Trek-Livestrong bike stolen from Mellow Johnny’s

Someone made off with a Team Trek-Livestrong time trial bike this weekend, swiping it from Lance Armstrong’s Mellow Johnny’s bike shop in Austin.

The Trek Equinox TTX SSL, which was used by team member Ryan Baumann during the 2009 season, was being stored in the future home of the Team RadioShack U.S. Service Course, in the same building as the bike shop.

Store sales manager Ted Arnold said the space was broken into early Sunday, and police initially thought nothing had been stolen. But Arnold was pretty sure there was one bike gone. He counted bikes in photos taken at the shop Friday afternoon by VeloNews photo editor Brad Kaminski and realized Baumann’s bike was gone.

The bike has custom-painted Bontrager aero bars and has Baumann’s name on the top tube. It has a Bontrager Aeolus 90 front wheel and a Zipp disc rear. It’s worth roughly $10,000 and is owned by Trek Bicycle.

Arnold said the shop hopes to use Twitter to enlist people to help find the bike, much as Armstrong used it to help recover his stolen TT bike at the Tour of California earlier this year.

Anyone with information on the bike should call store general manager Craig Staley at (512) 473-0222.

FILED UNDER: News TAGS: Lance Armstrong / Mellow Johnny's / trek-livestrong

Steve Frothingham

VeloNews.com editor Steve Frothingham joined the gang in bike-crazy Boulder in early 2008. He is the former executive editor of the trade magazine Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. He also was a reporter and editor for The Associated Press, where he covered three presidential primaries in politics-crazy New Hampshire. His racing career began on a BMX track in 1980 and reached its zenith with several miserable road races as a category 2 in the early 90s. He subsequently retreated to cat. 3, where he has had a consistently mediocre (at best) record ever since, in road, mountain bike and cyclocross events. Follow him on Twitter at @steve_froth

• Follow @stevefroth
• All articles by Steve