Robbers Steal Expensive Bikes From Highlands Shop

DENVER (CBS4) - Approximately $25,000 worth of high-end bicycles were stolen from a Denver bike shop, and now police are looking for the burglars.

Eleven of the expensive bikes were stolen last weekend, and more could have been taken if a neighbor hadn't stepped in.

Wade Washburn, owner of Colorado Cycling Connection on Tejon Street in Denver's Highlands neighborhood said the bike thieves smashed a garage door window last Saturday to get into the store, lift up the door, and steal bicycles that were hanging on the saddle rack bar.

"Oh my heart sinks, it's tough to swallow," he said.

The thieves wheeled the bicycles out of the store for loading onto a Land Rover Discovery, like the one pictured.

Washburn said a neighbor saw the bikes being loaded, "He flashed them and tried to get them to stop to question what they were doing and they sped off erratically and two of the bikes they had just thrown on top of the vehicle just flew off into the street. So we were able to get those two back."

The bikes are expensive because of the technology, the brands and materials to make the frame. Half of them belonged to customers and were in for repairs.

Another bike seller can sympathize, "It hits me like right in that gut where it makes me really sad," said Jason Gardner.

He sells bicycles in the same Highlands neighborhood where this theft happened, and has been victimized as well.

"Been broken into three times and twice they've gotten stuff from us," Gardner said.

He learned to run cables through his bicycles, "They're super long so we'll take and start running them through all of this stuff, just like that, through all these ones around here," explained Gardner.

Washburn said he will now use cables also. Half of the bicycles stolen from his shop were in for repairs, and he doesn't want to explain to customers, again, what happened to their property and his.

Washburn believes the bikes are likely out of state by now or even out of the country.

His message to the thieves was, "the karma realm of things, you just can't get away with stuff like this."

There is a Crime Stoppers alert out on this robbery, and police released a photo of the kind of vehicle used in the crime -- a white Land Rover Discovery with a roof rack and a large bicycle rack.

Full descriptions of the bikes that were taken are available on the store's website c3bikeshop.com.