Total value 250K eur. How on earth can this happen!
Apparently some of the bikes were found shortly after and Visma Lease a bike should be riding all fine today
These always smell like inside jobs.
Every time this happens I always wonder why teams (at least the really big budget teams like Visma) don’t have guards on duty for the trucks at night. This has happened enough times over the past several years that it would seem like a good investment.
Unless the guards are in on the action . But I grew up in Atlantic City so I have jaded view on this.
They keep the bikes assembled in the truck overnight? I always thought they were stored as parts (frames over here, wheels over there, etc.), then put together in the morning as conditions dictated?
You typically want to have everything ready for the next day before you hit the sack. Biggest nightmare scenario as a team wrench is to realize you’ve got 45 minutes worth of work to get a bike ready for a race that starts in 30 minutes.
That’s what I would think, too, really
I just kinda like the image of a trailer full of frames and racks & racks of wheels, for my own entertainment
Not jaded so much as realistic. These major thefts are absolutely organized crime related; the fact that these bikes are essentially never recovered speaks to the fact that the thieves not only have the burglary part wired, but they have distribution networks in place for everything they take.
I was in a stage race in Italy in the 90’s and thieves broke into the locked/guarded storage area of one of the team hotels and cleaned everything out in the middle of the night. I can’t remember the particulars, but it was something along the lines of “guard is outside door A, thieves go in window B”. Frankly, if you’re the guy getting paid peanuts to sit and watch team bikes, when a truck full of gangsters rolls up it’s probably the perfect time to go get a cup of coffee.
This used to happen pretty frequently, so teams started just keeping everything inside their trucks, with the truck either backed up so the tailgate was up against a wall or with another team vehicle wedged against the tailgate. It sounds like the gang that ripped off Vlab was organized enough to bring a wrecker or something so that they could move the truck and gain access to the blocked gate.
As per the previous example, could Vlab put one of the wrenches inside the van that’s parked against the tailgate? Absolutely… but I sure as shit wouldn’t want to be that guy when a van full of Chechen gangsters unloads in the middle of the night.
Maybe they can lease a bike in the near term?
(Terrible joke. Groan. Couldn’t resist)
We all know one UAE guy, who like to monkey around the peloton.
Since he is not on this tour he has time to plan this …
Terrible joke x2