Originally published Monday, February 16, 2009 at 12:00 AM

Lance Armstrong reports his bike was stolen

Sacramento police are looking for leads in a high-profile caper: The case of Lance Armstrong's missing $10,000-plus time-trial bike. Early Sunday morning, officials...

By McClatchy Newspapers and The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento police are looking for leads in a high-profile caper: The case of Lance Armstrong's missing $10,000-plus time-trial bike.

Early Sunday morning, officials from Armstrong's Team Astana and Armstrong himself reported on their twitter.com feeds that the one-of-a-kind, black-and-gold bike he used Saturday in the Tour of California's Sacramento prologue and three other teammates' bikes were stolen from a team truck.

"Bad way to start the morning ... Bikes stolen from the truck last night," reads the Team Astana feed.

As the police began their investigation, the race rolled on with a 108-mile first stage from Davis to Santa Rosa.

Armstrong, 37, a seven-time Tour de France winner who is on the comeback trail after announcing his retirement in 2005, is the major attraction in the race.

The bikes were stolen from an unmarked truck parked in an alley behind a Sacramento hotel between 10 p.m. Saturday and 6:45 a.m. Sunday, when the theft was discovered, said officer Konrad Von Schoech, a spokesman for the Sacramento Police Department.

Armstrong posted a picture of the bike on his Twitter feed and wrote: "There is only one like it in the world therefore hard to pawn it off."

Note

• Armstrong finished fifth in a rainy opening stage, won by Spaniard Francisco Mancebo of Rock Racing.

"Holy hell. That was terrible," Armstrong wrote on his Twitter feed shortly after finishing. "Maybe one of the toughest days I've had on a bike, purely based on the conditions. I'm still freezing."

Prologue winner Fabian Cancellara of Team Saxo Bank dropped out of the race midway through the opening stage because of a fever.

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