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Ford Transit Luton van£100k reward offered after £1/4 million in bikes and gear stolen after London Bike Show
Some scumbags decided to take the notion of end of show special offers a bit too seriously last night. Hours after the London Bike show closed, thieves helped themselves to two vans containing about a quarter of a million quidsworth of bikes and gear belonging to dealer TriUK. A reward of up to £100,000 is being offered for information leading to its recovery.
The hire vans full of stock belonging to the Somerset bike and triathlon deler were stolen from Travel Lodge Excel car park at about 1.58am on Monday February 17.
According to BikeBiz.com’s Jon Harker, both vans had tracking devices. The tracking company located one of the vans on Newham Way, Newham, London. Police managed to locate the vehicle but have since lost it and the other van has not been located at all.
Many of the bikes stolen are extremely limited in supply. A number of the bikes are literally the only ones available in the UK.
A Giant Propel was one of the bikes stolen from TriUK
TRI UK are asking all cyclists, cycle stores and any other interested parties to contact them if they have any information regarding the vans or the stock. A reward of up to £100,000 is being offered by TRI UK for information that leads to the recovery of all of their stock.
The vans are Ford Transit Luton Box vans with ‘Dorset Vehicle Rentals’ in green decals. Registrations numbers: DY12 FJF and DV61 DJE.
If you’ve seen the vans, or any of the bikes listed below, or have any other information about this theft, please contact ali [at] triuk.com or call the TRI UK store on 01935 414142 or dial 101 and ask for the Metropolitan Police.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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19 comments
For a little more than the cost of the Travelodge they could have hired a driver to take them back to their base straight after loading.
It would appear that a theft of £1/4 million isn’t enough for the mainstream media to pick up on either.
re: Losing the vans.
I think that means that they located a signal from a tracking device but then lost the signal before they could find the van.
The fact that they didn't pick up the other tracking device at all probably indicates that the thieves were pros and knew the tracking devices were installed and possibly where. The £100k reward versus the £250k value indicates that the thinking is that this is possibly an inside job and is aimed at shutting future incidents down.
Getting and then losing a signal in Newham might not even mean the van was in Newham only that the tracking device from one of the vans was. It may be a lead (if the van was there) it may otherwise be a false trail (if the device was just taken to Newham and then destroyed).
When professional and well organised gangs nick stuff they usually have a pretty good idea what they are nicking. They almost certainly have already arranged ways to dispose of the goods for clean cash. I doubt any of those bikes will appear as bikes but rather as a succession of bargain second hand components. A bit like melting down identifiable jewellery into unidentifiable scrap gold or silver. Anything obviously identifiable may well just get dumped as too much of a liability to sell.
£100k reward and they opted for a Travelodge? Hmmm.
where else are they to go, I don't know of any motels or hotels in the UK that have secure parking. They all tend to have disclaimer notices in them that absolve the owners from any vehicle damage or theft while parked up anyway.
I had better parking in a hotel in Centurion in Johannesberg. At least that had a manned barrier and you had to show your hotel pass (or exit pass) to get in or out. The guy on the barrier was even armed!!!
BYO secure parking. One bloke sat in each van, lights on, engine running. Reading the Sun, or The Ride Journal, or whatever. How hard is that? If you can't get security, or a secure place - hell, pay someone to drive the thing up / down a motorway for 8hrs while you kip. This whole bike-vehicle security thing isn't rocket science guys.
Of course I hope they get them back, and get back on their feet, but jesus this sort of story is up there with 'Man has £7k Pinarello taken from outside McDonalds - "I used my strongest Poundland combi lock an' all" '
Slightly tongue in cheek, but the point I was making is that if you can 'afford' a £100k reward, you might want to be more selective in your other expense choices. I'd have slept in the van, if money was an issue. If not, then as others have suggested, I'd have thought a little spent on security would have done the trick.
It's a real shame, but I wouldn't leave my bike in a car outside a Travel Lodge let alone £250K's worth. Having done plenty of shows with a lot of stock, I was always concerned that overnight items would be removed from the stand. However, a security guard/s was a worthwhile investment. Hope the plod manage to get some of this back - it's the kind of thing that can ruin a company at the moment.
at least the police are being consistent in their incompetence.
So for want of a single security guard at £10 or £20/hr or whatever for 8hrs, ***£250k*** worth of kit goes walkies.
Sorry, but just how dumb do people in this industry have to be?
These bikes are easily-shifted across borders in hours. Stripped down they are worth many thousands for the un-traceable gruppo/wheels alone. The frames are probably landfill by now. Thieves are smarter than you, bike industry.
I'd say if the cost of employing a guard is equal to or less than 5% of the kit they are protecting, especially in a strange place with a focus on high-end bling kit, it's a total no-brainer.
Until facts are known, please can we all just keep our eyes open for the missing items on the classifieds, ebay, gumtree etc. and stop bleating on about the useless boys in blue, give them a chance to do their job.
Really feel for the Tri Uk chaps, ( I am no tri athelete - I follow Rule #42)
They had a great stand, gone to real effort for the show ( which I appreciated on the Sunday when I was there) then this happens. Gutted for them.
Hope they have insurance and it delivers.
Good luck getting it all back fellas.
It sounds like it was reasonably well planned, tracking devices fitted to both but they still can't be found. Knowing which vans to take. I can't believe that the police managed to find and then lose one of the vans again. Unless on foot, or maybe its because they had bikes in the back and so they weren't interested...as per usual with 'bike' theft
If they're offering £100k reward for £250k (RRP I assume) worth of bikes does anyone think maybe they weren't insured....?
I doubt they would be insured for that much stock in transit, even if they were Im sure the insurance company has a loophole to stop them paying out, probably that it wasn't actually in transit at the time (parked up over night)
So many thefts in the industry at he moment, nobody is safe. I hope they are found.
Really sad news. Hope it doesn't put these guys off from attending these shows in future, even if covered by insurance. Good chance to see these expensive bikes.
Agree about how you can find then loose one van!
Maybe they stopped for donuts like in the movies?
“Police managed to locate the vehicle but have since lost it…”
Eh, WTF? Van gets stolen. Police find it. Police lose it again? Unless the PC who found it was on foot or bicycle, that doesn't sound too good!
Plods incompetence strikes again!
Mind you as its cycling related - despite the value involved - they probably don't give a toss?