Kristian Sbaragli's bike stolen during training ride

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Israel Cycling Academy recruit Kristian Sbaragli got a rude farewell from 2017 when his team issue De Rosa was stolen Friday while he took a break from training at a coffee shop in Italy.

Sbaragli, who signed with the Pro Continental team this year after five seasons with the Dimension Data and Qhubeka teams, was training in Ventimiglia, the first town after the French border, with fellow Italian Fabio Felline (Trek-Segafredo) when the incident occurred.

"I was out for a five-hour rider and on my way back home it was just little bit wet, so I decided with my mate of training, Felline from Trek-Segafredo, to quickly have a coffee before riding the last hour of training," the 27-year-old Italian wrote in a message to the team. 

"We put the two bikes one of over the other by the door of the coffee shop, which was see-though, so we could check them, and in a moment the bike was gone."

In an email to Cyclingnews, Sbaragli said there were no witnesses, but police have been notified and he still hopes to get the machine back.

"I called the police and I made all the formal procedure," he wrote in his email to Cyclingnews. "They are working In terms to find my bike but they told me that in the car were professional people, that they stole bike as a job; gonna be really hard to find it. But I'm still hoping to get a call say we found it :)."

The Israel Cycling Academy, which jumped to the Pro Continental level last year, will start the season this month at the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina and at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Australia. Sbaragli is on the roster for San Juan, which runs from January 21-28.

He told Cyclingnews the incident did not cause him to miss any training days.

"After this happened a friend of mine gave me his bike to not lose the next day of training, then the team worked really hard to provide another bike for me," he said.