A British women's bicycling team woke up Friday all ready to take part in the multistage Tour of Britain event, except for one crucial thing: More than a dozen of their bikes were stolen overnight, reports the BBC. The women athletes on the Lifeplus-Wahoo team discovered 14 of their Ribble Endurance SL R bikes had been lifted from their mechanic's van parked at the Macdonald Hill Valley Hotel in Shropshire while they were sleeping, putting their participation in the second stage of the road race in doubt. "We are hoping to find a solution to enable us to start in Wrexham today," the team tweeted early Friday, per CyclingNews.com.
That outlet notes that, just two hours later, the Lifeplus-Wahoo women were ready to go, on borrowed bikes from at least three other rivals: VolkerWessels, Liv AlUla Jayco, and Cofidis. They weren't Ribble Endurance bikes, but they allowed the women to compete. "Thankfully our amazing community has rallied," tweeted team co-director Bob Varney, who earlier had called the theft "an absolute hammer blow to our overachieving team already on a stretched budget."
"All of our thanks and appreciation goes out to the many teams that offered and gave their spare team bikes and their mechanics' time to get our girls on the road," a Lifeplus statement noted. "We wouldn't be starting without them." Meanwhile, the team is still on the hunt for its stolen wares, which are worth close to $70,000. "Please help us track them down by sharing the story far and wide," Varney implored online. World champ Lotte Kopecky won both the first and second leg of the race, per the Guardian. (More theft stories.)
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