$40,000 worth of bikes stolen from San Francisco shop

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A San Francisco bike shop is hitting the brakes Thursday night and picking up the pieces after most of its inventory of high end bicycles was ripped off.

How the thieves made off with the bikes seems almost impossible.

"It was frightening to see this place gutted," said co-owner Geoffrey Colburn, who was totally stunned when he showed up Thursday morning to open Box Dog Bikes on 14th Street.

The sales floor was cleared out - 21 high end bikes were gone.

"When I looked through the gate, saw most of our inventory missing," Colburn said. "That was shocking, what looked impossible to happen."

Colburn says thieves smashed the glass door and cut a small hole in the metal security gate where crooks squeezed bikes through.

"A little gremlin-sized hole," he said.

A welder is now making repairs.

The bike store has no security cameras but police are checking if neighboring businesses captured the heist on their cameras.

Box Dog is using social media to try to recover their inventory, totaling $40,000.

They've listed make a models of each steel-framed bike on Instagram, hoping someone will spot them.

For now, this shop, which has been a fixture in the Mission for more than a decade, is trying to move forward.

"Maybe these bikes get recovered, maybe they don't. In the end, life goes on," Colburn said.

Police say no arrests have been made. This isn't the first time a burglary has happened here. Recently, someone smashed a back window and made off with one bike. Luckily, that bike was recovered.

Owners say they do have insurance and are now looking to upgrade their security system.