Tour Tidbit du Jour - 7/1/2012

The leaders of the different classifications in the Tour de France get to wear different colored jerseys on the very next race day, so you'll see a yellow jersey, a green jersey, a polka-dot jersey, and a white jersey somewhere in the peloton. The most combative rider, chosen by a jury for style or aggressive riding, gets to wear a red bib number (other stage races may hand out a jersey for this designation as well). There's also the team classification, where the best three riders' time for each team for each stage are added up, and the shortest cumulative time from day to day determines the best team. That team gets to wear yellow bib numbers. With how well Team Sky did in the prologue, they get to be the first team wear the yellow numbers.

However, it's pretty hard to pick out the team prize leaders from watching television when the peloton is all scrunched up. So this year, the Tour organizers, ASO, came up with a solution to all that, as Team Sky explained in a tweet:

For people asking about the yellow helmets. It's a new rule brought in this year by the ASO to mark out the team prize leaders #TDF12
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 1, 2012

So how do they look? Team Sky tweeted a picture of the riders milling about before the race:

The team and our new helmets ready to roll out. What do you think? #TDF12 twitter.com/TeamSky/status…
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 1, 2012

You can see Mick Rogers in the background with his yellow bib numbers and his yellow helmet. It will be interesting to see how the other teams have done up their helmets, or whether pure block yellow was the official mandate from ASO.