20 bikes stolen from Team TotalEnergies in French race - Organized crime continues to affect pro cycling

An unfortunate reality is that in current times, more and more cycling teams are being target of organized crime in the form of bike thefts. It has happened to Team Visma | Lease a Bike and XDS Astana already within this week, and now it's happened to TotalEnergies in a different race with a total of 20 bikes stolen.

At the Giro, Visma had their mechanic bus broken into during the night on one of the Italian stages, and robbers ran off with most of the team's bikes. The bikes naturally have a very high monetary value and are easy to carry; and with team busses and trucks standing out in any environment, they become of theft. The vehicles are usually in the team hotels' parking lots, out in the open. Often, these thefts have significant importance for the teams, even if they are amongst the wealthiest in the sport.

But it is more complicated when it hits smaller-level teams and that is what happened last night at the Tour Potiou-Charents, in France. Although missing a lot of the World Tour entourage, it meant nothing for a planned assault on the team.

"The TotalEnergies team suffered the theft of 20 bicycles last night during the Tour Poitou-Charentes," a statement issued this morning by the team read. "Despite the incident, the team will continue competing in today's time trial".

Concerns are growing further and further in the sport and it's becoming difficult to manage such a high threat on the team's livelihood and possibility to compete. "I think we’re getting to a point where we’ll need to hire real security guards at night, physical security," Lidl-Trek manager Luca Guarcilena said recently. "Now that so many teams are staying in the same hotels, the damage can be huge, especially with equipment becoming more and more valuable."

And as the Italian said, this is already something that is slowly finding it's way into the sport: "We are dealing with organised crime here, we’re not talking about people just snooping around. During winter training camps in Calpe, we hire security guards. But during stage races, we bring around fifty bikes, including time trial bikes. Not all of that can be stored inside the hotel".