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news
Moped gang stealing Dodd family bikes.PNGMoped gang steal junior national closed circuit TT champ’s bike – 12 hours after he won title (+ video)
A gang of thieves on mopeds stole six bikes from a home in southwest London in the small hours of Monday morning – including a time trial bike which hours earlier had been ridden by its owner to win the junior men’s national closed circuit time trial championship.
The theft, from Mattie Dodd’s family home in Wimbledon, happened at about 3.30am, with footage of the four thieves, riding two mopeds, making off with the bikes captured by a neighbour’s CCTV camera.
A video shows three of the thieves using tools including a crowbar to prise open the garage door then quickly carry the first four bikes out, hoisting them over the driveway fence to where their accomplice is waiting by the mopeds.
Yesterday’s success should have capped a memorable year for the teenager, who rides for Team Backstedt Bike Performance and in August won the closing stage of the Tour of the Mendips, finishing fourth overall.
Mattie Dodd of Team Backstedt Bike Performance
But just 12 hours after the 16-year-old’s victory at the event, organised by Cycling Time Trials at the Thruxton motor racing circuit in Hampshire, thieves broke into the garage at his home and stole the bike he had ridden to victory, as well as five others.
Besides his distinctive blue Orbea Ordu TT bike, the thieves also made off with a Pearson MineGoesToEleven, Pearson Objects in Motion, Pearson Rough with the Smooth, Cervélo R5 and a Specialized Roubaix. All the bikes are shown in Mattie's Instagram appeal below.
“I’m obviously livid for a start, I loved those bikes,” Mattie told road.cc. “My TT bike in particular has taken quite a while to set up right, thanks to the UCI for that one!!).
“Hopefully we can get the money back on insurance though – and at the end of the day no one was hurt.
“I’m holding on to the hope that they might be recovered but I know it is a long shot,” he added.
His father Angus Dodd – who himself lost two bikes, a Pearson Objects in Motion and a Specialized Roubaix – told us that there had been similar thefts at other properties in the area recently.
He added that Pearson Performance in Sheen had been “great in sorting a road bike for Matt in short order.”
Cyclists in southwest London have already been alerted to robbers on mopeds attacking cyclists for their bikes following two incidents last week.
Last week, Alpecin-Fenix pro cyclist Alexandar Richardson was pushed from his bike and dragged along for 100 metres by a gang of four men on two mopeds in Richmond Park before being forced to hand his bike over when one of the thieves brandished a machete at him.
The previous day, another cyclist in the park had his bike stolen by two men on electric scooters.
> Professional cyclist robbed of bike by Richmond Park machete gang
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- chrisonabike 41 min 25 sec ago
I'd agree there are a lot people who want no change whatsoever (or rather just don't think about change, busy getting on with life). Until...
- David9694 1 hour 43 min ago
I like how drivers make the case for making monitoring covert, not overt.
- andystow 1 hour 55 min ago
She seemed a bit upset about a minor misjudgement that could have killed someone and is going to cause months of stress and inconvenience.
- Backladder 2 hours 58 sec ago
No we don't agree, personally I would take primary, even if only for a short period although I can understand why some riders might not want to...
- brooksby 2 hours 22 min ago
And which looks very like the bag produced by indy bag manufacturer Wizard Works…...
- HoarseMann 2 hours 33 min ago
If it was a 'no vehicles' sign (all white circle centre), it would mean cyclists could ride in the hours that HGVs and disabled drivers are allowed...
- stonojnr 4 hours 3 min ago
The bit at the start and end looks like a cycle lane, but the bit they drive on looks just like a patched filter lane for traffic lights.
- JOHN5880 4 hours 4 min ago
Hey, you 4 execs helped run a company into the ground and have no jobs anymore... Come work for us because you have great experience in the...
- Oakhambike 4 hours 48 min ago
£11.5k for a bike weighing over 8kg that's 2 fingers to customers let alone UCI
- Dnnnnnn 5 hours 4 min ago
I'm going to show my bike a picture of this shed and tell it, "If you don't behave..."
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21 comments
I'm puzzled. The camera is moving and following the thieves' movements and the operator even appears to be providing live commentary. So why weren't the police called and/or the thieves at least shouted at and disturbed?
It's not the original footage - it's a video of a screen showing the footage. That's why you can see all the controls, etc. at the bottom of the screen. You can even make out the badge on the monitor ('Hikvision') below that.
Ah thanks ... that explains it!
When I got my burglar alarm changed last year I specifically made sure we got a sensor attached to the garage door. For anyone storing bikes in their garage I would highly recommend the same.
Obviously it can be worthwhile having bikes chained to ground anchors, but there is every chance they will just destroy the bikes if they can't have them.
