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.
The French ProTeam, which includes on its roster Tour de France breakaway-botherer Jordan Jegat, and double Tour stage winner Pierre Latour, was preparing to ride the stage three time trial at the Tour Poitou - Charentes en Nouvelle Aquitaine in western France.
In a message on social media, the team said it was "a victim during the night of the theft of 20 bicycles at the sidelines of the Tour Poitou Charentes. Despite this incident, the team will definitely be on the start line of the time trial today".
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).
The team will presumably plans to beg, borrow bikes from wherever it can get them for the moment in order to begin the time trial today, which is a fast and flat 27.3 parcours between Chauvigny and Jardres. It is not clear what kind of bikes were stolen.
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.
The French team is far from the only recent victim of this sort of crime. At the Vuelta, Visma-Lease a Bike had 18 Cervélo bikes stolen from their hotel in Turin, Italy. The theft happened overnight following the race's second stage, and the team were reportedly planning to borrow bikes from other teams in order to begin stage three.
Back in July at the Tour de France, fellow French team Cofidis also had 11 Look bikes stolen, although those were later recovered. Their sister women's team also suffered a similar fate later in July in Belgium at the Baloise Ladies Tour.
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.
Last night's theft involved considerably more bikes, but with experience of this kind of thing they will no doubt have a plan in place for today.
