The increasing sophistication and professionalism of thieves breaking into cycle shops across the UK is becoming a worrying trend that police are failing to take seriously, says one bespoke bike shop owner whose business has been targeted in four “Mission Impossible-style” burglary attempts in the past seven months – to the extent that an officer even questioned whether one of the break-ins was an “inside job”.
While opportunistic smash-and-grab thefts, from ram-raiders driving into and destroying shopfronts to teenagers shamelessly nicking bikes on display, remain depressingly prevalent for cycle shop owners, recent years have seen a rise in meticulously prepared and co-ordinated burglaries carried out by organised criminals targeting local, independent bike shops.
Earlier this week, Steve Heathcock, the owner of C6 Bikes in Cambridgeshire, told road.cc that his store was broken into last October by thieves displaying a “baffling” level of knowledge about the building’s layout, enabling them to steal £200,000 worth of high-end bikes, kit, and components without being caught on CCTV.
“If you told me the SAS fast-roped out a helicopter and did this, I would believe you,” Heathcock said of the raid, which saw the thieves scale their way onto the roof, cut the building’s point of sight broadband wire, cut a hole in the side of the shop, and take 90 per cent of C6’s stock, barely leaving any trace behind them.
“If you watch that documentary on the Hatton Garden robbery, they essentially did the same thing to get into that place,” Steve told us, adding that his insurers “still don’t believe me, I don’t think”.
“You see stuff where someone turns up with a Ranger Rover and drives into the front window, it’s a smash and grab and off you go. But when we walked in, it looked like someone had moved us out.”
“There was a huge bloody hole in the floor!”
Since Steve shared his story on road.cc, another bike shop owner in neighbouring Northamptonshire got in touch to describe a similarly methodical attempt to steal bikes and components from her business, which has been the subject of four burglaries – only one of which was successful – since February.
The Gorilla Firm, a bespoke bike and custom build shop in Oundle, was first targeted in February, when thieves cut their way into the building’s staff toilet from below and somehow evaded the company’s motion sensor CCTV by crawling across the floor, before “clearing out” the shop’s SRAM componentry and power meters.
“Back in February, my husband came into work, no alarms had been set off or anything, and as he walked into the building, he realised he was walking on grit and gravel, and there was a massive draft,” Gorilla Firm co-owner Justine tells road.cc.
“And he went into the backroom and there was a huge bloody hole in the floor! The closer he looked, he realised someone had been in the storeroom and basically cleared us out of all our SRAM groupsets and power meters, very high-end stuff. They knew exactly what they were looking for, they knew exactly where it was, and they knew that the storeroom didn’t have CCTV inside.”
> Bike shop targeted in "lawless" raid attempt, major damage as car rammed into building twice
As the shop’s owners attempted to get to the bottom of the burglary, the extent to which it was a carefully planned and meticulously executed raid became clear.
“When we went back to look at all the CCTV, initially we couldn’t see anything at all,” Justine continued. “Our CCTV is motion sensor – and they came in and slid across our floor at the pace of a snail into our cupboard, and turned the light on in the cupboard.
“And all I could see was a flash of light which activated the CCTV, and that was what alerted me to it. Further along I could just see someone’s legs and hands dragging a bright red SRAM box. And there was another bit of footage where I could see someone lying face-down on the floor of our workshop pointing their camera flashlight up at our alarm system.
“It was absolutely bizarre. And the reason they didn’t take more than they did, is because where they broke in there are lots of plumbing pipes. So even though they managed to squeeze in, they could only take small things out. It was all so surreal, it was very Mission Impossible-style stuff.”
Justine also believes that the thorough knowledge displayed by the thieves of the shop and its surroundings – Gorilla Firm is located on the Oundle Wharf retail park, alongside restaurants, bakeries, and a brewery – was the result of a detailed and brazen reconnaissance mission carried out before the burglary.
“What was awful was the thought that they’d obviously been in the shop,” she says. “We’re a small shop, there are only three of us. They potentially were someone we’d invited in, shown them around, made them a coffee, talked to them about a bike build. And they had no intention of being a customer, and came back and robbed us.”
