TWO motorcycle training schools were broken into over a fortnight, with £42,000 worth of bikes stolen in total.

Steve Craig, the founder of Ride On, based on Barrack Road, said his “heart sank” when he found out five of his bikes, equalling £15,000 had been stolen from the shipping container they were stored in.

Steve, 49, said: “On Sunday morning I got a call from a friend who said the container doors are open and there are only two bikes in there. My heart sank when I realised there had been a robbery. Five bikes had gone. We have had some of these bikes since we started ten years ago.

“There’s people who have taken time off work to do a course with us. They have had to suck it up or ask their boss for the holiday back.

“The inconvenience is the worst thing. One of the local bike shops lent us a bike which we have used so we have done some training but not the training we want it to be. We are having to beg, borrow and steal. The risk is as we restock, we could be targeted for a revisit.”

Two weeks previously, Let’s Ride, on Brook Road in Wimborne, were victims to a theft, as they also lost five bikes, this time equalling £27,000.

Richard McPherson, 46, chief instructor, said: “We have two containers and one had been penetrated completely. They knew what they were doing, they took valuable bikes. It’s a very quiet time of year. If it had been summer, it would have destroyed us. The big problem now is if we get hit again, we become uninsurable. That will be six people out of a job.”

A spokesperson for Dorset Police said they got a report at around 12.20pm on January 26 regarding the theft of five motorcycles from Ride On motorcycle training and a report at 9.04am on January 13 of a break-in at Let’s Ride training school.

“There is nothing to indicate that the two incidents are linked at this time,” they said.

Anyone with information about the break-ins at Ride On and Let’s Ride should call 101, quoting reference number 55200012974, or 55200005871 respectively.