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a question of colour

there are many facets of velocipedinal life affected by the tour de france, very much to the detriment of pretty much every other bicycle race in the professional calendar. for starters, any change to a team's official jersey design during the rest of the season is likely to result in a uci fine. mario cipollini might be the fellow to ask about that, but also ef education easypost team owner, jonathan vaughters, whose jersey sponsor, rapha, has been complicit in varying the standard offering at the expense of the team's financial resources.

come the tour de france, however (and to a lesser extent, the giro) and a combination of the uci and aso compels any team with a faintly yellow looking kit to make variations that would have previously resulted in a slap on the wrist. marco pantani's mercatone uno team usually fell foul of this diktat, and more recently, two-time tour winner, jonas vingegaard's jumbo visma have endured a particularly grungy shade of brown. in recent years, the colour thing has become much more of a co-ordinated attack, featuring not only helmets and shorts, but often the entire bike.

where once the manufacturer would have enforced a three-line whip at the factory to quickly apply bright yellow paint to the yellow jersey wearer's new frame, i can but surmise that the teams which expect to be at the cutting edge have a corner of the mechanics' truck installed with yellow, green and polka-dot bicycles (and spares) 'just in case'. similarly with subtle variations on team clothing, should one of the three main jerseys remain upon the shoulders of a principal rider for more than a few days.

the latter, however, may have unforeseen circumstances. who can forget tadej pogacar's trouncing of primoz roglic in the final time trial, losing the latter's team the honour of parading their yellow inflected jerseys along the champs elysées? and what of the hapless and pink geraint thomas in may of this year, who was on the receiving end of a similar trouncing, once again, in a time-trial. perhaps the ineos website subsequently offered pink decorated jerseys at a substantial discount, while roglic's directeur sportif was frantically on the phone to agu sport, asking them to fire up the dye-sub printer.

but the question remains, surely, why it was found necessary to desecrate the points jersey with a shade of green that, following a quick poll of the sunday peloton, seems to have garnered little favour amongst the cognoscenti. and given that particular change of hue, why was bora hansgrohe not compelled to change their jersey, given its close colour proximity to jasper philipsen's wardrobe?

colour, however, is endemic to the entire cycle-related experience; for direct evidence, take my specialized crux, a cyclocross bicycle resplendent in white, fluorescent orange, and fluorescent green, colours that must surely have been en vogue around seven years past. though the 2023 model is essentially the same as that in the washingmachinepost bike shed, it is now replete in a far more subtle, duck egg blue, oddly nowhere near the 2016 pantone colour of the year (15-0343 greenery). that said, i'm sadly unsure of the reach of the latter colour of the year, given that i have noticed little in the way of themed colouration over recent decades that might align with pantone's choices.

but there seems to be at least tangential lip-service paid to this hitherto unknown (and possibly ignored) annual perception from within the world of the velocipede, even if it might prove mistaken in its associations. i, and many others, find our aesthetic senses offended by the design of the present ranges of bikepacking bags, particularly the trumpet-like seat pack that gives the word 'hideous' a bad name.

and persisting with that theme, german cycle luggage purveyors, ortlieb have found it necessary to bring to market, a limited edition bikepacking set (bar bag, frame bag and seat pack) which, they lie, features 'eye-catching aesthetics'. and as part of those debatable aesthetics, all three are produced in mustard yellow, which, according to ortlieb is an in-vogue colour having been recently featured in the aforementioned pantone colour of the year. except, i fear that assertion may be erroneous.

a quick check of the pantone website, announces the colour of the year to be 18-1750 'viva magenta'. last year's was 17-3938 very peri - a sort of pinky-purple. in fact, the only recent year in which any shade of yellow has appeared was 2020, when the choice was extended to both grey (17-5104) and (13-0647) illuminating, a shade of yellow that at no point is described as mustard (14-0952). could it be that there's more than one pantone?

or could it be the cycle industry is actually colour blind?

wednesday 26 july 2023