Italian press report that Visma-Lease a Bike suffered theft of many their Vuelta a España team’s bikes overnight.
According to Tuttobicisport the team’s hotel in Turin, Italy, was hit by thieves who made off with up to 18 of the squad’s bikes. The outlet reported the team may even have to borrow bikes from rival teams to compete in today’s stage from San Maurizio Canavese to Ceres.
On social media, the team confirmed they had suffered a robbery and said the police had launched an investigation. However, they did not confirm how many bikes were stolen saying only that “several” of them had gone missing.
The team added: “Our mechanics are working hard to ensure that the team is fully prepared for the third stage.”
Today’s stage isn’t due to start until the 13:20 BST giving the team a chance to find replacements before the riders are due to take to the start line.
They may be helped in that regard by the team’s partnership with bike tracking technology company BikeFinder, which claims to increase the chances of people finding their stolen bikes. Though it’s unclear if the squad uses this on their race bikes as team CEO Richard Plugge mostly trumpeted its use on training bikes when extending the partnership last year.
It was just one of two pieces of bad luck to hit the team as the race entered its third day as the squad’s sprinter Axel Zingle also left the race suffering the effects of yesterday’s crash.
Despite being caught up in the mass pile-up in the closing kilometre’s of Sunday’s stage Zingle had managed to make it across the finish line, albeit in last place.
