More than a dozen would-be thieves attempted to break into the storage room of a downtown Los Angeles bike shop over the weekend by repeatedly ramming a U-Haul truck into the facility’s wall.
The attempted robbery occurred at Just Ride LA, a bike shop located near the corner of South Hill Street and Venice Boulevard, around 6 a.m. Saturday, according to the shop’s co-owner Danny Farahirad.
“My guys were like, ‘Hey, someone hit a truck…they kept pushing the U-Haul through our door,’” he said. “We were 16 people. “They were kind of organized.”
Security video shows the U-Haul truck crashing through the closed gate into the store’s parking lot, ripping the gate off its hinges.
CCTV footage shows the attempted robbery at Just Ride LA, a bike shop in downtown Los Angeles.
A group of people who appear to be with the U-Haul drivers are seen descending into the parking lot as the van repeatedly crashes into the back of the bike shop, but they fail to enter the storage area.
Farahirad said the store suffered $40,000 worth of damage. Just Ride LA will have to purchase a new roll-up door, awning and a light fixture, he said.
Farahirad said the damage caused by the attempted robbery was just another blow in what has already been the bike shop’s “slowest year ever.”
It said sales had been slow since mid-2022, after a surge in e-bike purchases early in the COVID pandemic.
“This doesn’t help,” he said.
Other Southern California bike shops have also been victims of crime recently. In March, two people were arrested and accused of participating in numerous bicycle shop robberies.
And in September, approximately $40,000 worth of merchandise was stolen from a bicycle shop in Irwindale..
It’s not the first time Just Ride LA has been targeted by thieves, Farahirad said: It was once the target of an armed robbery and about 10 bikes have been stolen since the store opened in 2008.
If the would-be thieves had broken in on Saturday, Farahirad said, tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise could have been stolen.
No arrests have been made. Plainclothes detectives visited the store on Tuesday, but Farahirad said he had little hope that police would be able to catch those responsible for the attempted robbery.
