BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Ballater bike shop Cycle Highlands was raided on Sunday, with seven e-bikes stolen.
As BikeBiz reported last month there have been a number of strikingly similar raids on other bike shops in the past ten weeks. The JE James store in Rotherham was raided in late July, with damage done to the shopfront and three Orange MTBs stolen. J C Cook Cycles of Grimsby was targeted in August, and £70,000-worth of bikes were stolen in a raid at Corley Cycles of Milton Keynes. Cambridgeshire’s C6 Bikes was also broken into at the end of August, with much of the shop damaged and with thieves stealing £20,000-worth of stock.
It’s possible there could be a gang at work, targeting high-end cycle stores.
Cycle Highlands was raided at 3.20am on Sunday. Six Merida e-MTBs and a Cannondale e-MTB were stolen.
Detective Constable Ailsa McKain, who is leading the investigation, said: “We want to trace the movements of two transit vans – one blue and one white – which were seen in the Dinnet and Ballater areas around the time in question. I would urge anyone who saw anything suspicious to get in touch, and also ask anyone with dash-cam footage of these areas to let us know.
“In addition, if you are offered these bikes for sale please get in touch as soon as possible. Thefts in this particular area – and especially on this scale – are completely unheard of meaning every effort is being made to identify those responsible and recover the bikes.
“Anyone with information should contact Police on 101 quoting reference number 0873 of Sep 9.”
Cycle Highlands was founded by Richard and Liz Watts in 2004, and, as well as Merida and Cannondale also stocks Santa Cruz, Juliana and Orange.
