It’s a scenario every team fears and one that came true on the eve of Milan-San Remo: Thieves strike as staff and riders are asleep and run off with all of the bikes, leaving riders stranded on the morning of one of the biggest races of the season.
Bahrain Victorious were the victims of an attempted break-in overnight on Saturday.
2022 Milan-San Remo winner Matej Mohorič’s Merida’s Reacto aero frame – he told Cyclingnews he would not be using a dropper post because the frame was not compatible – was among them.
To the rescue came Paris-Roubaix winner Sonny Colbrelli, who helped to drive the thieves away.
“Our Milan-San Remo started last night but it ended the Thieves 0 – Bahrain Victorious 1,” Colbrelli said to Tuttobici.
“Last night we were in the hall of the hotel and we heard someone shout: the bikes! The bikes!’ It was our bus driver in his boxers and he’d seen people trying to steal the bikes.
“We went outside and there were about ten young people. At one point a car almost hit me but I just avoided it.
Then we started running after them and I followed them into the woods. They got away by car but I got in a car too and chased them at speed but we didn’t catch them.
“In the end, the staff slept with three or four bikes in their rooms.”
Pro cycling teams are frequent targets of gangs, and Cyclingnews‘ archives are full of dozens of stories of teams getting ripped off. The most expensive bike to be stolen belonged to Italy’s team pursuit squad.
In 2021, the Italian track team’s 22 bikes were stolen from the UCI Track World Championships in Roubaix, including the four gold bikes used by Filippo Ganna and his teammates in their gold-medal-winning race – a total of €600,000 of equipment.
Those bikes were one of the few to be recovered. Romanian police recovered all of the equipment during a drug bust.
Thieves took off with bikes belonging to Euskaltel-Euskadi and the Baloise Trek team during the Tour of Slovenia last year, leaving those riders unable to finish the race.
SD Worx were the target in 2022 losing a raft of Specialized bikes.
Last fall, the Pinarello showroom in Treviso was burglarised twice, just 20 hours apart, with €250,000 worth of bikes stolen.
That fate fortunately did not meet Bahrain Victorious, thanks to the brave and selfless actions of Colbrelli and his compatriots.
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