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It was on Liliana Henriksson’s birthday, and the night before an exam, that the first-year University of B.C. student’s new road bike was stripped for parts while locked outside on campus.

Henriksson is among scores of people who have lost their bicycles — or parts of them — to theft at UBCover the last two months after a jump in theft that coincided with the start of the fall semester.

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Sgt. Eric Baskette of the RCMP’s UBC detachment said the levels of theft that police are dealing with is “definitely elevated” this year over last. The UBC uptick comes as a multi-year decrease in bicycle thefts continues in neighbouring Vancouver — which was once considered Canada’s bike theft capital.

Henriksson bought her bike used in September. She figured a used bike would be less likely to be stolen.

“I didn’t want it to be super nice just for that reason,” she said. Despite that, a thief stripped it of its handlebars and other parts.