Electric bike heist caught on surveillance video in North Okanagan

A thief targeted a bike company in the North Okanagan early Monday morning and carried out an ambitious heist under a cloak of darkness.

Kalyn Webster, 24, owns Electric Fat Bike Company in Coldstream, B.C., and says atleast $40,000 worth of property was stolen.

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Webster operates the business next door to his personal residence and woke to find six e-bikes, two dirt bikes, a jet boat, power tools and batteries missing.

“Definitely quite infuriating that it was right under our noses,” he said.

Webster reviewed the surveillance footage of the property and discovered a man wearing a black ski mask with a head lamp arrive at around 1 a.m. in a white flat deck truck.

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The thief initially stole four electric bikes and some tools, but returned two hours later to steal more bikes and the boat.

“It looked like, at first, he was only going in for a couple things and it looked like he got more and more comfortable in the time that he was there,” Webster said.

Webster, who founded the company in 2017 to import and sell electric fat bikes, said it will have an impact on his livelihood.

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“Two of them were my demo bikes, so I’m currently sold out until August and those were the bikes I was using to sell and pre-order the bikes, so the tricky part will be not having the bike to demo,” he said.

The term ‘fat bike’ refers to bikes with extra-wide tires, which allows riders to traverse challenging terrain such as deep sand and snow that would otherwise be difficult to ride.

The Vernon North Okanagan RCMP detachment has not returned a request for comment.