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Teams & Riders EF Pro Cycling

Page 61 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
I feel cycling kits have always been pretty creative, especially in comparison to football kits which are usually very bland.

Denmark 1986 World Cup is one of the few sporting kits that can rival Mapei 1996 in my opinion, some of the British teams in the early 90s had some raunchy numbers as well.

One of the things that first drew me to cycling were the absurd overhead colours of the pack in the late 90s, a tradition that seems to have faded in recent years, which is why I love this getup.
 
This looks like an absolute mess, like a kid has just gone ballistic with the options on create-a-skater on their first try a Tony Hawk game.

In that respect, it's utterly brilliant - the one knock on so many kits recently was that they didn't stand out, and that being visible on a rainy day from the helicam should be of more importance than looking good in a carefully lit photosession. The problem is, the kit that this is replacing actually did stand out. This one is definitely noticeable, and that's a good thing. It stands out, and that's a good thing. We're talking about it, which is absolutely the intention.

However, on the flip side, it actually makes it goddamn hard to read the sponsor's logos and know what the team is about, which seems counterproductive, and as WVV points out, there are some kits that are beautiful in their ugliness - Barbot-Siper, CSF-Navigare, Mapei - and this is one that comes out the other side, past "so bad it's good" and squarely back to bad, like Castorama or something.

And couldn't they have found room for a NOFX sticker or something if they really wanted to go with that vibe?
 
Some of you are arguing that there have been a lot of bad jerseys in the history of cycling, so the Giro one is a good thing because it goes back to that tradition...?

But okay, I will out myself: gasping I am very much okay with the current AG2R kit...

If you want to stand out in a positive way, do it like Bahrain this season.

AG2R:
paris-fashion-week--kaia-gerber-verzueckt-im-weissen-img-737521-0-8-1000x562-jpg.jpg


Bahrain:
3026796-inline-469373737.jpg


Mapei:
3026796-inline-469918993.jpg


EF kit:
media.media.9623077a-42c0-41d4-83d5-ea976fa724ae.original1024.jpg


what a good skater's design could look like:
sk8tr-grl-4.jpg
 
One thing I hadn't considered before it being mentioned on my TV just now is the fact that the normal EF jersey would look an awful lot like the maglia rosa. I don't know if that was why they made those small tweaks on the design to make it stand out a bit more.
Over the years lots of teams have had to make 'small tweaks' to jerseys to avoid clashes with classification leaders though - Saunier Duval and ONCE spring to mind immediately - and they managed to do it without letting an 11-year-old try to combine every single design possible on "Create-a-Skater" mode on Tony Hawk. Also I wouldn't expect there to be any more of a clash than Lampre circa 2011, whose jersey stood unaltered, because they used a very different shade of pink. Clearly there was more to it than that, otherwise they might just have switched the blues and pinks to create an alternative jersey, and this was about the crossover and possibly Vaughters thinking outside the box for something retro now that the argyle trademark he used for years is a thing of the past.

I was surprised enough that ASO let Higuita's jersey stand for the Tour tbh. From the front on camera he could easily have been mistaken for the maillot jaune with a very similar shade of yellow, as opposed to Jumbo's more golden shade which is why they got away with theirs most likely.
 
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Over the years lots of teams have had to make 'small tweaks' to jerseys to avoid clashes with classification leaders though - Saunier Duval and ONCE spring to mind immediately - and they managed to do it without letting an 11-year-old try to combine every single design possible on "Create-a-Skater" mode on Tony Hawk. Also I wouldn't expect there to be any more of a clash than Lampre circa 2011, whose jersey stood unaltered, because they used a very different shade of pink. Clearly there was more to it than that, otherwise they might just have switched the blues and pinks to create an alternative jersey, and this was about the crossover and possibly Vaughters thinking outside the box for something retro now that the argyle trademark he used for years is a thing of the past.

I was surprised enough that ASO let Higuita's jersey stand for the Tour tbh. From the front on camera he could easily have been mistaken for the maillot jaune with a very similar shade of yellow, as opposed to Jumbo's more golden shade which is why they got away with theirs most likely.

I wasn't really suggesting that the new outfit was their only option, though. By slight tweaks I may have been a little ironic. But it is nice that they don't have the pink jerseys.

I thought the Jumbo jerseys were much too similar to the yellow jersey in the Tour. And are you sure that Saunier Duval had to change their jerseys? I seem to recall that they had some white side panels which made them acceptable.
 
It annoys me time and time again that EF work too much too early.

Bissegger looked like one of the 10 strongest riders today but he finished 47th. Reason? First he accelerated for no reason on one of the Muur ascents (it was neither a proper attack or anything other that made sense) and then he worked with Pedersen even if it was clear at that point he didn't have the strength to work more than the others and still come out on top and GC wise it didn't make that much of a difference for him if they brought the chase group back or not.
Vanmarcke looked even stronger than Bissegger but he blew himself up completely in an effort to chase down one of the attacks that lasted maybe 2 kms.

It's a recurring theme with EF riders. They work too much too early and then don't have enough energy left for the last 15 kms.
 
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Over the years lots of teams have had to make 'small tweaks' to jerseys to avoid clashes with classification leaders though - Saunier Duval and ONCE spring to mind immediately - and they managed to do it without letting an 11-year-old try to combine every single design possible on "Create-a-Skater" mode on Tony Hawk. Also I wouldn't expect there to be any more of a clash than Lampre circa 2011, whose jersey stood unaltered, because they used a very different shade of pink. Clearly there was more to it than that, otherwise they might just have switched the blues and pinks to create an alternative jersey, and this was about the crossover and possibly Vaughters thinking outside the box for something retro now that the argyle trademark he used for years is a thing of the past.

I was surprised enough that ASO let Higuita's jersey stand for the Tour tbh. From the front on camera he could easily have been mistaken for the maillot jaune with a very similar shade of yellow, as opposed to Jumbo's more golden shade which is why they got away with theirs most likely.
Higuita's riding eventually made it clear who he was, eliminating the mistakes.
 
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