The owner of the Cicli Sport bike shop in Moneymore, Co Derry, that was cleared of bikes valued at £115,000, or €140,000, in the early hours of Monday morning said one of the raiders seemed to know the value of all the bikes in store and began clearing the most expensive ones first.
Jonathan Smyth owns the shop, as his father did before him, and said one of the raiders "worked his way down through the pecking order" of the bikes based on their value. The most expensive bikes and frame were stolen and the least expensive were left in the shop untouched.
The video below has emerged of the raiders in the shop, clearing out the 13 bikes and five frames, with a PSNI investigation now underway in a bid to catch those responsible and recover the stolen kit.
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"I sort of just feel devastated in that we are now three generations deep in trying to build this business and someone would have that mindset to do their best to try and destroy it," Jonathan told the BBC.
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"That's not going to happen. We are still very much in business. It’s devastating. There were 18 bikes taken, worth £116,400 in total. The most expensive was a custom-built bike worth over £15,000 which had been put together for a particular customer with expensive wheels, an expensive saddle and groupset. It was on an expensive frame. Some of the other bikes range upwards of £5,000 apiece.
“The thieves walked past and left the bikes that cost £2,000 and £3,000, so they knew exactly what they were going after. As far as we’re aware, there hasn’t been a bicycle robbery of this size in all of Ireland and possibly the UK.”
Cicli Sport has listed every one of the stolen bikes and frames in great detail - including Pinarellos, Specialized and Giant Liv - which you can read by following this link.
