Tour de France 2025: Eleven bikes stolen from the Cofidis team have been found

Barely stolen and already found. Victim of a nighttime burglary between the first and second stages of the Tour de France near Lille , the Cofidis team announced this Monday, July 7, that all the stolen bikes had been recovered. Five of the eleven missing bikes, worth 10,000 euros or more each, had already been found near the scene of the theft on Sunday, the Lille prosecutor's office told Libération early this afternoon.

Cofidis team manager Cédric Vasseur confirmed to the media on Monday after the third stage between Valenciennes and Dunkirk that he had been informed of the discovery in Halluin, on the border with Belgium, of the six other bikes still missing: "I spoke to Christian Prudhomme [the Tour director] and the Hauts-de-France prefect on the phone just now. They confirmed to me that the six missing bikes had been located and recovered by the police in the afternoon. As far as we are concerned, we have not yet personally recovered them, but it is obviously great news." The Cofidis riders "will find their bikes this evening," the former professional cyclist added.

It could be the transponders used in the race that helped locate them. These small devices attached to the bikes allow the organizers to know the exact time of the riders to the nearest second when they cross the finish line.

On Sunday, Vasseur explained that this theft would not have had "an impact on the operations" of Cofidis anyway, in particular thanks to the proximity of the team's race service, located not far from the hotel where it was based, which allowed the riders to have bikes at the start of the second stage. But the fact of having found the bikes allows the French team to save a good hundred thousand euros and to "continue the Tour with peace of mind" , said Vasseur . Last year, eleven bikes from the TotalEnergies team were also stolen during the Tour de France.