Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Black appears to be the new blue for 2007. Team kit designs for the pro peloton seem to follow common trends as each team has their own variation on a popular theme. The previoulsy trend was a blue team kit that started getting popular in the 1990s when cyclist realized they did not always have to wear black shorts. For a while it seemed as though just about every team sported a mostly blue colored team kit. It was tough to tell some teams apart. The most confusing moment came in the 2005 Paris-Roubaix when Juan Antonio Flecha (Fassa Bortolo), George Hincapie (Discovery Channel) and Tom Boonen (Quick-Step) where in a final break away. Their respective team kits looked so similar that it was tough to tell the riders apart from the helicopter. Now the team kit designers love affair with blue has come to an end as black seems to be the new popular color.

With Caisse D’Epargne and Team CSC daring to sport the almost all black look, many teams are following through and going dark too.

First the Predictor-Lotto team released their new kit design which features a black, gray, dark red and pink scheme. Now Discovery Channel are out with a mostly black kit that helps tie the kit into their main sponsor the Discovery Channel. The new look is very cool and a great improvement on last years gray shark belly jersey and the 2005 shark-skin jersey that looked too similar to Quick-Step. whether this jersey will be too similar to the Caisse D’Epargne team kit remains to be seen. If Alejandro Valverde and Ivan Basso are both going head to head in the Tour will we be able to tell them apart?

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