Every year the Tour de France is a hive of new tech and kit, as well as the latest customisations.
For the second time, the first at the Giro d'Italia in 2020, Palace Skateboards and Rapha have teamed up to provide a pretty out-there new kit for the EF Education First team.
This time it's a bright pink jersey adorned with yellow dinosaurs (dragons?) to celebrate the Tour de France Femmes' arrival this year, but they haven't just stopped at the kit.
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The team's Cannondale bikes have been given the full treatment, and they look pretty striking. A pink, white, and blue fade contrasted with luminous green bar tape provides the main theme, but the sticker style really makes the bikes shout.
We managed to grab the Cannondale SystemSix Hi-Mod, the American brand's aero ride, of Swiss powerhouse Stefan Bissegger at the Grand Départ in Denmark.
Twenty-three-year-old Bissegger is an accomplished time triallist, so it's no surprise he's opted for the out-and-out aero SystemSix aero frame Cannondale provides. At 1.78m tall, it looks like he's using a 56cm frame, but as we're used to seeing in the pro peloton, he's got a pretty monster stem length to increase the reach and allow him to get aero.
Bissegger isn't sporting any wild customisations in his setup, running pretty much the assembly the team would offer up front. He has opted to have sprint shifters fitted just on the curve of the drops below the shifter hoods, presumably to give him easier access to gear changes when he's down in the drops.
Bissegger's cockpit is an integrated Vision Metron 5D bar and stem with an integrated out-front mount for his Wahoo computer. The shifters are Shimano Dura-Ace r9200 and the bar tape is supplied by Prologo.
Taken ahead of stage two in Denmark, Bissegger has a stem sticker already fitted to remind him of where the climbs come on the route and where he can take feeds.
Further back on the bike Bissegger looks to be using a Prologo Scratch M5 Nack saddle The seat post is a proprietary SystemSix aero-post.
Bissegger's drivetrain is setup for flat stages in these images, and he's using a 54/40 chainset here. While the rest of the groupset is Shimano Dura-Ace r9200, EF use FSA K-Force Powerbox cranksets with Power2Max power meters. The cranks are adorned with Speedplay pedals.
The cassette looks to be an 11-30, giving that little bit of extra gearing when the road goes uphill.
The wheels are Vision Metron 45 SL tubeless wheels, shod with Vittoria Corsa Graphene 2.0 tubeless tyres. Bissegger has opted for wide 28c tyres on his SystemSix.
