In addition to the 22 team kits that will be seen at the Tour de France this year, there will be 17 special jerseys that meld a team design with the special colours of newly crowned national champions in the peloton over the course of the 21-stage race.
Sixteen new national champions will likely be on the start line, with only the Tinkoff team yet to be decided. Dimension Data have the singular distinction of having the only two dual national champions - winners of both their road race and time trial titles - in Edvald Boasson Hagen (Norway) and Daniel Teklehaimanot (Eritrea) in the race.
The UCI rules specify that champions in the road race must wear their national colours in the road stages, but only time trial champions can wear them in the two individual time trial stages. Should one of these riders earn one of the four special race classification jerseys - overall leader, green jersey of points classification leader, polka dots for mountains or white jersey for best young rider - those special shirts would take the place of their national champion (or in the case of Peter Sagan, world champion) jersey.
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Time trials
There are two time trials in the Tour de France this year, stage 13 - a 37km route from Bourg-Saint-Andéol to La Caverne du Pont-d'Arc will favour the specialists, while the uphill stage 18 test from Sallanches to Megève goes straight uphill and will be one for the climbers.
Tony Martin (Etixx-Quickstep) will once again have the German national champion's kit for those two days. Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) will wear the French national champion's kit for the first time in the time trial, while Nelson Oliveria and Ion Izagirre (Movistar) will don Portugal and Spain's colours respectively. Polish time trial champion Maciej Bodnar was named to the Tinkoff team on Tuesday.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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