Someone Just Paid $40,000 for Pogačar’s Bike and It’s Almost a Bargain

Tadej Pogačar’s race-winning Colnago fetched $40,000 at a USA Cycling charity auction over the weekend in the latest payday for memorabilia linked to modern cycling’s GOAT.

The Slovenian’s rainbow-striped Colnago V5Rs, which King Pog blazed to victory at the 2025 Liège-Bastogne-Liège, was the headline attraction at USA Cycling Foundation’s annual Bicycles & Bluegrass fundraiser.

Seven bids pushed the price to $40,000, half its listed $80,000 value.

Not bad for a used bike, but nowhere near the record books for a Pog ride.

Last year, Pogačar’s Tour de France-winning Colnago Y1Rs earned a whopping $190,500 at Sotheby’s in December 2025, more than 10 times its true value.

But even that pales against the $500,000 someone paid for Lance Armstrong’s Damien Hirst-designed Butterfly Trek he rode during the 2009 Tour de France. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, that’s the most anyone’s ever paid for a bike at an auction.

Pogačar memorabilia is becoming serious business as fans want a piece a history, sometimes quite literally.

His torn Milan-San Remo jersey reportedly sold for €95,100 earlier this year, with an anonymous bidder paying a record amount for a cycling jersey.

Other items sold this summer for the Tadej Pogačar Foundation also earned thousands of euros for charity.

Big bucks for LA28 Olympics push

The auction was part of the USA Cycling Foundation’s latest fundraising push to support the team going into the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.

Brandon McNulty’s signed rainbow jersey triggered a bidding frenzy, attracting 85 bids before selling for $7,300. Another McNulty and Team USA jersey brought in $6,050.

Several bikes were sold under full retail price, and rides with off-road stars like Christopher Blevins and Keegan Swenson generated dozens of bids and nabbed more than $5,000.

The fundraiser comes as momentum builds within American cycling ahead of Los Angeles 2028.

McNulty ended a 33-year drought for American men in Montréal, while Ashlin Barry delivered the first U.S. U23 men’s road world title.

There’s a fresh push in the men’s team pursuit effort and the women’s team will return as defending gold medalists in elite women’s road race and women’s team pursuit.

USA Cycling packs big hopes in the first Summer Olympics on American roads since Atlanta in 1996, now less than two years away.