Junior’s cyclocross team loses bikes and equipment stolen from trailer in Denver
Courtesy photo, Ryan Harbuck's GoFundMe Page
When Andrew Harbuck woke up in the early hours of Saturday morning, he could immediately tell that something was wrong.
The time was exactly 3:37 a.m., he said, when he ran outside to find two men in the process of emptying the contents of the trailer in the backyard of his University Hills home into two pickup trucks.
“They had already loaded four bicycles, all my spare wheels, a generator, a compressor, a pressure washer and all my Milwaukee Packouts with our spare parts, like tubes, tires, brake pads and chains,” Harbuck said.
As he came out of the house to confront the burglars, the men ran into their trucks and drove away, Harbuck said, adding that he recognized the pickups from seeing them around his neighborhood.
“I was standing in the middle of the road in my underwear, watching these two cars drive away from me with all my stuff,” Harbuck said.
The coach and program head of his 11-year-old son’s cyclocross team Dirt Devo — a form of bicycle racing generally consisting of laps around a defined course — Harbuck said the trailer mostly contained the equipment that was for team use.
“The bikes that got stolen and a lot of the bikes I carry around with me are bikes that I loan to kids to be able to be on a true cyclocross bike,” Harbuck said, noting that cyclocross bikes are generally a hybrid between road and mountain bikes. “I’ve maintained and owned these bikes and let kids use them, even from other teams, to get them accustomed to actual cyclocross bikes.”
The worst part about the thievery is that the two men took bikes that are specifically made for children’s cyclocross, and that they likely would be more difficult to sell than any standard road or mountain bikes, Harbuck said.
“They don’t know what they have,” Harbuck said. “These people knew that they were stealing kids bicycles, and that’s what really chaps me. That’s what makes me mad.”
He reported the incident to the Denver Police Department, who created a case and took a statement, but they also told him there wasn’t a high chance he would get the stolen goods back.
Harbuck said that, while the bikes are missing, the kids on the team will have to use other bicycles that aren’t made for the sport. The team has also set up a GoFundMe page to collect donations — of both money and equipment — to help support them in the wake of the incident.
“Andrew has been a steady face in the cyclocross community for over a decade and has dedicated his efforts to teaching and uplifting the youngest competitors,” his spouse Ryan Harbuck wrote on the GoFundMe page. “His athletes train hard and play hard. Andrew has taught them to enjoy pushing farther, and you can always see it pay off in podiums. Andrew strives to grow a lifetime of love for bikes, and his determination is contagious.”
“We’ll move forward, we’ll persevere,” Harbuck said.