 stolen bikes recovered this year Saturday morning at the Tucson Police South substation. About 40 people claimed their bicycles.

Darin Zumbrunnen reunited with an old friend Saturday morning at a Southside police station.

The pre-architecture freshman didn't bail anyone out, but reclaimed his stolen bicycle, which was recovered by the Tucson Police Department at a midtown house last month.

TPD invited the public to scan their collection of about 450 recovered stolen bicycles Saturday at the Tucson Police South Substation, 4410 S. Park Ave.

Steven Harn, TPD burglary detective, said among the "steady stream" of people searching through the piles of bicycles, about 40 identified and reclaimed their bikes.

Harn said police seized 350 road bikes, mountain bikes, BMX bikes, childrens' bikes and antique bikes about two weeks ago from a house near North First Avenue and East Blacklidge Drive, while the other 100 bikes were recovered from various places this year.

An $8,000 road bike and several bikes worth more than $4,000 each found at the property were returned to their owners before the public bike-claiming event, Harn said.

Harn said TPD obtained a warrant for the property after neighbors reported suspicious activity.

Police suspect residents of the house traded methamphetamine for the bicycles they stole, Harn said.

Zumbrunnen said his mountain bike was stolen from the front of Arizona-Sonora Residence Hall, 910 E. Fifth St., sometime late January.

Zumbrunnen said he has had the bike since he was 12, when he "upgraded to a big-boy bike" and brought it to the UA last semester assuming it would be safe with a three-quarter-inch chain lock.

"I was kind of pissed because I didn't think anyone would steal that crappy of a bike," Zumbrunnen said.

CASSIE TOMLIN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Pre-architecture freshman Darin Zumbrunnen, left, inspects his bicycle with TPD detective Sgt. Jim Kirk, center, and detective Michael Androy Saturday afternoon.

Police verified the bicycle registration number with the University of Arizona Police Department and released the bike to Zumbrennen.

The brakes on the bicycle were broken but everything else was in tact, Zumbrennen said.

According to the TPD Web site, this year TPD has received 245 reports of bicycle thefts.

Sgt. Eugene Mejia, UAPD spokesman, said his department averages about 500 reports of stolen bicycles annually.

Mejia said most thefts occur around bike racks in the East University Boulevard area.

Mejia said he recommends students lock their bikes with U-Bolt style Kryptonite locks, which require significantly strong tools to defeat.

Michael Brown, an agriculture and biosystems engineering senior, said his locked, $300 bicycle was stolen in January from the BioSciences West building, 1041 E. Lowell St. Brown said he rode his bike to school every day and now rides the CatTran, which often causes him to be late to class.

"Especially at the U of A, bikes are crucial - they're people's main mode of transportation," Brown said. "It's a huge pain in the ass to have to reschedule."

Computer science and math senior Chris Elofson said he has driven to school since his bike was stolen two weeks after Brown's, also from the Bio West bike racks.

Elofson said it takes him three times as long to get to class now.

The two scanned the clusters of bikes at TPD several times before leaving empty-handed.

"Bikes get stolen all the time," said Elofson, who said he did not expect to find his bike.

Bicycles can still be claimed at TPD "for a while" before they are given to Tucson Fire Department to fix and be donated to needy children, said TPD detective J. Randall Deeming.

"Not everybody loses here in this cluster," said Deeming. "The guys like working with the bikes and giving them to kids who cannot get bikes otherwise."