Cometh the yellow jersey cometh the yellow bike – It’s a tradition that’s as old as overnight delivery and quick drying paint. Marcel Kittel didn’t even have to wait for the next morning.
Kittel's Giant Shimano team presented him with a new yellow enhanced steed before he’d even gone to bed after stage 1. Teams and their bike suppliers (handily enough the title sponsor in this case) plan for such eventualities as winning the first stage so Kittel’s wait for a yellow bike was probably as long as it took the Giant team liaison person to go and get it out of the boot of the car.
Most of the bike manufacturers who thought they had a rider in with a about of wearing yellow after the first stage will have prepared something earlier to capitalise on the marketing opportunity. Even now somewhere at the back of a Speciialized truck in Yorkshire there’s a 49cm yellow Venge – which we might be writing about now had yesterday’s sprint taken a slightly different course but now, like the ribbons on the cup for the losing team at the FA Cup final, will never see the light of day.
So what’s different about Kittel’s bike for stage 2? Well, it’s yellower.
Giant say it is a stock Giant Propel Advanced SL frame. The rest of the spec is the same – full Shimano as you'd expect, you can get more detail on it here.
Going around the team trucks at this year’s race the vast majority of riders are on stock bikes. One thing it will be interesting to see though is whether Kittel’s yellow bike will roll out with his usual saddle on it or the new one with yellow bits added that’s in the pictures released by Giant Shimano, riders being particularly particular about such things.
If all goes well for Kittel today he’ll be riding his yellow Propel for a few more stages – if not and the stage profile suggests not, we can expect to see another yellow bike in the peloton tomorrow and Marcel will be back on the bike he rode to yellow in the first place.
