Saw this on Twitter, Europcar done last night and this year Russia, Denmark, Novo Nordisk, Garmin, BMC and Katusha have all had complete sets of team bikes stolen.

I expect the frames are just disposed of as too distinctive and the thieves are after the group sets and wheels to sell on.

Clearly becoming a major problem for them.

Putting a mechanic in the vans/coaches overnight seems like a recipe for a duffed up mechanic and stolen bikes?

I guess they’ll just keep upping security and hope the thieves move on, like everyone on here who’s the victim of a theft does.

Real shame for the teams and those watching events.

It’s nearly happened to team GB in Spain a friends brother was driving the van over got done with a stinger he got out to change a tyre. A bloke stopped in a car making a big deal that he didn’t have a orange triangle out behind the van he changed the tyre got back in the cab and his wallet passport and all document were gone. He said they got a few hundred quid at most but could of been £20k worth of bikes. The Spanish police said it was a well known scam

It happened again with Team GB at the worlds this week. A bunch of chancers nicked their bikes, rode about a bit with some other guys then got bored and stopped.

😆 @ BigJohn

A bunch of chancers nicked their bikes, rode about a bit with some other guys then got bored and stopped.

😀

itv got a lot of stuff nicked while filming the tour de france, and team chain reaction cycles got their bikes nicked from a house in liverpool as reported on here a few months ago.

Paul Kimmage’s crew got all their stuff nicked at the TdF this year.

although there may be more sinister motives behind that particular theft

[puts on tinfoil hat]

There must be serious money, somewhere in the world, in cheap, high end, stolen bikes.