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“They drove a scooter on me”: Cyclist violently assaulted by four men who mugged his electric mountain bike on popular cycling route

The 73-year old cyclist had to play dead to get rid of muggers in yet another incident of bikejacking on River Lea towpath

A London cyclist was violently mugged by four men, who pinned him to the ground and almost rode a scooter on his chest before flying off with his £3,500 electric mountain bike, on a popular cycling route which has become notorious for many similar incidents of brutal bikejacking.

On February 22nd, the 73-year old Ian Potts was returning home after an off-roading excursion in the Epping Forest on his Canyon Neuron:ON through the River Lea towpath. As he headed south under the A406 — a long and dark underpass with a number of concrete pillars — four men jumped him from behind.

Ian told road.cc, “I was listening to the radio when I felt a pair of hands grabbing me and another on the handlebars, making me crash down.”

He tried to fight them off and resisted at first, until they threatened to pin him down by driving a scooter on his chest. He said, “They drove the scooter on me, not fully on top of my chest but to a point where it pinched me and held me down.”

“I was concerned about the wheel and my feet which were tangled. They were pulling and shoving, trying to grab it from underneath my feet, so I just yelled at them: ‘Just let me get my f****** feet out’. They pulled the bike off and then they were gone.”

Ian said that he was he concerned that they might come back. “So I just curled up, moaned and pretended to be hurt, almost like a corpse. I just hoped they would disappear, and thankfully they did.”

They also left with his pannier, which had his spare battery and his wallet with some money, debit card and his Freedom Pass. After a while, he got up, headed out on the road and told a bus driver that he’d been mugged, who let him to get on.

Canyon Neuron:ON e-MTB

Ian's Canyon Neuron:ON e-MTB that was mugged on River Lea towpath

> Cyclist warns of yet another terrifying knifepoint bikejacking

Ian said that this was the first time he had been robbed in the 50 years that he’s lived in London, and was just glad that it wasn’t as bad it could have been. “They could have really hurt me and even stabbed me had I tried to fight back. I got off lightly,” he said.

He had gone to the Epping Forest with his buddy was heading south via the Lea River towpath. His buddy was around 20 yards ahead of him when they entered the underpass. After the muggers stole Ian’s bike, they whizzed past his buddy, who noticed Ian’s eMTB and went back looking for him, but by that time Ian had left on the bus.

After the attack, Ian reported to the police, who according to him were nice and friendly, but told him to ‘forget it’ and that he’s ‘not getting any of it back’. “They’re putting their hands up, it’s a dead end,” he said.

Recently, the River Lea towpath has been a site of a number of brutal bikejacking where knife-wielding men have assaulted cyclists. The towpath, which traverses all the way from Waltham Abbey to the Thames at Limehouse Basin, along the Tottenham, Hackney and Walthamstow Marshes, is a popular route for many cyclists.

> East London towpath cycle route becoming a no-go zone for bike riders says victim of masked muggers

In February, a road.cc reader was knocked from his bicycle by masked men and threatened with a knife during an attack on his ride home from work on the towpath.

Last year, plainclothes police officers made two arrests after coming to the help of a woman who was targeted by muggers at knifepoint in as they attempted to steal her bike near the Hackney Marshes on the towpath.

Besides, a few years ago, Met police were tracing men responsible for a series of knifepoint robberies targeting Hackney towpath cyclists and pedestrians in four separate, brutal incidents in as many days.

> Met Police seek information after spate of brutal towpath attacks

Last week, there was a violent bikejacking on another popular cycling route in south London, when Ben, a cyclist was attacked and had his bike taken by two masked men during an ambush, not far from the scene of previous similar incidents.

“It just isn't safe,” Ben told road.cc after the attack. “I just want to warn other people from using it altogether, especially if using a semi-fancy bike, just to prevent the same thing from happening again. The only time I believe it might be safe is on the commute, when the route is busy, but even then I don't think safety can be guaranteed.”

Ian said that he is recovering now, his bruises have gone and his chest has healed, and he’s getting over the trauma. “Though it does set your equilibrium off — when you're on a bike, which is an expensive bike — you think whether am I going in the right route, should I even be going down here?” he said.

> "They said give us the bike or we stab you": Another cyclist targeted by motorbike-riding muggers on popular route out of London

He said that the towpath is quite dangerous for cyclists. One of his friends, who’s in the River Lea rowing club had told him that some of their members had been mugged as well while cycling to the club.

“It’s easy for the assailants to get off the towpath and disappear into the urban environment quite easily,” he said.

Ian is now using one of his friend’s mountain bike and started going out with them again.

He said, “I joined the Seaman’s CC when I was 14 and have been cycling ever since. Now at 73 I’m not giving up though it did give me time to reflect on my future routes. I’ve been cycling the Lea for years but not any more.” 

Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after graduating with a masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Wales, and also likes to writes about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.

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18 comments

Avatar
bikes | 11 months ago
3 likes

Do the bike registration schemes have any effect? Do they make it harder to offload a stolen bike?

Also, +1 for the idea that an old bike doesn't mean you won't be targeted. My friend was riding his rusty 30 year old MTB when a couple of e-scooterists tried to wrestle it from him in the middle of the day on a busy street. The fact it had bar ends and a lot of rust didn't put them off trying.

Avatar
Calc | 11 months ago
0 likes

Phoning the new emergency number 0118 999 881 999 119 7253 would have been as effective.

Avatar
Mungecrundle | 11 months ago
6 likes

Seems highly concerning that; mugging, robbery and aggravated assault are so far down the list of policing priorities that they are effectively no longer considered (by the Police at least) as proper crimes.

