First one mass bike theft, now another. The latest victim is the TotalEnergies ProTeam, who had a not-inconsiderable 20 of its ENVE bikes stolen overnight at the Tour Poitou – Charentes en Nouvelle Aquitaine on Wednesday.
It follows the theft of 18 bikes from Visma-Lease a Bike at the Vuelta a España at the weekend. With a typical WorldTour bike costing in the region of £10,000, it is a very expensive crime.
TotalEnergies rider Jason Tesson won the first stage of the four-day race, and currently sits third on GC behind leader Arnaud Démare (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and second-placed Dorion Godon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).
However, its service course – essentially the team’s technical headquarters – happens to be only a two-hour drive from the time trial, and presumably official replacements are on the the way.
Twenty bikes is a whole lot to replace though, especially considering the team has only 29 riders on its roster. So whether or not TotalEnergies will be able to field the seven time trial bikes needed to furnish its starting line-up remains to be seen – look out for some drop-bar substitutes.
And this is not even the first time that TotalEnergies has suffered a mass bike theft – at last year’s Tour de France they had 11 bikes stolen from their hotel overnight. They were, however, able to start the following stage.
Explore More
