BRAZEN bike thieves have boasted that they are "out to take anyone's bike" on a new social media profile aiming to glamorise their crimes.

An Instagram page called "so.biketakers_" has emerged with videos and photos of boys riding around the city on bikes, which they themselves say are stolen.

The group boast the motto "lock it or lose it" on their page.

It comes as police promise to crack down on motorbike thefts across the city following a number of reported incidents.

The page shows videos of the boys tearing around the city on the vehicles including one video of three people on one motorcycle riding down Queensway in the city centre.

The page was started at the beginning of the month and so far there are three videos and three photos of the teens posing on the bikes.

One of the captions on one video reads "three man up out there to take anyone's bike". To date, the page has 142 followers.

One Southampton man organises and runs a group called Stolen Motorcycle Recovery.

The group work together to search the streets for stolen bikes that have been dumped.

They work with the police to help return the bikes they have found to their rightful owners.

He said: "Thieves often post to Instagram under a range of different names.

"Bike thefts are not getting any better.

"We would estimate that around four bikes are stolen in a week."

He added: "The police have been amazing considering they can't prioritize [bike thefts]. "Sometimes bikes get burnt out before we can get to them.

"The police do an excellent job but we get to the scene quicker.

"There is only so much we can do and we are all volunteers."

Hampshire Police told the Daily Echo that they were aware of the Instagram page.

Chief Inspector Phil Lamb said: “We want to reassure bike owners that we do all we can to follow up all lines of enquiry available to us when we receive a report of a stolen motorcycle.

“[On Wednesday], for example, we arrested three people for theft of a motor vehicle in the city centre after one was reported stolen from the east side of the city.

“We know motorbikes are a popular mode of transport, but they’re light and can be easy to steal, our advice is to invest in a some extra security such as ground and wall anchor points, locks that are at least 16mm in diameter, disc locks for the rear wheel, alarms and immobilisers and consider fitting a GPS tracker.

"We suggest using a combination of these security measures to protect your bike from being stolen.”