BOISE, Idaho — Thieves took an estimated $120,000 worth of racing bicycles from a professional women’s cycling team that’s trying to get its top rider to the 2012 London Olympics.
Team TIBCO reported 14 Specialized bicycles and more than a dozen carbon racing wheels stolen from an enclosed trailer after thieves cut the lock late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning. The bikes are valued at between $5,000 and $8,000 each, with wheel sets going for upward of $2,000 each.
The team is in Idaho’s capital city for the Exergy Tour, a five-day stage race with 16 teams featuring dozens of riders from around the world.
California-based TIBCO is trying to get its top rider, Megan Guarnier, to the London Olympics for the road race and had been counting on a top performance in Idaho before USA Cycling officials name their selections on June 15.
“The hard part about this, Megan Guarnier trying to make the Olympic team, she needs her best equipment to contend in this race and accumulate enough UCI points,” said Jeff Sobul, TIBCO’s San Francisco-based spokesman. “We’re doing everything we can to get the bikes back, or get them replaced.”
The Exergy Tour begins with a two-mile prologue on Thursday, followed by four stages throughout southwestern Idaho concluding on Memorial Day. James Carkulis, chief executive officer of the energy developer that’s sponsoring the event, said race organizers were working feverishly to find bikes for the women.
“We know these athletes are strong-willed and determined and we shall find a way for them to compete,” Carkulis said.
By early Wednesday afternoon, members of Boise’s cycling community had chipped in some $2,200 as a reward for getting the bikes back.
Of the 14 Specialized-brand bicycles stolen, six were carbon fiber time trial bikes fitted individually to each rider.
Another eight road bikes were stolen, as were at least 19 expensive racing wheels from Reynolds.
The bikes are all marked distinctively with TIBCO team logos.
The trailer was parked outside a Holiday Inn hotel near an exit to Interstate 84, a freeway that heads east toward Wyoming and west toward Oregon, potentially providing a quick getaway for thieves.
Sobul said anybody attempting to fence the bicycles would have trouble, because Specialized works with each of the team’s athletes to fit them to their precise specifications.
“It’s pretty mind-boggling, to think that somebody can raid a bike team’s trailer and be able to sell the stuff,” he said. “It’s pretty specific equipment.”
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