Former Soudal-QuickStep CEO Patrick Lefevere has blamed organised crime gangs for the bike thefts that have blighted WorldTour teams in the last few months, with two teams being robbed in a matter of days last week.
Visma-Lease a Bike were victims of a theft to the value of €250,000 during the Vuelta a España last week, whilst the TotalEnergies team at the Tour Poitou-Charentes had 20 bikes stolen just a few days later in France.
This comes after Cofidis had many bikes stolen – and then recovered – during the Tour de France, and a number of other teams have faced mass equipment thefts in the recent weeks and months.
Whilst professional teams being the targets of robberies isn't a new thing, this year has seen a large number of high-profile incidents and put teams on increased alert.
Long term boss of QuickStep, Patrick Lefevere has seen everything in cycling, and writing in his column for Het Nieuwsblad, he affirmed that these thefts are far from opportunistic attacks on teams.
"There should be no doubt: this is organised crime, with thefts made to order," he said. "These gangs know what they're looking for and have channels to sell them."
The world of bike theft often sees bikes sold on, and one would think that the identifiable nature of WorldTour bikes might make them less attractive to thieves, but the prospect of being able to steal several top-end bikes in one go is clearly very attractive to these groups, with thieves going to great lengths to steal from teams.
Lefevere explained how his teams – and others – also take serious measures to prevent theft, though it doesn't always work.
"We ask our staff to be extremely vigilant, bearing in mind the wisdom of team leader Albert De Kimpe: 'Never assume you can keep an eye on the thief. It's the thief who's keeping an eye on you," he said in Nieuwsblad.
"We park the truck with the bicycles close to a wall so the back ramp can't be lowered. Or we park another vehicle in front of it for the same reason. If the back door does open at night, an alarm immediately goes off in the mechanics' room, but you can never be 100% sure."
With teams, their vehicles and trucks are extremely identifiable, however, thieves are able to locate bikes and act quickly. Lefevere recalled one incident where his team had bikes stolen at a race in Tuscany.
"We saw it later on the hotel's CCTV footage: a gang drove their van through a vineyard all the way to the hotel fence, cut the wire, and broke into our van. It was unbelievable how quickly ours was empty and theirs full," he said.
"When bicycles are often found in bushes and shrubs after a theft, it's because the gangs know they have to act fast. If it starts taking too long, they get rid of it."
This was the case with Cofidis during the Tour de France, with a number of their stolen bikes found in the countryside very close to where they were stolen. The rest were recovered over the border in Belgium, after a police investigation seemingly tracked down the gang involved.
With no obvious solutions to the issue of mass bike thefts, bar more vigilance, the only things teams can do is be as careful as possible, and insure their bikes, which are a cycling team's most valuable material asset.
"I immediately called my CFO, Geert Coeman, to ask how much we were insured for," Lefevere recalled of an occasion he was worried about a robbery at the QuickStep service course. "It was €500,000 at the time – it's tripled since then."
