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Thief gets away with $5,000 bike during test rideCosta Mesa bike thief (via The Cyclist Facebook page)

Thief gets away with $5,000 bike during test ride

“I knew immediately when he turned that corner, at that speed and in the direction he did, that he was not coming back”
by Alex Bowden
Sat, Apr 06, 2019 15:12
7

A family-owned bike shop in Costa Mesa, California, is offering a $1,000 reward for the safe return of a $5,000 BH Ultralight EVO Disc after a man posing as a customer took it on a test ride and never came back.

Bicycling.com reports that the thief browsed for about five minutes, then asked employees at The Cyclist about the shop’s most expensive bike.

“He said he’d never been in before, and was in the market for a new road bike and wanted to see what we had,” said store manager, Anthony Karambellas. “I chatted with him about the bike fitting process, and we talked a little about racing. He definitely knew what he was talking about.”

The man is said to have asked knowledgeable questions, inquiring about components and sizes. He then asked to take the display model for a test ride.

Karambellas agreed and asked for some form of identification. The man handed over a driver’s licence.

“He definitely didn’t look as old as the ID said he was, but I wasn’t going to ruin a $5,000 sale because someone looks younger than their ID says,” said Karambellas.

Karambellas put some flat pedals on the bike and the man rode a few laps round the car park. After speaking to Karambellas about bike fitting options, he set off riding again, but this time left the car park, sprinted up the shoulder of a nearby road towards oncoming traffic and then went the corner.

“I knew immediately when he turned that corner, at that speed and in the direction he did, that he was not coming back,” said Karambellas. “I hopped on one of our electric bikes we had up front, but by the time I started riding after him, he was already a couple corners ahead of me and I couldn’t see the direction he went.”

The Costa Mesa Police Department arrived within 10 minutes. They said the ID was real, but they didn’t believe it belonged to the thief.

“We all just sat there in shock,” said Karambellas. “This guy looked, rode, and acted like anyone else who would come in looking for a high-end bike. This was very calculated.”

The Cyclist
Costa Mesa
test ride
Bike thief
United States
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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7 comments

Avatar
crazy-legs | 5 years ago
1 like

Yep - we used to do the same in shops I've worked in, take "a form of ID" and obviously we lost a few bikes over the years - each time the checks got more stringent:
take a form of ID and check the signature matched
take a credit card, check signature
take a credit card with a payment (before chip & pin it was swiped, once C&P came in it was always with that)
after a while we started taking a photo of the customer on a digital camera too and then deleting the pics once the bike(s) that were being tested were brought back.

Ultimately, every shop has learnt this the hard way.

Same with locking bikes up on the shop floor - we lost a couple of bikes to distraction thefts or simply grab 'n' run in the days before they were locked up. In the first example the thieves would wait until it was only a couple of staff on the shop floor (lunchtime or end of day), one would engage a member of staff over the far side of the shop - trying on a jacket or something - the other thief would walk in, wait until any other staff were otherwise engaged or looking the other way, pull the bike out the rack and just walk out the door.

Avatar
hairyderriere | 5 years ago
2 likes

Shame. But not unexpected. Live and learn.

If the ID gave rise to suspicion and had it been my shop, I would have arranged a credit card 'hold' for an amount just over the cost price (to cover any additional admin/insurance costs for organising a replacement). Chances are slim that the thief would have both the ID and a working credit card stolen from the same source which hadn't been reported as stolen.

 

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 5 years ago
1 like

too trusting, as above, ID means nothing unless you actually check it out. local bike shop I'd be sending someone out with them so you can chat and talk abut aspects of the bike on the fly or arrange for a test ride with delivery to the customers address post checking the ID. 

Presume they didn't think of having a tracker in their top end demo bike as a security measure.

Avatar
EddyBerckx | 5 years ago
5 likes

Evans and cyclesurgery ask for Id and a £50 debit card deposit, and they keep both (inc the cards) until you return.

Thought that would be standard practice tbh, fake id should be easy to get these days

Avatar
WeLoveHills replied to EddyBerckx | 5 years ago
0 likes
StoopidUserName wrote:

Evans and cyclesurgery ask for Id and a £50 debit card deposit, and they keep both (inc the cards) until you return.

Thought that would be standard practice tbh, fake id should be easy to get these days

Not sure if they still do it, but years ago they used to take a photo of you, with the bike, before you went for your test ride.

Avatar
ktache | 5 years ago
2 likes

I'm kind of surprised this doesn't happen more often.  A lesson for everyone to be a little more suspicious, to properly check ID and to minimise the possibilities of this occurring.

 

Avatar
Zermattjohn | 5 years ago
10 likes

I used to work in a bike shop in Manchester and we had a £3,500 MTB flinched in the same way. The company's policy was to only ask for ID, no deposit, and he left his passport and never came back. It actually was his passport, which the police used to find him and the bike. Few sandwiches short of a picnic that one...

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