Up to 250 Google Bikes Go Missing Every Week from Google's HQ

The company which promises to build ‘secure’ browsers and keep user data safe apparently is unable to protect the bicycles inside its campus from thieves. Tech giant Google loses up to 250 bicycles every week from its Mountain View campus.

The company maintains roughly 1,110 bicycles or as it is called GBikes in Google colours — yellow frames, red baskets and green and blue wheels for its employees to get around its sprawling campus.

The GBikes which are leased by local residents as well as employees of the company end up at local schools, in neighbours' lawns, at the bottom of the town creek and on the roof of a sports pub.

"The disappearances often aren't the work of ordinary thieves, however. Many residents of Mountain View, a city of 80,000 that has effectively become Google's company town, see the employee perk as a community service," the Wall Street Journal reported on January 5.

When Google installed GPS devices on a third of the GBikes and tracked their movement, the internet giant found that thieves were taking them as far as Mexico and Fairbanks, Alaska, said the report.