More organized than most riders want to believe. Motorcycle theft in the US runs on a spectrum. At one end you have opportunists — someone spots an unlocked bike, muscles it into a van, done. At the other end are genuine crews that treat it like logistics: a spotter photographs bikes at events or follows them home, a lift team shows up later with a van and cordless grinders, and the bike is inside a chop shop within hours. From there it's parted out (a bike's parts can be worth more than the whole machine, and parts have no title), given a new identity with a washed VIN, or containerized for export.
That's why popular models — Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki have topped most-stolen lists for years — get hit hardest: their parts fit the most bikes and sell the fastest.
Against a crew, no single lock wins. Your realistic play is layers: hardened physical security to slow them down and make noise, and a hidden tracker so that if they do take it, you're handing police a live location in the first hours — before the bike becomes a pile of parts. Never chase it yourself; let the location data do the work.
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