Hi all. In my short history of watching the tour, I've always been curious about how the leaders' jerseys (yellow, green, white, kom) are made with their respective team's sponsors and overall design on them? Do the teams make the jerseys, or is it the Tour's responsibilty to provide the riders with the jerseys? Thanks.

Bal

Hot iron press at the finish.

They actually did a little feature on the fellow who does this.

Click on this link, and then select "The Jersey Guy":

http://www.versus.com/tdf/article/category/87/?tf=articlecat_video2.tpl&sm=4&CatLimit=1&cc=1&ArtLimit=100&ac=1&cat=&Offset=18&mt=&CatUserDef=true&ss=video

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=57985&highlight=ed073

That jersey looks different from the one Boonen actually raced in though.

they do iron-on's right after the race for the podium then the teams have a nicer setup made for the next day.

From what they on Vs. a couple of days ago, they do the quick zip up the back one for the podium. Then they give the rider 2 real jerseys. I assume one to actually race in and one for a momento, etc. If there is cold weather predicted the rider can request that one of them be long sleeved.

If there is cold weather predicted the rider can request that one of them be long sleeved.

+1

If it's hot, they'll usually opt for the ultralight version Nike developed a few years ago.....looks like fine mesh in some photos.

Trivia question: Who were the first and last riders to wear the red jersey?

Trivia question: Who were the first and last riders to wear the red jersey?

intermediate sprints only, guess it was a precourser to the most aggressive rider category... I don't know who though...

intermediate sprints only, guess it was a precourser to the most aggressive rider category... I don't know who though...

The Red Jersey once marked the leader in the Intermediate Sprints Classification, which was first calculated in 1971, when Belgian Pieter Nassen won this competitions. The life of the Red Jersey itself was short: 1984-1989.

The first rider to receive a Red Jersey was Belgian Ludo Peeters. Because he was the keeper of the Yellow Jersey as well after the first stage of the 1984 Tour, number two Jacques Hanegraaf from the Netherlands wore the Red Jersey the next day.

Sean Kelly was the last.

Info from Eddy Van der Mark's site.

Smoothie, you disappoint me. The most aggressive rider award ges back to 1959, predating the Intermediate sprints by a good margin.

A rider probably gets a jersey from the Tour and the team. The full outfit, shorts, skinsuits, helmets, shoes, socks, bikes in leader colors come from the team. You can thank Mario Cipollini for doing the full OCP version of a leader's jersey. As you saw, Contador rode one day in the yellow jersey with regular Discovery bibs, they probably didn't have yellow in his size or he isn't OCP.

The combination jersey was my favourite.

The combination jersey was my favourite.

In it's first incarnation or the second?

Actually if I remember the Versus feature on the Jersey Guy correctly (it won't play on my computer right now) they don't wait until the last minute to print up jerseys at all. He has podium jerseys ready in small, medium and large for every team before the end of the stage. It didn't really say how he dealt with the actual riding jerseys but I remember a few years ago the had a special on Lance at his hotel and he had a bag full of yellow jerseys - 8 or 9 at least.

That may seem costly and wasteful but think about it: these sponsors pay a LOT of money to have their logo just so, to have the podium presentation just so, etc. You wouldn't want to risk having the press break down or something and have a podium SNAFU. Besides, Nike supplies the jerseys so it doesn't cost the tour anything. And it doesn't cost Nike particularly much either. They may charge you $150 for one of the fancy "high-tech" jerseys but they only contain 5 or 10 bucks worth of material and pay some 8 year old kid in a sweatshop in China 50 cents to put it together. Then they're paying that jersey guy full-time pay anyway so he's gotta have something to do besides handing out four jerseys every day. He might as well be back there turning them out during the race. And it only takes him maybe 5 minutes to put the sponsor logo on a jersey so he might as well make three or four short sleeves and a couple of long sleeves for the next day......

In it's first incarnation or the second?

2nd.


Steve Bauer in '88 after he stepped out of yellow into the combined looked the business. Leather helmet, Oakley Blades, legs like tree-trunks. :D