Vuelta a España tech: Every national champion's bike design

At every Grand Tour, there’s always a wide range of eye-catching bikes with cool designs. Usually every bike in a team will have the same design, except if there’s a national, continental or world title holder onboard.

Teams are allowed to customise a bike’s colourway to reflect any of these titles, and it often leads to the most attention-grabbing bikes in the peloton.

We love spotting these special designs, so here are all of the bikes of national, continental and even Olympic title holders that we saw on the ground at the Vuelta a España.

Jumbo-Visma's Dutch and Hungarian striped Cervélos

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Dutch champion Dylan van Baarle's special Cervélo S5

Jumbo-Visma hosts a number of national road race champions, including Dylan van Baarle who holds the Dutch title. The Dutch outfit has gone for a low-key design with the national flag on the forks.

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Attila Valter has a similar look on his Cervélo S5, only this time in the Hungarian colours

It’s a design the team uses for all of its national champions. The above bike belongs to Attila Valter who retained his Hungarian national title in 2023.

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Valter is also the national time trial champion, and had a flagged-up Cervélo P5 on show during the team time trial

Valter also doubled up, claiming the Hungarian time trial crown for the second time this year, so he's also got a special P5 TT bike, as spotted in the stage 1 team time trial. The 25-year-old’s first time trial victory came in 2019.

South American colours at Caja Rural and EF Education-EasyPost

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Orluis Aular's metallic Venezuelan flag MMR

After Valter, only one other rider at the race holds both of their nation’s titles: Venezuela’s Orluis Aular of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA. We think the design on his MMR Adrenaline Aero bike is up there with the best, and we're excited to see how his time trial bike looks.

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Jonathan Caicedo's Cannondale time trial set-up, decked out in Ecuadorian colours

Another South American national champion at the Vuelta a España is Jonathan Caicedo of EF Education-EasyPost who holds the Ecuadorian time trial title. Like MMR, Cannondale has wrapped his SuperSlice time trial bike with the Ecuador flag in a very eye-catching design.

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Stefan Bissegger's star-adorned European time trial champion bike

Although not a national champion, Caicedo’s teammate Stefan Bissegger is the European time trial champion, which is arguably even more impressive than a national title. The Swiss rider’s bike has a similar design with the European flag and stars blazed across its tubes.

Subtle Pinarello designs for Ineos Grenadiers

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Filippo Ganna's white Pinarello Bolide has just a subtle nod to his four national time trial titles

Like Jumbo-Visma, Ineos Grenadiers has two national champions in its Vuelta a España roster, and both riders get a white bike with their national flags decorating the forks, like Filippo Ganna’s time trial bike above. Ganna has won four of the last five Italian time trial titles.

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Six-time national time trial champion Jonathan Castroviejo is flying the Spanish flag at his home race

Teammate Jonathan Castroviejo has been Spanish time trial champion six times. His 2023 victory came four years after his previous win in 2019.

Custom components

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Rein Taaramäe time trial bike

Rein Taaramäe (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) is the men's time trial champion for Estonia. His bike didn’t appear to have any special design beyond this custom CeramicSpeed jockey wheel which appears to partly emulate the Estonian flag. It was one of the coolest pieces of tech we spotted before the opening day team time trial, and you can explore the other things we discovered here.

Special designs for decorated riders

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Remco Evenepoel's custom Specialized Tarmac SL8, specially made for this Vuelta a España

Defending Vuelta champion Remco Evenepoel holds both the Belgian road race and world time trial titles. To celebrate the prior, his team unveiled a custom-designed Specialized Tarmac SL8 on the eve of the race. Specialized’s new bike was only released earlier in August. For the team time trial the world champion used the standard Specialized Shiv with no unique design, but keep an eye out for what he's riding in the stage 10 ITT.

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Primoz Roglic Cervelo S5 Olympic champion bike

If titles are rated on their rarity, the Olympic crown is the most prestigious of all. The road race Olympic champion, Richard Carapaz, isn’t at the race, but time trial champion Primož Roglič of Jumbo-Visma is. As he has been for over two years now, Roglič rides a Cervélo P5 with gold branding.

The final South American on this list, Eric Fagúndez of Uruguay, has one of the sleekest designs. The Burgos BH rider is his nation’s time trial champion, winning the title for the first time in 2023.

The riders going flag free

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Spanish champion Oier Lazkano is riding a standard-issue Movistar Canyon Aeroad

While most title holders have customised designs, there are some who don’t. Movistar’s Oier Lazkano is the Spanish road race champion but his Canyon Aeroad CFR has the standard team colours.

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UAE Team Emirates' national time trial champions are riding the normal Colnago TT1s

Jay Vine (Australia) and João Almeida (Portugal) of UAE Team Emirates hold their national time trial titles. Their Colnago TT1 bikes don’t have special designs, but we’re not complaining as we think the bike is already one of the best looking in the peloton.

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Emanuel Buchmann's Specialized Tarmac SL8 features the normal Bora-Hansgrohe design

It’s the same story for Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), the German road race title holder, on his Specialized Tarmac SL8.

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