The Dutch Shimano Experience Center in Valkenburg fell victim to a brazen burglary last week: six very expensive bikes, including Mathieu van der Poel’s, were stolen in the process.
For many cyclists – and triathletes – the Shimano Experience Center in The Netherlands is a great place for some cycling history on the one hand, and beautiful bike tours through the Limburg hills, on the other. In the Shimano Experience Center beautiful – and expensive – bikes are being showed to visitors and apparently some burglars were well aware of that. During the night last Thursday to Friday, the center’s locks were broken open and six bikes were stolen.
One of the stolen bikes is a unique specimen belonging to Van der Poel: it is the bike in rainbow colors on which he finished third at Liège-Bastogne-Liège earlier this year. Also stolen were the bikes of Julian Alaphilippe, Peter Sagan, Egan Bernal, Matej Mohoric and Fabio Jakobsen.
In all cases they were unique bikes. For example, Alaphilippe’s bike is the one he rode in yellow for 11 days in the 2019 Tour de France, and Sagan’s bike features a green rear fork, which refers to his seven wins in the points classification in the Tour de France. All the bikes are worth a minimum of 10,000 euros each.
