A bike shop owner whose business was this weekend targeted by a second burglary in eight months has said they cannot even afford to make an insurance claim as their excess was hiked 900% after the first break-in last year.
Skinnergate Cycles in Stockton-on-Tees was ram raided at around 2am on Saturday morning (12 April), CCTV footage showing the business’s shutters being smashed open by someone in a vehicle before others entered the shop and made off with two bikes.
One of the two stolen e-bikes, worth over £3,000, was found by police within 45 minutes, shop owner Grant Maciver thanking Cleveland Police for their “rapid response”. However, the “scumbags” responsible also took a size medium Cube Stereo Hybrid ONE44 HPC e-bike, worth around £4,000, which has still not been recovered.
The shop was left badly damaged too, smashed glass across the floor, Grant telling us that it is the second time Skinnergate Cycles has been targeted by criminals in the past eight months. A previous break-in in broad daylight last August saw a masked gang of seven in a stolen van cut through the shutters with an angle grinder before smashing the glass.
“The glass was laminated so it took them a lot longer to get in, hence they only got five bikes but badly damaged several others,” Grant said, explaining how the total value of insurance claim was “around £25k”.
As a result, when the policy came up for renewal, the bike shop’s theft excess was hiked from £500 to £5,000 per claim, while “the premium increased by £2,000 and we had to spend an additional £2,300 on security upgrades”.
“We had a quote from another insurer and the excess on that policy was going to be £10,000. We’ve not had the building insurance renewal through yet and that will include both of these incidents so I dread to think what the impact will be,” he added.
It means they will not be making a claim for this weekend’s break-in, the family-run business instead shouldering the thousands of pounds lost through the stolen bike and damage.
Grant also urged cyclists to be vigilant when buying “cheap nearly new bikes”.
“Don’t support these scumbags, your car, your work tools, your bike etc. could be next, they don’t care who they steal from,” he said. “Please think before buying ‘cheap nearly new bikes’. If there’s no receipt, no handbook, no charger then it’s more than likely stolen.
“Popular comments are ‘Never mind the shop has insurance’ but because of last year’s burglary we now have a £5,000 excess on contents cover, so no, we can’t claim for this loss. Plus there are other elements relating to the building damage that won’t be covered either, so the losses will be thousands, plus further increases in annual premiums.”
Thankfully no customer bikes were taken during the break-in and Skinnergate Cycles remains open for business via its other entrance.
“I’m of a view that too many shop have been hit recently and perhaps raising the public profile of the impact this has might get some action,” Grant told us following the latest break-in. “There’s and underbelly of low level criminals now that run free doing whatever they want and the legal system as it stands is not a deterrent. The police regularly get criticised but they too are fighting against what seems to be an outdated legal system.”
Organised raids on bike shops have become a concerningly frequent story on this website. Earlier this year a rare gold Aurum Magma was among multiple bikes stolen in the latest professional raid on Northamptonshire bike shop The Gorilla Firm, that after four “Mission Impossible-style” burglary attempts last year left police questioning if the crimes were an “inside job”.
During one successful attempt the burglars cut their way into the building’s staff toilet from below and somehow evaded the company’s motion sensor CCTV by crawling across the floor, before “clearing out” the shop’s SRAM componentry and power meters.
In September 2024, C6 Bikes in Cambridgeshire was also targeted in a break-in described as “like [the] Hatton Garden heist”, the organisation involved so sophisticated it left owner Steve Heathcock telling us, “If you told me the SAS did this, I’d believe you”.
The targeted raid saw a 10m-high roof scaled, internet wires cut, access gained by a “super precise” cut to an exterior wall, complex alarms disabled, and £200,000 of stock stolen, all without leaving a trace or any CCTV footage.
“Every single bike had gone, plus their pick of the customer bikes we had in the workshop,” Steve said. “Trek Madones, all the highest stuff. We had to replace six customer bikes, every single stock bike we had. Cannondale SuperSix Evos, Trek Domanes, Trek Madones, Orange e-bikes, Santa Cruz mountain bikes, Cannondale mountain bikes, everything. All the Fox clothing, helmets, all the high-end groupsets like eTap, Red eTap, all the high-end parts and accessories, they knew exactly what they were getting.
“If you told me the SAS fast-roped out a helicopter and did this, I would believe you. Because of the way they disarmed that alarm, you can’t even open the case without setting the anti-tamper trigger off. They knew where the anti-tamper trigger was on that case. They knew it had to peel up a specific corner. The alarm engineer said to me, ‘I don’t think I could have done this without setting it off, I don’t know how they did it’.
“There was a perfect 50cm square cut in the side of the wall. Just real precise, clean, like Ocean’s Eleven type stuff. Super neat. No mess anywhere, no destruction, just super precise. We couldn’t believe it and the insurance company couldn’t believe it.”