Justine continued: “What we found afterwards – we’re on a wharf and there’s a restaurant beside us – the weekend before they broke in, they’d removed all the cameras from the Tap and Kitchen Restaurant that we’re pointing towards out building, so nothing was caught on their cameras. It was a really professional job. There was nothing on any of the exterior CCTV, it was just bizarre.”
While Justine and her team responded to the break-in by reinforcing their security measures, the successful February raid on the shop’s SRAM componentry was only the first of a series of attempts to steal the shop’s high-end goods, also involving tools and tactics straight out of a Hollywood heist film.
“Since then, we beefed up our alarm system and changed our CCTV. But then in May, the alarms went off. They’d come back to get more stuff, and they’d cut all the wiring to the whole building – where there’s a bakery, a wine shop, a brewery – they smashed off the CCTV cameras from the front and rear of the building,” she says.
“They then climbed on top of the roof and tried to saw through our ceiling to get in, which obviously set off the alarm.
“And then there was another time when my husband disturbed them when he came in early for work at half four in the morning. As he walked into the workshop, he felt grit underfoot. And again, they had broken into the empty unit and used a reciprocating saw to get through the wall into the workshop, but had been disturbed so fled.
“It’s mental though, the effort and lengths they’ve been going to get in and steal stuff.”
“They’re targeting small independent businesses… It’s greed and opportunism”
However, in a similar manner to the response to the C6 burglary, and despite the criminal gang’s persistent attempts, Justine says Northamptonshire Police have “literally done nothing” to get to the bottom of the raids – and have even gone as far as questioning whether the robbery was an “inside job”.
“We called the police and they took a full statement, but forensics didn’t find anything,” Justine says. “The initial police that came in February were a bit weird, they said they’d never seen anything like it before, and asked if it was an inside job. Well, there’s only three of us and it’s our own business and own money, it’s ridiculous.
“And I was like, ‘you’ve never seen anything like this – are you sure?’ Because I’d seen C6 was broken into. But nothing ever came of any of it. And when they came back later, they said they’d check the CCTV of the houses nearby. But they’ve literally done nothing.
“When the C6 story was shared on Facebook, there were lots of people saying ‘it’s an inside job, it’s an inside job’ – which just made me furious. Steve had shared his story about his bike shop being broken into and what a professional job it was, and all people could say was, ‘oh, he’s obviously in on it, and on the take’. And that made me cross, because it’s not just him.”
She continued: “I sent the police all the contact details of Steve from C6 and said, ‘I know it’s Cambridgeshire, but we’re only Northamptonshire, we’re neighbouring counties, maybe they have information’.
“But I just don’t think the police are interested, they don’t really care. As far as they were concerned, it’s a crime, but they didn’t take that much, our insurance took care of it – but they’re not seeing a wider pattern. And there certainly is a wider pattern, as so many bike shops are being broken into.”
But as this wider pattern emerges of criminals launching sophisticated and targeted raids on independent bike shops, at a time when demand for bikes has plummeted, the question must be raised: What’s the motivation behind these increasingly professional and persistent burglaries?
It’s a question that even puzzles Justine.
“A lot of our stuff is high-end, it’s niche, but I don’t know if it’s that,” she says. “I don’t know if they’re stealing to order, I just don’t know. Cycling is a big market, it’s expensive, it’s easier to move things, as people don’t necessarily have trackers on the products.
“And they know the risk of getting caught is so minimal because no-one puts any effort into trying. But I don’t know, I just don’t know where the stuff goes either.
“And it’s not like there isn’t plenty of bikes out there. I don’t know much about it, but I don’t think the secondary market is great at the moment, it’s not like during Covid when you could sell stuff for an absolute fortune and make a killing – I don’t know what the motivation is.
“If you’re stealing that kind of stuff – say you steal a Pinarello Dogma, I have no idea what you get for that. But I suppose you could still get £1,000 for it, even at a third of trade. Though I think it’s not even that.
“Times are hard, thefts are on the rise, and it’s as simple as that. But it’s not like they’re stealing milk to feed their families. They’re targeting small independent businesses – not big corporates, they’re not targeting big warehouses. They’re going after small independents, assuming they don’t have great security and emptying the shops. It’s greed and opportunism.”