Lampre used Wilier's new TwinFoil aero bike in the team time trial.(Image credit: Jonny Irick)
Alessandro Specialetti leads the Lampre charge.(Image credit: Riccardo Scanferla)
The Lampre-ISD team lost an estimated €250,000 of bikes and other racing kit when one of the team’s trucks was destroyed by fire on a motorway in north-east Spain. The fire broke out when a tyre burst as the truck was traveling on the AP-1 motorway near Burgos.
The explosion caused a fire to break out in the compartment containing the team’s bikes and other equipment. Although fire-fighters were soon on the scene, it took them almost four hours to put out the flames. They quickly had them under control but the heat was so intense that there was concern that they might flare up again. The incident caused huge traffic jams on the motorway. El Diario de Burgos reported that the jams stretched for 20km and took more than three hours to clear.
No one was injured in the incident, although El Diario de Burgos reported that the truck’s driver and some of the riders were visibly upset. The riders had been following in the team bus behind the stricken vehicle, and later continued on to spend the night at a hotel in Burgos.
The truck had been traveling from the San Sebastián Classic towards the team’s next race commitment at the Tour of Portugal. The team will be sending a new set of bikes and equipment to the race which starts on August 4.
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Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014).