It is very sad though seeing this sort of thing happening. I was only saying last week to a family member that I'm starting to think about taking my bike through the front door because entering/exiting via the garage door gives anyone in the street a very nice view of the contents. We really shouldn't have to be thinking like that.
Would they need to destroy the bikes ? They would just use an angle grinder (and as we know you can get a 305mm disc portable one
)
A friend of mine had his bike suffer the same fate. Except that he had a cheap bike that he had bought from Argos that wasnt even worth stealing.
Part of his commute to work includes a bike ride down to the train station before locking it up there and jumping on the train to head into london for work. Someone had attempted to steal his bike on multiple occasions but failed to cut through his lock or chain and each time the thief would take out his displeasure of not being able to steal the bike on the bike itself. things like taking a hammer to the frame, shredding his tyres or his saddle, clipping his gear/brake cables, kicking/breaking his wheels etc etc etc and it gradually got worse and worse to the point where I think the guy eventually got an angle grinder, still wasnt able to cut through the locks/chain so cut through the handlebars, seatpost and the frame itself.
This guy wasted so much effort trying to steal a bike that wasnt worth more than £100-150 well before the days of covid.
sad about the bike though, but he did get a new one and never parked it outside the station again.
I used to lock my inexpensive hybrid in the bike shed outside my flat when I lived in Colchester, they were discretely out of the way from the road, you'd have to go looking for them to find them, but on two occasions I had someone try to steal the bike, fail to get through the locks, so they stripped every part they could from it. Even though the bike wasn't expensive it was still kind of heartbreaking, the second time I didn't bother to replace the parts until after I'd moved to a house with a garage to lock it in. Needless to say the road bike never lived outside, I used to lock it in the electricity meter cupboard inside the flat.
Things shouldn't have to be like that, it shouldn't be an attractive crime to steal bikes, yet it seems to easy to get away with and doesn't seem to carry much in the way of punishment.
I wonder if it's the same gang that's been terrorising nearby Richmond Park this last week
I think I need to get some more obvious Decathlon stickers for my bike so they leave me alone...
This is most annyoing, I'm sorry to hear about this.
But out of interest: Were the bike not locked inside the garage? Chained to a solid object?
Were they two abreast, not wearing hi vis, not wearing helmets? Didn't they flag down one of the many passing buses at 0330?
I know I'm being idealistic here but you shouldn't have to keep bikes under dozens of layers of security. It's the thieves who are culpable no matter what the level of security in use, and your post smells a bit of victim blaming.
Agreed, this was a targetted raid on somebody's home, not simply walking off with a bike left outside the toilets. Even then I get sick of hearing victim blaming.
If it's not yours, don't take it - you wouldn't like it if someone did it to you.
I take it you don't lock your front door because you don't want to have made any effort to stop thieves because you shouldn't have to?
I lock my front door, and I consider that to be enough that I haven't put cable locks through my television, computer, or other valuables.
Yeah but your guns deter them.
I lock my front door as, amongst other things, it's a stipulation of my insurance policy. Even then I've been known to forget, because I'm only, well, badger.
If someone steals my stuff after gaining entrance in that circumstance, I've been guilty of forgetting. They are guilty of being a thieving scrote. I wonder how we stack up against each other morally.....
I'd imagine anyone who did try to break in would be risking getting stuck in the entrance anyway.
Frankly, anyone who risks trying to raid a badger's sett is braver than me.
Yes, well. Those squirrels are frankly getting too big for their boots.,...
Though nowhere near as expensive as these models I've had a bike stolen from me. That was nearly twenty years ago and it still rankles. Bastards.
Odd, isn't it ? I sometimes imagine my hybrid getting stolen and think about all the commutes, shopping trips, rides into town, bikepacking trips, the mild off-road rides we've had. Even if I could replace her exactly (I can't) it wouldn't be the same bike.
My car could be stolen tomorrow and I wouldn't care (provided the insurance paid out). I'm fucking sick of bike thieves.
Simon should contact the family to ask for pictures of all the bikes that were stolen if they have any then update the article with them.
The more people that see the pictures and recognise those bikes, the more chance the family will have of recovery as the thieves wont be able to sell it unless they go through the effort of dismantling them to be sold as parts or switching out some of the parts with random ones to make the bike less recognisable and obviously shift the bike to an unsuspecting victim.
I really hope that they manage to recover the bikes or the insurance company not fighting them every step of the way like insurance companies normally do when it comes to getting a payout from them.
I cant see them popping up as whole bikes again, my guess giving the organised targetted nature of it, the bikes assuming they were even in one piece anymore are probably not even in this country by now.