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€100,000 theft at Cannondale's team HQ in Italy

Thieves strike in Italy less than three months after Lampre-Merida suffered similar break-in

Cannondale has become the latest UCI WorldTour team in Italy to fall victim to a major theft, with frames and components worth an estimated 100,000 stolen overnight from its headquarters in Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.

According to the Messagero Veneto, bikes used by Ivan Basso and Peter Sagan were among those stolen from the team's base at Sesto al Reghena some 70km north east of Venice.

The newspaper adds that team staff are currently drawing up an inventory of the missing items, and that the local Carabinieri have launched an investigation.

The scale of the thieves' reported haul is similar to that of a theft suffered by Lampre-Merida from its base near Milan in November, with a team car and van also taken in that raid.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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17 comments

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PJ McNally | 10 years ago
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Presumably these leave Europe pretty quick? Never to be seen again.

Or, even more sadly - there's got to be €1000s of parts on these bikes - maybe they get stripped down, and the (all too traceable) frames end up in an unmarked grave?  2

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ragtimecyclist | 10 years ago
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This happens surprisingly often - happened to Garmin-Sharp at the Tour Mediterraneen mid-race last year forcing them to abandon en masse.

Ride it like you stole it!?

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Al__S | 10 years ago
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As an additional to the cost of the guard, someone else alluded to corruption- you've got to pay them enough to reduce their temptation to be paid off!

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antonio | 10 years ago
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Perhaps it is time for teams to 'copy right' their bike paint jobs thus making it harder to move the goods on quickly.

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CanAmSteve | 10 years ago
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As mentioned, security comes at a cost and the reported value of the loss is probably inflated (based on retail values) and more of an irritation (personal fittings and all).

But with these recurrent thefts of traceable bikes (they all have serial numbers, right?) - where do they end up? Didn't they lift an entire Garmin fleet last year? Is nothing ever recovered?

Oh wait - it's Italy...

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brnbrom | 10 years ago
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Hmmm time to start looking at the "Weight weenie" etc blogs from Poland ,Latvia , Romania etc I think !

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Mikeduff replied to brnbrom | 10 years ago
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What does the "Etc" after "Poland, Latvia, Romania" imply brnbrom? I can only assume your casual racism, given that none of them share any borders.

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jasecd replied to brnbrom | 10 years ago
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brnbrom wrote:

Hmmm time to start looking at the "Weight weenie" etc blogs from Poland ,Latvia , Romania etc I think !

1 post and it's racist - well done.

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Bob's Bikes | 10 years ago
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I bet it's that ‘Mediterranean’ looking chap again

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barkingfishes | 10 years ago
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I'd employ two, well trained alsatian dogs, and allow them to chew the nuts off anyone who broke in.

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Aapje | 10 years ago
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Exactly. Plus you will have to pay extra for hours worked at night and during the weekend. A lot of low wage workers actually make decent pay by bonus pay for irregular hours.

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timrichardson82 | 10 years ago
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A security guard that earns 100,000! I am in the wrong job

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oozaveared replied to timrichardson82 | 10 years ago
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timrichardson82 wrote:

A security guard that earns 100,000! I am in the wrong job

It's funny how people think. The salary of a security guard isn't £100k but but full time security may need two or three full time people just for one site.

Let's say a site is open normal hours. 8am - 6pm. Mon - Fri You might have a security guard during the day to make sure people don't get in and hide in the building or such. But let's say you just go for when the building is locked and for one security guard. There are 168 hours in a week. The building is open for 50 of them. So that leaves 118 hours of security guard per week. At 40 hours per week that's three security guards. So Ok they may only earn €20k each. But that's just their wages not their on costs.

That's just one site and one guard. So multiply accordingly.

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oozaveared replied to timrichardson82 | 10 years ago
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timrichardson82 wrote:

A security guard that earns 100,000! I am in the wrong job

It's funny how people think. The salary of a security guard isn't £100k but but full time security may need two or three full time people just for one site.

Let's say a site is open normal hours. 8am - 6pm. Mon - Fri You might have a security guard during the day to make sure people don't get in and hide in the building or such. But let's say you just go for when the building is locked and for one security guard. There are 168 hours in a week. The building is open for 50 of them. So that leaves 118 hours of security guard per week. At 40 hours per week that's three security guards. So Ok they may only earn €20k each. But that's just their wages not their on costs.

That's just one site and one guard. So multiply accordingly.

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Aapje | 10 years ago
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Having a 24/7 security guard is very expensive. Close to the costs of this theft probably, so that wouldn't achieve much.

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Guyz2010 | 10 years ago
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How about employing a security guard...or might they gt paid off. Organised crime is hard to beat....must be profitable!  13

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Aapje | 10 years ago
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Cycling teams really should adopt GPS tracking in a decoy bike/wheel/etc. A cheap product for this will start shipping soon:

http://bikespike.com/

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