Police in Italy have launched an investigation after thieves raided Visma-Lease a Bike’s mechanics’ truck at the Vuelta a España on Sunday night, breaking into the vehicle with a pickaxe and stealing several bikes.
While 18 of the squad’s bikes are reported to have been stolen in the robbery, Visma-Lease a Bike said their mechanics “worked hard” to ensure the team was fully prepared to start Monday’s third stage with a full range of bikes and equipment.
According to the team’s CEO Richard Plugge, some of the stolen bikes were recovered this morning after they were abandoned by the thieves in bushes near Visma’s hotel on the outskirts of Turin.
Visma-Lease a Bike are currently leading the Vuelta, which will take place entirely within Italy for the third consecutive day on Monday, following the grand tour’s start in Piemonte, courtesy of two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard.
The pre-Vuelta favourite pipped Giulio Ciccone on the line atop the Limone Piemonte climb on stage two on Sunday, the first summit finish of the race, after emerging unscathed from a mass crash on a slick roundabout to win the stage and take the red leader’s jersey.
However, this morning, Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed that they are the latest top team to suffer a break-in at a major bike race, after thieves forced their way into the squad’s mechanics’ truck with a pickaxe and stole the majority of their Cervélo bikes.
According to Italian cycling site TuttoBici, 18 bikes – worth an estimated £220,000 in total – were taken in the raid, which took place at the team’s hotel on the outskirts of Turin, where they have been staying since the start of the Vuelta.
Movistar and Lidl-Trek are also staying at the same hotel, but do not appear to have been affected by the break-in. Mechanics from the two teams also pitched in to help make sure Visma, whose staff spent the morning frantically securing and building new bikes, could start the stage.
Despite the huge robbery, and thanks to the help of their colleagues at Movistar and Lidl-Trek, Vingegaard and his Visma teammates had enough equipment to be able to start this afternoon’s third stage at the Vuelta, a tough 135km route between San Maurizio Canavese and Ceres, again taking place entirely within northern Italy’s Piemonte region.
Spanish sports newspaper AS has also since reported that some of the Dutch squad’s bikes have already been recovered, Visma CEO Plugge confirming that was the case on Monday afternoon.
“Last night, our mechanics’ truck was broken into and several bikes were stolen,” Visma, whose Vuelta team includes young British climber Ben Tulett, confirmed in a statement on Monday morning.
“Our mechanics are working hard to ensure that the team is fully prepared for the third stage. The police have launched an investigation into the incident.”
Speaking to reporters at the Vuelta, Plugge revealed that, despite “several” of the stolen bikes being found among some nearby bushes, the majority remain missing, with police currently investigating the robbery.
“This morning we woke up and we saw that our truck was broken open and some bikes were stolen,” Plugge said.
“It was really with severe violence that they opened the truck, because it’s almost impossible to open. So for us it was a big shock this morning when we woke up. It’s very sad news.”
Confirming that some of the bikes had been found, Plugge said: “I don’t know why they left these bikes, but we had several bikes being found again. So, that’s really good for us. But the reason why they left them behind, I don’t know.
“The mechanics did an incredibly good job by building the bikes that we need. So, they are coming in a minute and then we have enough bikes to race, fortunately.
“I have to say that we were in the hotel with Movistar and with Trek, and they were both also very kind to help us out with some work. That’s good to see that the teams are working together in this, and we have enough now to start the day, so that’s not a problem.”
Plugge added that investment in security measures at races had fallen since his spell as president of the AIGCP teams’ union, calling on teams to “do something ourselves” to protect against similar raids.
“When I was at the AIGCP, we always asked the organisers of the grand tours for security, special security around the hotels. But apparently it’s not anymore the case,” he said.
“The hotel did some work there, and they hired their own security. But to all the teams, I would say be very careful, because apparently the organisers do not organise it themselves. So now we need to do something ourselves.”
Unfortunately, as noted above, professional teams and riders have become a concerningly common target for criminals attracted by the high value of top-of-the-range bikes.
At this year’s Tour de France, Cofidis were hit by a major break-in, as 11 of team’s Look 795 Blade RS bikes, totalling £125,000 and including a red-and-white polka dot-themed set-up for then-King of the Mountains leader Benjamin Thomas, were stolen from their mechanics’ truck ahead of stage two.
And at the 2024 Tour, fellow French team TotalEnergies were targeted in a similar raid, 11 Enve bikes and tools taken, including the ride of stage winner Anthony Turgis.
Lifeplus Wahoo too were rocked by the theft of all 14 bikes from a mechanics’ van at the 2024 Tour of Britain in Wrexham. Riders completed the race on bikes kindly lent to them from other teams including SD Worx, Liv AlUla Jayco, Human Powered Health and Cofidis, the squad’s co-founder Bob Varney calling the break-in “an absolute hammer blow to our over-achieving team already on a stretched budget”.
