There are some crazy helmets in this year's Tour de France, and in cycling in general these days.
Both in standard road stages and in time trials, helmet designs have been getting more and more outlandish for the past several years. It's at the point now where we're becoming a bit immune to them; a model that would have once caused downright outrage a few years back barely gets a second glance now.
After getting over the shock that the Giro Aerohead time trial helmet caused last year, along with models like the Sweet Protection Redeemer that Uno-X rolled out in 2023, more standard helmet designs nowadays fail to register.
To that point, the special red and white Giro road and time trial helmets that Jonas Vingegaard is wearing during this year's Tour de France have barely registered thus far.
It finally piqued our interests this morning in the Cyclingnews tech team, and we realised none of us knew exactly why the Danish star is wearing a different coloured helmet to the majority of his teammates.
The only other rider on the team to wear a different helmet is, of course, Wout Van Aert, who wears a helmet painted in RedBull livery as per his personal sponsorship deal with the energy drink brand. Is the same true for Vingegaard's red helmet?
After a bit of digging, we found the answer to be... 'sort of.'
The reason for the double Tour de France winner's custom lid is, first and foremost, due to a sponsorship deal between Visma-Lease a Bike and the Danish company Bygma; one of the largest suppliers of tools, construction materials and hardware in Denmark.
You can read all about the partnership in this press release that was put out by the team in March, with Vingegaard himself describing Bygma as a 'personal and team partner'.
What about the red and white?
The Bygma company colours are red and white, mirroring the Danish national flag colours.
We reached out to the team to ask why it's only Vingegaard and not the whole team, but the team didn't explicitly explain, but as a Dane, who better to sport them than Vingegaard himself? As the team's star rider and a Tour de France winner, Vingegaard offers the maximum exposure for the sponsor anyway.
Also, as a side note, although we know Lidl-Trek riders and staff don't get to take advantage of free groceries at Lidl supermarkets, I do wonder if Vingegaard pops in to his local Bygma in the off-season to pickup wood screws and sandpaper. I aim to find out about this from the team, because the ability to enjoy complementary hand tools and DIY supplies makes me very jealous.
Added visibility in the bunch?
I'll be honest, I thought the red and white helmet was first and foremost to aid visibility in the bunch, so that his teammates could easily spot and aid their captain and use up less energy.
Team GB track riders have experimented with different coloured helmets on the track for Madison races in particular, so they can spot each other more easily, but it seems this isn't the case.
Perhaps the difference does help riders like Tiesj Benoot and Victor Campenaerts at times, but given they spend so much time riding with the same people, we'd be surprised if they can't instinctively tell who's who.
