Israel Cycling Academy's pre-season preparations have taken a hit, with the team robbed of 17 bikes in Spain on Monday.
The team are a development set-up for the WorldTour-level Israel-Premier Tech team of Chris Froome and Jakob Fuglsang, and race internationally at Continental level.
Both squads have gathered in Catalonia for training camps ahead of the start of the 2022 campaign.
On Monday, a number of the Academy's silver Factor bikes were stolen from the team's equipment truck outside their hotel.
"Today, 17 of our Israel Cycling Academy Factor bikes were stolen from the team's truck near Girona, Spain," read a statement from the team.
"The frames are silver, red, and black as pictured below. Please contact us if anyone has any information."
Bike thefts are hardly uncommon in professional cycling. A few months ago, Italy's national team lost a number of bikes in a theft at the Roubaix velodrome during the Track World Championships.
A number of other teams have suffered mass thefts, including the BikeExchange and Trek-Segafredo women's teams in recent years.
There is also the threat of individual robberies, with Geraint Thomas and Ivan Cortina both emerging from coffee stops on recent training rides to find their bikes had been snatched.
The Israel Cycling Academy have a 16-rider roster for 2022, half of which are Israeli. They will compete internationally and, under UCI regulations, a number of them will be eligible to be called up to the WorldTour squad for certain races.
