Van der Poel to have costly skinsuit specially designed for Tour de France time-trial

Mathieu van der Poel will be riding the upcoming Tour de France, and whilst he is not one of the main favourites to take the win on the opening time-trial, he will be a contender and a rider who will be riding for the yellow jersey on the opening days of the race.

With that focus in mind, Alpecin-Fenix - to be named Alpecin-Deceuninck from the Tour de France onwards - are planning on having every detail arranged to perfection in order to hunt for the yellow jersey as they have last year. That comes in the form, besides the obvious features, of a tailor-made skinsuit that will be premiered at the Tour de France.

He won't be the only one, as riders such as Filippo Ganna and Mads Pedersen have also talked about the new material they will be using for the first time at the Tour with the aim of performing on the opening day. After his win at the recent win at the national championships, Ganna pointed out that "we’ve tried 90% of the new material but there’s still the last 10% to come for Copenhagen."

Van der Poel will be using a £2,750 skinsuit, developed by Kalas in collaboration with Vorteq. This resembles the one Simon Yates had developed before the Giro d'Italia, which saw the Briton fly into a surprising win in the first time-trial of the race. The Tour de France starts on July 1st with a 13-kilometer long time-trial in Copenhagen.