Stolen – Centreparcs Longleat: Orange Five29

A friend has had his Five29 pinched from Longleat Centreparcs. It’s a Medium in metallic orange with white Dual Position Pikes, dropper and an all round super-snazzy build. Please keep ’em peeled. More details when I get them.

Ooooooofffffff…

I always take my BFL (Big F***** Lock) to Centreparcs and I just take my least expensive working MTB at the time…

CP is well known for bike thefts!

Exactly. He had BFL – they had bolt croppers. He was planning on taking it to the Gravity Park further West afterwards, otherwise I imagine it would have been left tucked up at home.

CP is well known for bike thefts!

Seriously? I had the misfortune of going to that CP last year and I’ve never seen a sh1tter collection of BSO bikes. If I was minded to thieve some bikes that’s not where I’d be hanging out.

Sorry to hear about your mates loss though. Thieving scum.

They’re all BSOs because you’d be stupid to take an expensive bike to CP given the huge problem they have with bike theft. But it only takes the odd few to bring something expensive to make it worth the effort. Sounds like it’s no effort to them at all anyway.

Thanks all. He’d spent an age getting it just right, and was putting in some serious miles on it. We were due to all head off to the wilder bits of the Beacons next month, too.

Did it happen at night or whilst they were swimming or something?

Ouch, we were there at the start of the month and took our decent bikes.

Never leave them out at night, they always go inside.

Bad news.

I was looking for a s/h one recently and they are really rare so hopefully it will be easier than most stolen bikes to spot if it does surface.

Crap news, hopefully as above it’ll be quite noticable ATM, was it locked up outside then? (at the chalet or one of the parks activity centres?)
Have to say I always lock mine up in the boiler room/cupboard inside the chalet when we’ve visited.

I always stuffed ours in the boiler rooms, too. Took low key bikes.
No word yet on where stolen from, but they also half inched the kiddie trailer and lids attached to it – which were found abandoned later.

My brothers car was emptied by thieving scum when he was at Longleat CP, they seem to circle the place like vultures………..

Sorry to hear that. I take my good bike there because of the nice cheeky trails outside the campus. Never use it inside CP and the Wife just can’t understand what’s wrong with leaving it on the car roof or out side the pool if its locked. As above, its put inside the chalet boiler room day and night with the front wheel hidden.

Don’t see too many high end bikes at CP, although this is more to do with most people won’t have high end bikes anyway. Usually its a £900 rockhopper or something which people think its fine to leave on their car roof with a simple lock.

Seen the Security staff swanning around outside the park at a nearby Car Park in their vehicle complete with Blue Lights, when I have been up there for an evening ride. Perhaps they ought to concentrate on Security inside their remit i.e. inside the wire.
Also seen comments on a Facebook page by one of the Security staff at Longleat who seems to think that cyclists are above law, which really seems to be at odds with the Centre Parcs ethos.

I’m Going on friday and was planning on taking my bike but having serious second thoughts now. taken 3 yrs to get it were it is and i’d be gutted. trouble is my alternate bike (cx) is prob just as likely! i have 3 locks that i was going to use. would be interested to find out when and where at the centre it was taken!

Creedy – if you are specifically wanting to ride alongside the kids or use a trailer I’d have concerns too leaving it anywhere not in the chalet. However, if its to just get around I’d not bother taking a bike- everything is within walking distance or use the `train’.

We’re going to longleat in a few weeks and I was going to take the bike to ride on the trails outside the park.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about bikes being nicked, so would definitely like to hear the circumstances this one was nicked under (ie was it just left outside at night etc).

Was planning to take BFO lock/chain, and leave inside chalet in boiler cupboard, and not use it to get around the park.

Don’t see too many high end bikes at CP

You do see the odd one – I saw an Intense Spider 29 chained up by the sports centre at Whinfell last time we went.

However, if its to just get around I’d not bother – everything is within walking distance or use the `train’.

This.

Yeah had planned on a ‘me’ day riding outside the centre and was going to look at the local stuff. i might hire one there for pootling around with the kids and leave mine inside until i need it. don’t really want the worry of my bike when i’m supposed to be enjoying family time. the wife can’t understand how they get in to knick stuff in a supposedly secure compound.

I took my fairly decently specced Gyro and the wifes GaryFisher, both stand out from the hire bikes.

We used them all week and just used two big locks with no issue. At night they went into the boiler cupboard.

From talking to the bike hire guys, the best thing to do is to make sure you lock them up in a busy, open place. They told me most go from outside chalets at night or from places other than the main bike paring areas.

Creedy – if you don’t know, the local trails I found are not bad at all and very close. Just took me a bit of google work and just follow your nose – easy to just slip out from the kids for an hour or two.

Cheers Scamper 😀

Just a little update on the longleats CP. While i was there i know of one bike theft and another attempted. security and the police were running operations to try and stamp this out. the security i spoke to said they were taking this very serious as it is affecting thir rep as a safe site. There were gangs working in 3’s one female spotter 2 knicking the bikes. they were also stopping anyone on higher end bikes and checking details. These thefts seem to be on change over days when people are either just getting there (exicted unsure of layout) or leaving (stressed with packing the kids! one last swim).
They do seem to be taking it very serious and was advised to double lock my bike even in the boiler room.
Oh and the trails outside are pretty top notch, just got to work a bit to string a run together!