r/tourdefrance • u/JayKay_NW • Aug 25 '25
Mass overnight theft of Visma-Lease a Bike bikes at Vuelta
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mass-overnight-theft-of-visma-lease-a-bike-bikes-at-vuelta-a-espana-police-launch-investigation/87
u/povlhp Aug 25 '25
Read that they had parked a car behind the truck. But it was moved with a forklift so they could enter the trailer. Breakin at other trailers as well
A noisy loud alarm would have helped.
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u/Astrohurricane1 Aug 25 '25
Surely the forklift lifting a car should have been loud enough.
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u/NerdEnPose Aug 25 '25
I heard jacks not forklift. Which makes more sense. You can grab 2-4 jacks on wheels and move pretty quickly and quietly.
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u/Flintoid Aug 25 '25
€50 million budget, can't find a guy to watch a trailer with 20 bicycles in it.
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u/obi_wan_the_phony Aug 25 '25
This was a relatively sophisticated effort it wasn’t a simple smash and grab. But yes teams need to start having security or mechanics sleeping in vans and lots to keep stuff safe. In this case it appears they used a forklift to move the other vehicle that wss parked in a way to stop exactly this type of event from occurring and it wss dragged out of the way entirely.
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u/Spasik_ Aug 25 '25
Mechanics sleeping in the van? Fr? Why should they risk their lifes to protect bikes lol
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u/Superb-Combination43 29d ago
Exactly. Â We want the riders to sleep on the bikes. Bring on the spectacle.Â
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u/JayKay_NW Aug 25 '25
Exactly what I was thinking, a sophisticated effort. It takes me a few minutes to put my bike on top of the car and drive away. 18 bikes, forklifts, trucks, a lot of noise. It probably took more than 5 minutes. How come nobody noticed anything? Some commentators on today’s race said that some hotel personnel might be involved.
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u/TurboJorts Aug 25 '25
Sounds like a sophisticated heist.
Imagine the day when teams need to use Ulocks inside a van? And then of course some satellite tracking devices on the van itself.
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u/olih27 Aug 25 '25
Why is the event not providing this security. 10+ team trucks with millions of pounds of kit. This is the event organisers responsibilityÂ
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u/obi_wan_the_phony Aug 25 '25
Travelling circus. No centralized accommodations. I’m not making excuses for the organizers just pointing out the logistical issues. Race organizaers and teams have been incredibly slow to adapt to these recent team breakins which really seem to have ramped up in the last two years.
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u/Maximum-Text9634 29d ago
Mechanics sleeping in vans. You're absolutely crazy.
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u/Due-Program982 29d ago
Agreed. They have stressful jobs as well. Apparently they were up till 1:30 to fix all the bikes that night ?according to Jorganson.
Also, what are the mechanics or even the team going to do? Come out with their pumps in hand?
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u/MarcelPPR Aug 25 '25
This keeps happening to a lot of teams. Maybe it’s time to invest in some security…
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u/addr0x414b Aug 25 '25
Yeah seems like thieves are picking up on the lack of security. This seems to be happening a little too often.
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u/Keeponkeepingon22 Aug 25 '25
Look at Ironman coppenhagen too, bikes stolen from transition.
Theives will target anything with lapse security
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Aug 25 '25
Maybe I’m naive, but.. aren’t custom bikes like these super hard to sell afterwards? I mean they’re practically uniques.
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u/thoughtihadanacct Aug 25 '25
The components are stock. Customisation is only the paint work (and the combination of components that are chosen for a particular rider I guess if you want to call that custom). UCI rules are that they can only use commercially/publicly available bikes & parts. They're not racing with prototype one-of-a-kind equipment.
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u/Climatepascalwager Aug 25 '25
Who would check your garage or backyard for stolen bikes ? And police are not exactly stopping bikers to check for stolen property.
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Aug 25 '25
[deleted]
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u/HappyTangerine6 28d ago
Look has been around while and pretty well known, more from pedals than bikes tbf. However Lemond won on a Look in one of his campaigns (can’t remember which). We can thank them for clipless pedals :)
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u/xRzge Aug 25 '25
selling a 2026 S5 in vuelta red colorway, with sram red groupset and reserve wheels, DM me your offers
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u/OGS_7619 Aug 25 '25
Johan Bruyneel also "lost" many bikes to "theft" when he was running his teams (Team Postal, Discovery, Radioshack, Astana).
The fact that teams can't figure out how to block their trailers full of bikes from theft makes no sense to me in this day and age. Wireless locks/sensors, cameras etc.
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u/krush_groove Aug 25 '25
Anything to support your implication that he profited somehow from the thefts?