In March of last year, a group of thieves attempted to steal Bahrain-Victorious’ Merida bikes the night before Milan-Sanremo, only to be thwarted by the team’s bus driver and 2021 Paris-Roubaix winner Sonny Colbrelli.
In 2021, 22 bikes were stolen from the Italian track cycling team during the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Roubaix, including Filippo Ganna’s gold-painted Pinarello.
The bikes were in a minibus in the car park when they were taken, some of the stolen machines valued at around £25,000 and featuring titanium 3D-printed handlebars worth £8,500.
Police in Romania soon recovered 21 of the bikes after a raid on 14 properties in Vrancea County, along with mobile phones, drugs, and around £5,000 worth of cash.
A few months later, British team Saint Piran also became the victims of bike theft, the Cornwall-based squad losing £30,000 of bikes stolen from a team van in the early hours of a race day in the Netherlands, leaving a “big dent” in their finances.
And then in November 2022, SD Worx issued an appeal after several of the squad’s bikes were stolen in a “brutal burglary”.
More recently, bike thefts targeting Euskaltel-Euskadi and Baloise Trek Lions left both teams unable to race at Tour of Slovenia and Baloise Belgium Tour respectively, after thieves targeted the teams for their high-value kit, stealing their bikes and wheels overnight.
30 thoughts on “Bikes stolen from Visma-Lease a Bike truck in massive overnight raid at Vuelta a España”
How does this keep happening?
How does this keep happening?
nearly 1/4 millions worth of bikes. If this were a Ferrari you wouldn’t leave it sitting where it might get nicked. And this is happening so often it’s almost negligent. If you’re a pro team and have a high value product you do your damnest to keep it secure surely? Why is a van full of valuable products just left unattended? Christ, it would be cheaper to hire a security team guard and a dogs.
Ferraris absolutely get left
Ferraris absolutely get left parked outside to get knicked. They also get stolen in garages.
How does this keep happening?
How does this keep happening?
nearly 1/4 millions worth of bikes. If this were a Ferrari you wouldn’t leave it sitting where it might get nicked. And this is happening so often it’s almost negligent. If you’re a pro team and have a high value product you do your damnest to keep it secure surely? Why is a van full of valuable products just left unattended? Christ, it would be cheaper to hire a servitude guard and a dog.
This is just getting stupid.
This is just getting stupid. These teams pay their stars in the several millions and their operating budgets are huge – VLAB somewhere in the region of £50M – but they can’t afford to hire a couple of security guards for their trucks overnight? What would that cost, £100,000 a year? If they don’t get these eighteen bikes back that’s somewhere in the region of £250,000 lost not to mention the disruption. Not victim blaming (well not much) but this happens over and over again, it’s absurd.
I agree it seems pretty
I agree it seems pretty absurd how often this is happening, but even so I think the economics of paying that much for increased security might be questionable:
Using the numbers you’ve provided, as long as any given team is hit less than once every three years, it’s cheaper just to replace the bikes than hire insurance. There might be opportunities for teams to work together but (as I understand it) teams often stay in different hotels so that might be tricky.
The team obviously isn’t walking into a shop and buying the bikes. I don’t know the details of the sponsorship agreements, but if Cervelo is on the hook to replace the bikes, then it wouldn’t make sense for VLAB to pay for security. Whoever ends up paying for the bikes no doubt won’t be paying RRP anyway (which I presume is how the £220k figure is estimated).
There may well be insurance policies in place, so again the cost of replacing the bikes might not be borne by VLAB.
There is often a clause in
There is often a clause in insurance policies that if you fail to do enough to deter theft or damage the policy is void. Im pretty sure even a few heavy duty locks, chains and parking the vans in a way as to ensure they are not easy targets would all contribute to security. Even a CCTV feed would be better. This is 2025, you can buy cheap as hell security cameras than run off battery and feed into a mobile phone signal so no worry about cutting the power etc. all this tech would go far enough to stopping thieves. Even the most dedicated gangs won’t go after a looting if it’s well guarded.
“Even the most dedicated
“Even the most dedicated *opportunistic* gangs won’t go after a looting if it’s well guarded. ”
FtFY.
These kinds of raids are rarely spontaneous. *Someone* would have seen the trucks parked up in the same place more than once; that, coupled with knowing there was a large event on.
Easy pickings.
Potentially, the only answer is to park the vehicles in a secured warehouse with a lock and doors that need a thermal lance or Thermite to cut them open.
But even then, there is the weak link of keyholder.
Is 200k enough to kidnap a kid, or terrorise a family for? Dunno, I’m not that kind of person.
