Trek-Livestrong bike stolen from Mellow Johnny’s

by Steve Frothingham

This photo was taken Friday afternoon during a VeloNews photoshoot. Sometime over the weekend, one of these bikes was stolen. Photo: Brad Kaminski.

This photo was taken Friday afternoon during a VeloNews photoshoot. Sometime over the weekend, one of these bikes was stolen. Photo: Brad Kaminski.

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.

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  • Eric
    I think LeMond stole it.
  • Galen
    Armstrong had it stolen just so people would blame LeMond.
  • Tom
    Be careful now - some of us like to ride our Lamond bikes.
  • its not a good deed stealing ones copyrighted properties to use for their own sake.
    its illegal.
  • marcellis22
    Lemond stole it to test the bike for drugs..."They gotta be here somewhere...I'm still the best...".
  • Rob
    That's awesome! Had me laughing my butt off. Good one.
  • liamwilson123
    if the dude was smart he would get a new paint job and lose the disc wheel and get a new saddle. As good as yours.
  • Why is it that they have such a hard time keeping track of their bikes??
  • It's because Lance casts such an intense shadow that it actually has unmeasurable mass, and creates little black holes wherever he goes. Stuff just slips into them. That poor sap at the TOC didn't actually steal those Astana bikes, Lance just walked by the team van on the way to a late night snack, or to get a stronger signal to Twitter, and the bikes just slipped into some random singularity and popped up in this guy's house.
  • richardvday
    Why steal something like this ? It is way to unique to have much hope of not getting caught. If the dudes smart he will strip it for parts and ditch the frame and anything else that is easily identifiable.
  • Larry Johnson
    Why tell him what to do? Youre encouraging others.
  • Rich Wilson
    And why only steal one? And which ones did he skip? Wouldn't Taylor Phinney's be worth more to a 'collector'?
  • Jen
    Maybe the idiot planned on riding it and Phinney's bike wasn't his size.
  • dingophoto
    Maybe it fit him.
  • whatever
    the stolen time trial bike publicity stunt again? boring.
  • Nice inventory control. Want to know if something is missing? Take a look at a photo from last week and count the bikes.... Wow. You guys run a tight ship over there.
  • Commiecanuck
    Second time this year, Lance should really invest in a few U-locks.
  • Johnny Colorado
    maybe WADA stole it to test for suspicious substances..seriously though, I hope you guys can recover the bike.
  • Beatrice
    I can bet my $1000 mountainbike that I built wheels for meant as much to me as this guys did to him. This isn't great news, but it's nothing new.
  • John
    It's ashame that people have to steal bikes, especially that one, and think they are going to get away with it
  • Most of the time, the people who actually take such bikes have no clue how expensive they are or what their used for..
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