As is often the case for pro bike racing teams, Visma-Lease a Bike’s Tour de France kit will look a little bit different at the upcoming Tour de France, but with potentially 124 spots for partners left to fill (according to Wielerflits), it may be a little while yet before we have an idea of exactly what Visma will be wearing at the Grand Depart in June.
Team management has decided to open up a number of spaces on the Visma-Lease a Bike kit for customers of the Lease a Bike company via a raffle. A subsidiary of Pon, which also owns several bike brands (including Cérvelo and Cannondale), Lease a Bike does what it says on the label: the division leases bikes to companies for use by their employees.
Existing and new customers of Lease a Bike, which operates in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and the United States, can sign up on a webpage made for the purpose, thus entering their company into the drawings to be featured on any one of four places on riders’ kits at the upcoming men’s and women’s Tours de France.
It’s not quite prime middle-of-the-chest real estate: Riders’ gloves and socks will bear the logos of the lucky winners, drawn from entrants across four different lotteries between now and July 12, with logos of new winners being swapped in on the rest days.
But, given the exposure that the Tour gives to brands, which is a main selling point for WorldTour squads hunting for sponsors each year, a free sock or glove sponsorship does not sound like a bad deal. It could be an even bigger coup for the selected companies, of course, if Visma’s defending Tour champ Jonas Vingegaard is fit to race and contend in the French Grand Tour. As with what logos will be on Visma’s gloves and socks next month, that’s still up in the air for now.
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