I would expect that as a bare
I would expect that as a bare minimum they park all the vehicles close together and in a way that makes it difficult to isolate one. If there were money boxes or gold instead of bikes being held up there would be police crawling all over the place. It takes minutes to call the police. Isn’t that what they are there for? A guy sat in a car with a phone on a night shift is a deterrent. They could sit in a hotel room looking out of need be so they can’t be gotten at. There are ways and means if you bother your ass enough to protect your property
They may not have a feasible
They may not have a feasible location to do that
Yes and that “enough” is
Yes and that “enough” is typically just being locked up in an enclosure.
Yup, plus they surely have
Yup, plus they surely have insurance
I am presuming that the full
I am presuming that the full cost of the complete bikes to the teams is relatively small. The frame, components and other things all seem to be part of sponsorship deals. I could of course be very wrong?
What are these security guys
What are these security guys to do if they *do* see someone breaking in?
‘Cos I’ll tell you this … my life is worth far more to me than £50k a year, or £220k in bikes.
Having been a tramper driver, and had my trailer broken in to by villains [including the front curtain cut and they helped themselves to what they could, while handballing out the back], people who break into trucks *normally* have sharp or big, heavy tools on them – these guys had pickaxes.
You are on your own … how much your life worth?
People get the shit kicked out of them for a 200quid mobile phone – what do you think these shits would do to you for £200k?
What are these security guys
If only there was a person or an organisation they could call. Someone who has expertise in fighting crime and has the power to hold those criminals in a way that removes their ability to go around taking things. 🤔
Smoggysteve wrote:
If only there was a person or an organisation they could call. Someone who has expertise in fighting crime and has the power to hold those criminals in a way that removes their ability to go around taking things. 🤔— Oldfatgit
?
That was exactly who I was
That was exactly who I was thinking.
Smoggysteve wrote:
If only there was a person or an organisation they could call. Someone who has expertise in fighting crime and has the power to hold those criminals in a way that removes their ability to go around taking things. 🤔— Oldfatgit
Didn’t the Metropolitan Police take around 15mins recently to get to Cycling Mikey when he was under threat of imminent assault?
And that was Central London.
How long do you think Police will take to respond in some [comparatively] little village in the shit end of no-where?
How many coppers would turn up …
“Hmm .. bikes you say? We’ll be there next week to take a statement. Bike theft … It’s not a *priority* crime.”
Oldfatgit wrote:
Apparently there are about 420,000 bike thefts a year in France and 150,000 are recovered, which would seem to argue that in that country at least it’s taken more seriously than in the UK. In Italy around 25% of bikes reported stolen are recovered, though that figure is somewhat skewed by the fact that only 20% of thefts are reported to the police.
Security guards are rarely
Security guards are rarely fighters. They’re just regular punters that need a job.
OK then, the organiser of GTs
OK then, the organiser of GTs pay for policing anyway, let them make arrangements with the local Gendarmerie, Caribineri or Caribeneros to have a couple of men guarding each team truck on overnight stops. All of those are armed…
P.S.
Mine too, I wouldn’t risk it unless to protect another person…but there are plenty of people prepared to take such risks or there wouldn’t be any point in employing security ever. I’m sure there are a few former Foreign Legionnaires who would take the job on and having occasionally drunk in the same bars as those chaps I certainly wouldn’t be going anywhere near something they were looking after.
18 bikes stolen; why do teams
18 bikes stolen; why do teams need that many? Get rid of spare bikes, one bike per rider per race. Any issues, then tough; fix it or retire from the race. Pro cycling likes to compare itself to motorsport – well do you think they have spare cars for the race?
They used to in F1.
They used to in F1.
And they have in moto GP.
And they have in moto GP.
Velophaart_95 wrote:
Yeah, let’s go back to when they had to find a local blacksmith’s forge and fix it themselves and then got penalised because a young lad pumped the bellows…what do you do for a job? Would you be happy if you were told you could only have one pen or one laptop or one wrench or whatever it is you need and if they break and you can’t fix them you can stop doing your job?
Velophaart_95 wrote:
[citation needed]
Because riders crash bikes,
Because riders crash bikes, they also need spare bikes for mechanical issues during a race. They also need TT bikes.
Check the broom wagon
Check the broom wagon
Firstly, I’m surprised that
Firstly, I’m surprised that they didn’t have a decent vehicle alarm fitted to the van and secondly I’m surprised that the thieves took relatively bulky and difficult to shift personalised bikes. I would have thought they’d fill up some bags with groupsets, chains, power meters, pedals etc – high value, small and easy to shift……………….
They won’t be difficult to
They won’t be difficult to sell at a discount
A bicycle can quickly become
A bicycle can quickly become those easy to shift high value small parts with a few hex and torx keys…