10 days after recovery, Cofidis has fresh batch of bikes stolen

Less than two weeks after Cofidis had 11 Look bikes stolen at the Tour de France, thieves have struck the team again, stealing Look bikes from the Cofidis women’s team at the Baloise Ladies Tour in Belgium.

First reported by Nu.nl, the Cofidis women’s team manager, Arthur Quilliec, confirmed the news, although it’s not clear how many bikes were targeted.

“The police are still actively investigating,” he began. “I can confirm that we’ve had thieves come through and that several of our Look bikes have been stolen.”

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The Baloise Tour began yesterday with a 3.1km long prologue stage. It was won by Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) in a time of 4:06, beating second place Ellen van Dijk by a single second to take the race’s first yellow jersey.

It would appear the Cofidis bikes are the target of thieves at the moment. That separate theft at the Tour de France resulted in the loss of €143,000 worth of Look 795 RS Blade custom-painted race bikes, which the Cofidis men’s manager Cédric Vasseur said ‘was certainly an organised gang’.

New bikes were assembled at the Look factory and at the teams’ nearby service course to provide the riders with new machines. Luckily, the stolen bikes were eventually recovered and returned to the team.

In a similar stroke of luck, the Baloise Tour began with a prologue which was ridden using different bikes.

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Quilliec was not allowed to disclose how many bikes, nor what type of bikes, were stolen, but with the race’s start being a prologue, he went on to say that “our riders will be riding their time trial bikes,” so at least they had the correct bikes to start the race on.