12 thoughts on ““Scumbags” ram raid bike shop, but owner can’t claim insurance as excess soared 900% after another burglary last year”
900% hike in insurance.
900% hike in insurance. Utterly pointless insurance then.
Nope, 900% hike in the excess
Nope, 900% hike in the excess to £5000 per claim. Eyewatering but which still makes claims over £5k worthwhile.
Although you’d still have to
Although you’d still have to weigh up the claim against the impact on next year’s premium / excess (though I think you’d have to disclose even if you didn’t claim?)
I hate seeing small
I hate seeing small businesses being targetted like this, especially in an indiustry already under severe pressure. But, I can’t help but think many shops could do much more to prevent thefts. Or at least slow down the culprits. Had the bikes been all connected with a chain (just a sheathed wire rope for instance) would have prevented them taking bikes in this instance. There are plenty of methods that could be employed to stop bikes being taken from the display stands so easily. I realy hope this doesnt effect the shops ability to trade but in furture, I hope they look at making things a little harder to just lift.
I agree that in some bike
I agree that in some bike shops security is peculiarly lackadaisical; I was recently in the local branch of a quite well-known chain and I was left alone for five minutes whilst the assistant went off to look for the part I needed. There were various extremely lovely bikes on display, including an SWorks Roubaix and the latest Madone SLR, with nothing to stop me grabbing one and making off with it apart from the fact that they didn’t have pedals, not even the most basic cable lock. However in this case I would imagine that the miscreants have probably scoped the shop beforehand and if they are prepared to do something as drastic as ramraid with a car they probably would have been capable of bringing some bolt cutters. Presumably it’s illegal to have an alarm system that would release CS or some other non-lethal but incapacitating gas when attacked?
If a thief is determined
If a thief is determined enough they will get what want. But even a chain would, in many cases, reduce the element of the opportunist thief. Watching the CCTV on this shop, they drag 2 bikes under the door, and 2 more nearly but gave up as they wanted to get away. A wire rope or a bolt through a crank arm onto stand , anything that just stops them in their tracks would have saved the shop the loss of 1 or 2 bikes. As I say, there are other cases of very well organised thefts that disable alarms and come in like special forces. They will only go to the extreme lengths if they think its worthwile to them. risk vs oppertunity. scumbags ramraiding shops like we’re back in the 90s are not going to take the same level of risks. They will grab what they can and get out. Bolt down the bikes and they might take some tools or clothing etc, but not the expensive bikes
My previous business (a
My previous business (a software company) was repeatedly targeted by thieves breaking in and stealing projector, monitors etc. (this was early 2000s when projectors were actually worth something). We had window shutters etc, etc, but that barely slowed them down :(.
In the end we installed “Smokecloak” a system that has big tanks of smoke machine fluid and preheated elements that filled the entire building with dense smoke when the alarm went off. It really was very disorientating as you could barely see your hand in front of your face.
As soon as the system went in the burglaries stopped. (The local criminals knew exactly what the little smokescreen stickers on the windows meant!)
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Like more people going out thieving?
Something that may deter ram
Something that may deter ram raiders may be a small line of cast iron/steel/concrete bollards in front of the window.Relatively cheap to buy and fit but the councils planning dept may have a negative view on this.
Just put in planning
Just put in planning permission for a NASA sized warehouse the area of ten football pitches, right up against local housing. That’ll go through no problem. Low level shed for bicycle security – computer says no.
Replace those flimsy shutters
Replace those flimsy shutters with steel security bars, or they could use both together with the security bars on the outside of the shutters. Having lived in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riot, people were able to rip steel security bars right out of the walls, but this isn’t about mob control, this is about slowing down a would be criminal by a lot.
They need to put two long 4 inch or so wide steel bars behind that shutter one about 14 inches from the floor, and the other about 14 inches above the bottom one; those bars would go into 8 hefty U brackets, 2 for each side and each bar, placed no less than a foot apart, and a D lock to lock the bars in place; use long lag type bolts with large strong washers and drill right through the brick. Then when you close up the shop place those two bars into the U’s and lock them into place. Next guy who rams that shutter will get their vehicle destroyed!
Make sure the doors are solid security doors. If there is only one other door to get in besides the shutters, than use 3 long throw dead bolts. Make sure to use 5 to 6 inch long screws to mount the dead bolt striker plate with. If there is a second door do the same dead bolt thing but on one of the doors do another set of those long 4 inch or so wide steel bars. Put in security steel bar door on the outside of that door.
Make sure there is a decent alarm system, put cameras around the building up high so they can’t be wacked, at several angles so license plates can be read. Make sure the video gets downloaded to off site recorder. Have a reduntant alarm, one that works off the internet and one off of a cell. Install a loud inside and outside alarm siren, why inside? To blast their hearing!
Make sure any roof access is sealed off too, and just as secure as doors.
Without severe punishment for criminals, these types of crimes will continue to happen.
froze wrote: