Mount Maunganui: Stolen e-bike worth $17,000 may soon be ‘gigantic paperweight’, says Cycle Obsession owner

A thief who rode off with a $17,000 Pivot Shuttle e-bike may soon find himself stuck with a “gigantic paperweight” after failing to take a vital component — the charger.

Cycle Obsession store owner Kris Snow — who unknowingly passed the rider escaping after the break-in — is now taking steps to stop him buying a charger, and is also offering a gift-card “bounty” for information that leads to an arrest.

Snow said the Mount Maunganui store was broken into about 2.50am on Monday.

He jumped in the car when he got the alarm notification, wondering on the 1km drive if it was a break-in or just a spider.

But when he saw the “glass and the door busted in”, he realised it was no false alarm.

He said he felt a mix of emotions, including rage and disbelief.

Snow said security camera footage showed a person running through the shop, grabbing the bike and wedging it through one of the broken panes of glass before biking away.

“I somehow drove straight past him … I was driving up to the intersection as he was riding away from the shop.

“I was looking for cars and he rode off on our $17,000 e-bike.”

Cycle Obsession owner Kris Snow. Photo / Andrew Warner

Snow had worked at the store for 20 years and said this was its most expensive break-in.

Though he had insurance, he said the incident would still cost the business thousands of dollars.

He said he would give store gift cards worth hundreds of dollars to anyone who could provide the man’s name if it resulted in the police locating him.

“There is a bounty on this guy’s head.”

He had also put out a call to the importer and all the suppliers of the “high-end, boutique” e-bike to not sell the charger alone.

He said as the bike would soon become “useless” without a charger, he feared it would end up dumped or never returned.

But he hoped if the man was brought to justice, it would stop him from doing it again and send a message “to the next guy that thinks about doing it”.

Snow said the store had a lot of security measures and a relatively low break-in rate.

A police spokeswoman said a report of a burglary at a commercial premise on Maunganui Rd was made about 2.55am on Monday.

Police investigators following “positive lines of inquiry” but had not made an arrest.

• If you have information about the case, contact 105 and reference file 230320/3124.