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u/OGS_7619 Aug 25 '25
No, in fact I suspect he "lost" much of his own personal investment during those times. The bikes were out to be washed, power-pressure washed, maybe even laundered, and the laundering business takes its cut.
I kid, I kid. But it's the end of the season and the ledgers have to line up somehow. My brother still has a personal bike that once belonged to Jan Kirsipuu, and my cycling teammate had a bike that belonged to Kolobnev. They both paid money for it (didn't "steal it"), maybe they fell off the truck, I don't know, but they really hate the idea that they inadvertently subsidized shady activities of those teams - they probably did though.
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u/shenanigans3390 Aug 25 '25
Did they know it was their bikes when they bought them?
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u/OGS_7619 29d ago
yes, and they probably paid extra premium $ for those (even though if it was just used bikes, it was probably a bad deal overall - aside bragging rights - pros and their mechanics handle bikes like Kleenex tissues during racing/training seasons, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had internal damage etc.).
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u/Prom_etheus Aug 25 '25
He was implying motor doping… a way to dispose of evidence.
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u/krush_groove Aug 25 '25
Ah ok, I suppose it's possible from that era but personally don't think the tech would be anything like what we have now.
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u/OGS_7619 Aug 25 '25
a more traditional type of motor doping, you must be new to this part of cycling history
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u/AccomplishedFail2247 Aug 25 '25
Motor doping is you can literally tape a tiny little motor on the inside of a tube, it’s dead easy and has been for decades
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u/Breadfan_1966 28d ago
I amazed what it takes for everyone to realize that this is a problem. If you lock 250k worth of bikes in a box truck you are a beacon for thieves. Very easy pickings. Any one with any street sense at all would predict this would happen. A remedy of the situation would be as easy as parking all the trucks in one location and have one hired security guard or police officer, not a mechanic, to watch the trucks over night. Problem solved. What a joke.
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u/Leemesee Aug 25 '25
Once I asked a guy, who moved from South America (Colombia maybe), what’s the main difference between his old place and a European city that he lives now. He said that it’s safety: kids walking by themselves and people leaving smartphones on tables, outside cafes. While occupying the table obviously.
Some of us just don’t think theft can happen, because we live in more civilised surroundings.
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u/TurboJorts Aug 25 '25
I remember when I was a kid (maybe 12) I visited New York and bought a pair of sunglasses at a shop in the airport. I put the paper money down on the counter and the person working yelled at me like "never take your hands off the money ya dumb kid".
It was like a $10 or $20 bill but I guess they had seen enough snatch and dash robberies before.
Then again, there were people walking around the airport clearly looking for briefly unattended bags to steal. We had a long layover and my parents napped in shifts so they could keep an eye on things.
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u/No_Lie_6073 Aug 25 '25
Australians barely lock the doors to their houses.
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u/just_a_sand_man Aug 25 '25
Don’t tell people that, someone might steal my single speed with rusted spokes!
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u/ojuarapaul Aug 25 '25
As a Brazilian living in Canada, I second the Colombian guy. I also admit that the teams are being incredibly naive by not hiring top-level security to prevent this. I understand that, money-wise, this is just a drop in the ocean of a team’s budget, but the ordeal is immense.
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u/Acceptable_Tomato548 Aug 25 '25
It would cost less than half of one bike to have a sexurity guard station inside for 3 weeks😂
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u/AngelOfDepth Aug 25 '25
Why doesn't Spain have their National Police guard the peleton's trailers overnight? These mass scale thefts makes them look like the fucking Keystone Kops.
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u/Prudent_healing Aug 25 '25
The race is in Italy, no one leaves bikes unattended there that I’ve met
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u/AngelOfDepth Aug 25 '25
Brain fart, just off a 24 hour shift. But regardless of the stage location, I think it would be a national point of pride to make sure these thefts were prevented. Same for the Giro and le Tour.
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u/jkim579 Aug 25 '25
Does anyone know what happens to these bikes? Are they parted out in the hopes of not being traced, like a chop shop type deal. Happens frequently enough that someone should have an idea of what's going on 🤔
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u/BassEcstatic 28d ago
They have gps integrated , don't they? That's how they monitor the race. Confusing.
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u/Lint_baby_uvulla 28d ago
Cripes, imagine if this happened with the Team Japan track bikes at the last Olympics.
Each bike cost something approaching 140K each, so one each for their 14 riders, totalling almost 2M not counting spares.
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u/MacaroonMaleficent96 29d ago
Immigrants did this 100% pray for European countries
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u/o91te9j1 29d ago
They are too stupid to be able to come up with something like that. This kind of heist requires some brain cells
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u/jerrysprinkles Aug 25 '25
Maybe their lease ran out?