Six bikes, a freestanding safe, a cash register and items of stock were stolen from the Pedalabikeaway Trail Centre in the Forest of Dean, overnight on Saturday, April 27th.
The Centre was broken into some time between 5.30pm on Saturday 27th and 8am on Sunday 28th. Thieves smashed windows and used ladders to get into the building, after spraying external CCTV cameras and disabling the alarm system.
The bikes varied in value between £750 and £2,000. One of the bikes was later recovered after being thrown in the pond across the road from the Centre.
The freestanding safe was also later found out on the family cycle trial on Sunday morning but had been emptied. With the safe emptied and a cash register also removed, the Centre estimates thousands of pounds of cash and stock was stolen, and that the damage to the CCTV system also runs into the thousands.
The Pedalabikeaway Trail Centre told the Gazette: "Bike thefts are one of the rising forms of theft across the country. It's not specific here, it's nationwide.
"People need to be careful and take precautions, as once bikes are stolen they're stripped, broken down and sold in parts. It makes them difficult to trace.
"In terms of the effect on our business, we couldn't open until late on Sunday and it might make people nervous about leaving their bikes here for service. But we've got all the security precautions in place but there's little that can be done against what looks like a professional group of thieves."
Gloucestershire Police have been conducting house to house enquiries but encourage anyone with any information to call 101 and quote reference 106 from April 28th.
For more stories in full please see this week's Ross Gazette.