21 bikes stolen from Team Barloworld training camp

The riders at Team Barloworld woke up to a nasty surprise on Thursday morning, discovering that thieves had stolen 21 of the team's race bikes during the night.

According to the team, thieves broke into the store room at the Campastrello Sport hotel in southern Tuscany, where the British registered team is currently holding a training camp, and took 21 of the 32 team bikes in the room.

As a result of the theft, British riders Steve Cummings, Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome are without their road bikes and were forced to train on their time trial bikes on Thursday.

"The took all the road bikes in the store room. A lot of us lost our training bike and our new race bike. The only thing they didn't get were the time trial bikes which were in the truck," Steve Cummings told Cycling Weekly.

"Fortunately today was supposed to be a rest day ride but we still did two hours on the time trial bikes behind the car."

Team manager Claudio Corti is working with bike sponsor Bianchi to get new bikes to the team as soon as possible but they face a race against time as the team is supposed to make its season debut at the GP degli Etruschi race in Tuscany on Saturday.

"We should be okay for the race. The team is bringing down some old bikes from the service corse and I should have a new bike for Saturday's race." Cummings said.

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