Avatar
Wingguy | 11 months ago
1 like

Pointless pedantry alert but I'm pretty sure you're using the words 'mugging/mugged' wrong. Mugging is defined as an attack on a person in order to steal their things. 

They mugged the cyclist, they stole his bike. They didn't mug the bike.

Avatar
marmotte27 | 11 months ago
2 likes

The new neoliberal society: you're on your own...

Avatar
Fignon's ghost | 11 months ago
1 like

I'm glad this chap is OK. These things can go badly wrong.

This bike will sell for good money.

It wouldn't have happened had he ridden a Raleigh banana.

Avatar
BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP replied to Fignon's ghost | 11 months ago
4 likes

Riding a Raleigh 'Banana' does not make one immune from these thugs. A colleague of mine sustained a black eye and fractured cheek bone on the River Lea from a couple of hoodies who stole his equivalent of a Raleigh Banana. 

Avatar
Fignon's ghost replied to BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP | 11 months ago
0 likes

I accept your point. I really do.

But if we were to do a family fortunes top 100 answer survey of bikejackers. Which bike would they take a risk at. The choice between: A Raleigh banana or B £3500 Canyon. Our survey would say...

Avatar
mark1a | 11 months ago
1 like

Wow, I've been along here myself on a road bike - in 2019 for RideLondon I camped at the Lea Valley Camping & Caravanning Park near Edmonton and this path was perfect to get down to the start at (then) Stratford, and then back from The Mall via Finsbury Park. I'd have thought twice if I'd known it was notorious for this.

Avatar
Bill H | 11 months ago
3 likes

This area is pretty local to me, I grew up just off the southern end of the path and I used to know it really well.

Robberies have been a problem going back to at least the 90s. The police will get involved if a serious injury has occurred but otherwise will simply hand out a crime ref for the insurance. Tbf the police are swamped with mental health issues. Pop into the A&E at Whipps Cross after midnight and you will find more police than in any of the local police stations, getting people sectioned on the grounds that they are a danger to themselves.

 

 

 

 

Avatar
dave_t | 11 months ago
15 likes

I don't normally comment on issues like this, but WTF is this world coming to when an elderly person has been seriously assaulted and expensive possessions stolen and the police tell him to 'just forget about it'. Apart from the robbery why aren't the police at least interested in following up the assault, or are they all too busy monitoring twitter, Facebook or whatever. Being an elderly person who rides a fairly expensive bike this makes me feel very uneasy as it seems though you can't even count on the law having your back. Seems as though the villains have finally won. Rant over!

Avatar
open_roads replied to dave_t | 11 months ago
4 likes

The Met police have an all time record number of officers. Predictably they are still nowhere to be seen and show a complete disinterest in low level acquisitive crime /assaults such as this one.

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dave_t replied to open_roads | 11 months ago
3 likes

I'm sure if I was to knock over a pedestrian, pin them to the ground with my bike and steal their wallet I would soon be having my collar felt. I do feel sometimes that the disinterest from the police is because it involved a cyclist and they have brought this on themselves by riding what is a high value bike in public. If this was a car jacking (or even a pushchair/wheelchair jacking) they would have investigated immediately.

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Rendel Harris replied to dave_t | 11 months ago
1 like

I'm not usually one to defend the police, who are indeed far too laissez faire about "minor" (= terrifying for the victim) crimes, but sometimes it is hard to see what they can do. It sounds as though this poor man was grabbed from behind in a dark place and pinned to the ground face down, so presumably no visual ID on any of the attackers (who were probably wearing face coverings/caps or balaclavas anyway) or plate on their moped. It wasn't reported instantly so no hope of sending officers to catch the thieves red handed as they made their escape...apart from keeping an eye out for the bike in the local area, what else can they do, realistically?

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to Rendel Harris | 11 months ago
4 likes

Rendel Harris wrote:

I'm not usually one to defend the police, who are indeed far too laissez faire about "minor" (= terrifying for the victim) crimes, but sometimes it is hard to see what they can do. It sounds as though this poor man was grabbed from behind in a dark place and pinned to the ground face down, so presumably no visual ID on any of the attackers (who were probably wearing face coverings/caps or balaclavas anyway) or plate on their moped. It wasn't reported instantly so no hope of sending officers to catch the thieves red handed as they made their escape...apart from keeping an eye out for the bike in the local area, what else can they do, realistically?

Have police take the occasional patrol along the path?

Avatar
dave_t replied to hawkinspeter | 11 months ago
4 likes

Seems as though this problem has been going back a few years, so as someone suggested upthread maybe some kind of sting operation could be warranted (if it hasn't been already). 

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a1white | 11 months ago
8 likes

Glad to hear he's got the strength and determination to get back out on his bike. He has my upmost repect. Can't imagine how traumatic that must have been. What the hell are police doing,  saying to forget it, and he's not getting any of his stuff back? They've given up already. This is not just a robbery, this a violent assualt on a pensioner. They will get away with it and do it again, because the Police seemingly just don't care.

Avatar
belugabob replied to a1white | 11 months ago
8 likes
a1white wrote:

Glad to hear he's got the strength and determination to get back out on his bike. He has my upmost repect. Can't imagine how traumatic that must have been. What the hell are police doing,  saying to forget it, and he's not getting any of his stuff back? They've given up already. This is not just a robbery, this a violent assualt on a pensioner. They will get away with it and do it again, because the Police seemingly just don't care.

Even if that particular bike might not be recovered, surely it's worth a sting operation, to catch the perpetrators?

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