Next week’s Tour of Britain gets underway to an uncomfortable backdrop after the latest raids by organised criminals this week saw two teams targeted and 38 bikes worth hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen.
While both those incidents happened on mainland Europe — Visma-Lease a Bike suffering a break-in while the Vuelta was in Turin and TotalEnergies the victims of a raid in the west of France — the safety and security of teams and their equipment is at the forefront of the Tour of Britain’s organisers’ minds ahead of the action getting underway in Suffolk on Tuesday.
2024 Tour of Britain (credit: SWpix.com)
During last year’s women’s Tour of Britain, British team Lifeplus Wahoo completed the race on spare bikes from generous colleagues at other teams, that after thieves broke into a mechanics’ van outside a Shropshire hotel and stole all 14 of the team’s bikes.
That incident aside there’s no reason to suspect teams are at more risk in the UK, these organised thefts have hit teams across Europe, in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. However, the timing of next week’s race, just days after two teams had 38 bikes worth hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen, means race organisers and team staff are on high alert.
Following the raid on Visma-Lease a Bike in Turin, the boss of Lidl-Trek, one of the nine WorldTour squads competing on British roads next week, urged teams to step up their security and said it may have even reached the point where security guards need to be hired to protect their equipment overnight at races and training camps.
Remco Evenepoel at the 2024 Tour of Britain (credit: Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com)
“Now that so many teams are staying in the same hotels, the damage can be huge, especially with equipment becoming more and more valuable,” Luca Guercilena said, explaining how his team offered Visma-Lease a Bike “whatever they needed” to be able to race following the raid.
“Whether it was bikes, groupsets, helmets, or mechanics… anything necessary to be ready for Stage three,” he said. “I also helped translate for the police and detectives to help speed up the process a bit. It’s about mutual respect between teams. We know how difficult it is to wake up and find your truck completely emptied.”
Speaking to race organisers ahead of the Tour of Britain no specific extra security measures in response to the worrying trend of bike thefts were named, however they stressed security is always high on the list of priorities.
“This sort of thing is always very high on the mind and agenda in the planning of these elements every year, and has been for some years,” a source at the Tour of Britain’s organisation explained. “Teams are very much on top of this sort of thing these days, and rest assured we are too.”
2024 Tour of Britain (credit: Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com)
Lidl-Trek boss Guercilena suggested it is obvious these raids are not the work of opportunistic thieves, but rather organised crime gangs aware of how valuable professional cycling teams’ equipment is and that it stays locked in team-branded mechanics’ vans at races across Europe year-round.
“We are dealing with organised crime here, we’re not talking about people just snooping around. During winter training camps in Calpe, we hire security guards. But during stage races, we bring around fifty bikes, including time trial bikes. Not all of that can be stored inside the hotel. And that’s just the bikes. There’s so much more equipment that’s incredibly valuable. We really need to find a solution.”
2024 Tour of Britain (credit: Will Palmer/SWpix.com)
Ineos Grenadiers’ sports director Christian Knees raised the idea of mechanics even potentially sleeping inside equipment trucks, during an interview with IDLProCycling. However, the former pro quickly caveated that, saying: “That comes with serious risks.”
“Right now, it’s just about stolen bikes, but you never know what could happen if someone’s inside. Luckily, Visma still had enough bikes, and the cycling community really steps up in moments like this. Sometimes we hire security guards, and beyond that, all you can do is lock everything as well as possible.”
Sepp Kuss, Visma-Lease a Bike, stage two, 2025 Vuelta a España (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
It is understood fellow SRAM groupset users Movistar and Lidl-Trek helped ensure Visma-Lease a Bike could start stage three following the raid overnight on Sunday.
French team TotalEnergies were also the victims of a major theft this week, with 20 of their Enve bikes stolen at a race in the west of France.
TotalEnergies ENVE bikes (credit: Team TotalEnergies)
At this year’s Tour de France, Cofidis were hit by a major break-in, as 11 of team’s Look 795 Blade RS bikes, totalling £125,000 and including a red-and-white polka dot-themed set-up for then-King of the Mountains leader Benjamin Thomas, were stolen from their mechanics’ truck ahead of stage two.
As we mentioned earlier, Lifeplus Wahoo were also rocked by the theft of all 14 bikes from a mechanics’ van at the 2024 Tour of Britain in Wrexham.
Riders completed the race on bikes kindly lent to them from other teams including SD Worx, Liv AlUla Jayco, Human Powered Health and Cofidis, the squad’s co-founder Bob Varney calling the break-in “an absolute hammer blow to our over-achieving team already on a stretched budget”.
In March of last year, a group of thieves attempted to steal Bahrain-Victorious’ Merida bikes the night before Milan-San Remo, only to be thwarted by the team’s bus driver and 2021 Paris-Roubaix winner Sonny Colbrelli.
And in 2021, 22 bikes were stolen from the Italian track cycling team during the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Roubaix, including Filippo Ganna’s gold-painted Pinarello. Police in Romania later recovered the stolen equipment during a raid on an organised crime gang.