{"id":244970,"date":"2025-07-07T10:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T10:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/244970\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T10:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T10:01:14","slug":"thieves-steal-11-cofidis-bikes-worth-125000-at-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/244970\/","title":{"rendered":"Thieves steal 11 Cofidis bikes worth \u00a3125,000 at the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cofidis were hit by a major theft over the weekend at the Tour de France, 11 of the team’s Look\u00a0795 Blade RS bikes stolen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The team confirmed the break in happened overnight on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s second stage, the Cofidis\u00a0mechanics’ truck broken into and 11 bikes taken. Police arrived at the team’s hotel in the morning and staff scrambled to ensure riders were able to make the stage start.<\/p>\n

Look also confirmed that King of the Mountains leader Benjamin Thomas (who won his jersey despite a bizarre sprint crash while battling for a KOM point<\/a> on stage one) was unable to ride a unique red-and-white polka dot-decorated Look 795 Blade RS on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"BenjaminBenjamin Thomas Tour de France crash (credit: TNT Sports)<\/p>\n

“Massive credit to the team for their quick response in preparing bikes at such short notice,” Look added.\u00a0“We\u2019re incredibly proud of Benjamin Thomas\u00a0and the whole team.”<\/p>\n

Cofidis\u00a0explained\u00a0that overnight between Saturday and\u00a0Sunday they were “the victim of a burglary”.<\/p>\n

\"20252025 Tour de France, Benjamin Thomas (credit: ASO\/Charly Lopez)<\/p>\n

“The workshop lorry door has been smashed and eleven of our Look\u00a0bikes have been robbed despite security measures in place,” a statement said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Police went to the hotel in the morning to determine the violation and begin their investigation. The Cofidis team strongly condemns this act and calls the perpetrators of these incidents to civility and responsibility.”<\/p>\n

With the bikes’ value estimated in excess of \u00a312,000 it is likely the total value of the stolen bikes was around \u00a3125,000, the Look\u00a0795 Blade RS models kitted out with Campagnolo’s\u00a0new 13-speed Super Record groupset<\/a>. Or perhaps that should be likely\u00a0kitted out with the new groupset. We spotted that a few lower-profile members\u00a0of the team\u00a0were still using\u00a0the old 12-speed\u00a0at the Dauphin\u00e9<\/a>, the 13-speed reserved for bigger-name riders like Thomas, although we’re quite confident everyone would have the new groupset in time for the Tour.<\/p>\n

\"BenjaminBenjamin Thomas 2025 Tour de France (credit: ASO\/Charly Lopez)<\/p>\n

Professional teams and riders have become a concerningly common target for criminals attracted by\u00a0the high-value of top-of-the-range bikes. At last year’s Tour, fellow French team TotalEnergies were targeted in a similar raid<\/a>,\u00a011 Enve bikes and tools taken, including the ride of gravel-stage winner Anthony Turgis.<\/p>\n

Lifeplus Wahoo\u00a0too were rocked by the\u00a0theft of\u00a0all 14 bikes\u00a0from a mechanics’ van<\/a> at the 2024\u00a0Tour of Britain in Wrexham. Riders completed the race on bikes kindly lent to them from other teams\u00a0including SD Worx, Liv AlUla Jayco, Human Powered Health\u00a0and Cofidis, the squad’s co-founder Bob Varney calling the break-in\u00a0“an absolute hammer blow to our over-achieving team already on a stretched budget”.<\/p>\n

In March of last year, a group of thieves\u00a0attempted to steal Bahrain-Victorious’\u00a0Merida bikes<\/a>\u00a0the night before Milan-Sanremo, only to be thwarted by the team’s bus driver and 2021 Paris-Roubaix winner Sonny Colbrelli.<\/p>\n

In 2021,\u00a022 bikes were stolen from the Italian track cycling team\u00a0<\/a>during the UCI Track Cycling World Championships\u00a0in Roubaix, including Filippo Ganna’s gold-painted Pinarello.<\/p>\n

The bikes were in a minibus in the car park when they were taken,\u00a0some of the stolen machines\u00a0valued at around \u00a325,000 and featuring\u00a0titanium 3D-printed handlebars worth \u00a38,500.<\/p>\n

Police in Romania soon\u00a0recovered 21 of the bikes<\/a>\u00a0after a raid on\u00a014 properties in Vrancea County, along with mobile phones, drugs, and around \u00a35,000 worth of\u00a0cash.<\/p>\n

\"RomanianRomanian police recover stolen Italy track team bikes (credit: Politia Romana)<\/p>\n

A few months later,\u00a0British team Saint Piran also became\u00a0the victims of\u00a0bike theft, the Cornwall-based squad\u00a0losing \u00a330,000 of bikes\u00a0stolen from a team van<\/a> in the early hours of a race day in the Netherlands, leaving a “big dent” in their\u00a0finances.<\/p>\n

And then in November 2022,\u00a0SD Worx issued an appeal\u00a0after several of the squad\u2019s bikes were stolen in\u00a0a “brutal burglary”<\/a>. More recently,\u00a0bike\u00a0thefts targeting\u00a0Euskaltel-Euskadi and Baloise Trek Lions<\/a>\u00a0left both\u00a0teams unable to race at Tour of Slovenia and\u00a0Baloise\u00a0Belgium Tour respectively, after thieves targeted the teams for their high-value kit, stealing their bikes and wheels overnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cofidis were hit by a major theft over the weekend at the Tour de France, 11 of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-244970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114811377188950958","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}