Matteo Jorgenson has paid tribute to Visma-Lease a Bike's mechanics for the rapid turnaround of spare bikes after no less than 18 bikes were stolen from the team overnight.
Thieves broke into the Visma bike truck located outside the team hotel near Milan, seizing multiple models. Multiple media reported that three were later recovered from where they had been dumped in a nearby park, but the squad was left bereft of a high proportion of their bikes.
Talking to reporters at the stage 3 start early on Monday afternoon, Jorgenson said that no less than three of his own bikes had been stolen, and he was far from alone in that.
Other team sources have said that race leader Jonas Vingegaard was lucky enough to have his own usual bike to ride, but according to Jorgenson, French teammate Axel Zingle - who was a DNS because of a bad crash on stage 2 - had all of his bikes taken.
The American said that the morning at the Visma hotel had been a fraught one. The mechanics had already been up until the small hours of the morning working on the bikes which were then stolen - later that night - and were then forced to turn to building up new models early on Monday before the stage start at 2 p.m. local time.
"The funny [strange] part is, they [the mechanics] didn't understand how they were stolen because they were up until 1.30 still working on bikes last night, 'cos the power went out [in the hotel] so they already had a lot of problems," Jorgenson explained.
After a long transfer back to Turin from the late stage finish at Limone Piemonte in the far south of the province, where Vingegaard had won the stage and taken the lead, Jorgenson said that the team had not reached the team hotel until 9:00 p.m. At that point the mechanics had to begin cleaning and building the bikes, only for them to be robbed overnight.
"They were up until 1:30, so they were surprised to wake up in the morning and see all the bikes were gone," Jorgenson said.
"They worked really hard, and I can tell you that without them I would not have a bike - I do not know how to work on the bikes."
Jorgenson's words echoed those of team boss Richard Plugge to TV earlier in the morning, saying, "The mechanics have done an incredible job building all the bikes and getting all the bikes we need to be ready. They'll be here soon. Luckily, we'll have enough bikes to start."
With so much material robbed by the thieves, and three of his usual bikes gone missing, Jorgenson said he was on his 'fourth bike'.
"No, I'm not on my number one race bike, this is I think my fourth bike that they built up this morning," Jorgenson said.
"They stole 18 bikes, I think they left three of the race bikes and a couple of other spare bikes." In the case of Zingle he said, "they actually left no bikes at all".
"It was an interesting morning to wake up to," Jorgenson said with more than a touch of irony. "For a lot of the staff it was chaotic this morning, the mechanics were trying their best to build up the bikes.
"But they got it done and at least we have a bike to race today and more will come in the next few days."
With the bikes now up and running again, albeit far from being their usual ones in several cases, Jorgenson said things had now returned to something approaching normal.
"It should be. I tested the bike out this morning, we all kind of were doing some rides by buses to see if the bolts were tight," Jorgenson said. "So it should be all good to go."
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