Manitoba cycling team’s bikes stolen in B.C.

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This article was published 26/03/2022 (1486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg may get a bad rap for bike theft, but it was almost immediately after leaving the province that a Manitoba cycling team had thousands of dollars of gear stolen from them.

The team’s head coach, Mary Prendergast, had put the team’s equipment in a trailer and locked it to a truck outside a hotel in Penticton, B.C.

At about 6:30 a.m. Thursday, Prendergast left her Penticton hotel room and discovered something was wrong.

“I walked closer to where our truck was and saw the two broken locks,” she said Saturday, via phone from Penticton.

The locks had secured the trailer to its hitch. Prendergast said the truck also had an alarm that was supposed to go off if the trailer was moved, but it hadn’t been triggered.

So, the entire trailer was gone, and with it, a cycling shop’s worth of goods.

The thieves had stolen 18 bikes, about 30 bags of luggage, three tool boxes with tools for maintaining bikes, bike stands, an air compressor, a pressure washer, eight or 10 sets of spare wheels, helmets, and a miscellany of clothing and smaller gear for serious cyclists.

And the group of 14-18-year-olds are certainly serious cyclists. That means those 18 bikes weren’t $50 yard-sale bikes. They cost anywhere between $2,000 and $10,000 each, Prendergast estimated.

“The athletes were all pretty heartbroken, because you definitely get an attachment for your bike and for your clothes,” she said. “And someone taking your stuff feels like a very personal attack.”

With shops suffering shortages on a wide range of cycling gear, including bikes themselves, due to pandemic-caused supply-chain problems, some on the team had been waiting months for new bikes for the upcoming season, Prendergast said. They’d rode them on a stationary trainer and were itching to put rubber to pavement, and the B.C. trip would’ve been their first chance, she said.

“I was definitely angry. Upset with the situation,” she said. “It was for sure a shock.”

But Prendergast had a group of cyclists raring to go, so the coach couldn’t let it get her too down.

“It’s just kind of one of those things where you’re angry for a bit and then you have to pick yourself up, stand up again and figure out the best solution for how to move forward,” she said.

Before long, the team had found nine bikes to rent from a local store, and someone in the area lent them. Four more are being transported in from Manitoba now, but until then the team of 14 cyclists is splitting in two groups to allow everyone to ride.

The coach also contacted RCMP and got the bikes “blacklisted” by their serial numbers, so that they can be identified if anyone tries to sell them.

Ty Andres, a 17-year-old cyclist on the team, said his team didn’t learn about it until they’d gotten off their flight. They were to meet up with Prendergast, who’d driven out the gear with one other person.

“It was definitely a bit of a shock,” he said. “Cycling is basically my life at this point, and to come all this way and not get on the bike… it’s a bummer.”

But Andres commended his coaches on their quick action to salvage the trip. He said that’s helped his teammates recover from the shock.

“Everyone’s bounced back pretty well,” he said. “I’m excited to see where we can go now.”

Prendergast said she believes most people had insurance on their bikes, and that the insurance for the trailer should help cover losses as well.