Thieves steal bikes from Cannondale Pro Cycling

UCI ProTeams Cannondale and Lampre-Merida had a combined 600,000 euro worth of equipment stolen from each of their headquarters in Italy, as reported in Velonews.

Cannondale’s service course is in Sesto al Reghena, where thieves took off with 100,000 euro worth of bikes and frames on Tuesday. The team’s press officer told Velonews that they were lucky to have had the equipment insured.

Last November, Lampre-Merida warehouse was broken into and 500,000 euro worth of team equipment, and their team car and truck was stolen.

These aren’t the first cases of team theft. Last year, Garmin-Sharp’s road bikes were stolen out of their team truck at the Tour Méditerranéen in France, with two stages to go. Team Tibco’s equipment was stolen before the Exergy Tour in Boise, Idaho. Team Russia’s bikes were stolen at the world championships in Florence, Italy.

In 2011, Team Type 1 – sanofi-aventis had to pull out of the Coppi e Bartali in Italy because more than 500,000 euro worth of equipment was stolen from their team vehicles outside the team hotel.