Every July, the cycling world’s gaze is on the Tour de France – a place where 184 riders jostle for space on the road and brands jostle for attention. Amidst that sea of noise and colour, how does a team make its riders stand out? Clothing is one way: kits that say something unique about the team, race or sponsors.
The Tour brings extra jeopardy in that it already has distinctive clothing as part of its very fabric – the maillot jaune (yellow jersey) for the race leader, the maillot vert (green jersey) for sprinters, polka dots for the climbers classification, and white for the best young rider. Teams that look too much like one of these classifications are obliged to change to something different. Bad luck if you’ve got a yellow kit, like Visma-Lease a Bike; the Tour got there first.
Iain Treloar
All of which means that this month, there are a select batch of teams that look different to how they look the rest of the year. Confusing? A bit. Fun? Sometimes. Here’s who’s wearing what (and as a little bonus, the homewares they look like).
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