‘At least we have a bike to race today’ – Matteo Jorgenson pays tribute to mechanics after mass robbery of material from Visma-Lease a Bike team truck

Matteo Jorgenson has paid tribute to Visma-Lease a Bike’s mechanics for the rapid turnaround of spare bikes after no less than 18 bikes were stolen from the team overnight.

Thieves broke into the Visma bike truck located outside the team hotel near Milan, seizing multiple models. Multiple media reported that three were later recovered from where they had been dumped in a nearby park, but the squad was left bereft of a high proportion of their bikes.

After a long transfer back to Turin from the late stage finish at Limone Piemonte in the far south of the province, where Vingegaard had won the stage and taken the lead, Jorgenson said that the team had not reached the team hotel until 9:00 p.m. At that point the mechanics had to begin cleaning and building the bikes, only for them to be robbed overnight.

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“They were up until 1:30, so they were surprised to wake up in the morning and see all the bikes were gone,” Jorgenson said.

“They worked really hard, and I can tell you that without them I would not have a bike – I do not know how to work on the bikes.”

Jorgenson’s words echoed those of team boss Richard Plugge to TV earlier in the morning, saying, “The mechanics have done an incredible job building all the bikes and getting all the bikes we need to be ready. They’ll be here soon. Luckily, we’ll have enough bikes to start.”

With so much material robbed by the thieves, and three of his usual bikes gone missing, Jorgenson said he was on his ‘fourth bike’.

“No, I’m not on my number one race bike, this is I think my fourth bike that they built up this morning,” Jorgenson said.

“They stole 18 bikes, I think they left three of the race bikes and a couple of other spare bikes.” In the case of Zingle he said, “they actually left no bikes at all”.

“It was an interesting morning to wake up to,” Jorgenson said with more than a touch of irony. “For a lot of the staff it was chaotic this morning, the mechanics were trying their best to build up the bikes.

“But they got it done and at least we have a bike to race today and more will come in the next few days.”

With the bikes now up and running again, albeit far from being their usual ones in several cases, Jorgenson said things had now returned to something approaching normal.

“It should be. I tested the bike out this morning, we all kind of were doing some rides by buses to see if the bolts were tight,” Jorgenson said. “So it should be all good to go.”

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