All out bling or subtle touches? The best custom bikes of the Vuelta a España

The pros know it as well as you do, custom paint always looks better in the bright Spanish sunshine, and so the Vuelta a España is the perfect place to show it off.

Leading the pack is of course red jersey-wearer Ben O’Connor who’s custom Van Rysel RCR Pro take a classy and understated approach to the celebration of his spectacular form.

Having taken the leaders jersey on stage nine the Australian is currently in midst of resisting pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic’s efforts to chip away at his lead of over three minutes. The colour scheme seems to reflect that with just a few cautious hints of red, mostly on the fork and the seat tube.

The most subtle touch is O’Connor’s Look Keo Blade pedals that are now red, something you’d rarely notice out on the road unless you’re a rival watching his wheel disappear into the distance.

Perhaps the biggest departure form team-issue kit is that of Darren Rafferty, the Irish champion who rides for EF Education-EasyPost. His normally pink and yellow Cannondale Supersix Evo Lab71 has been resprayed bright green with touches of white and orange to reflect the title he won in June.

Vision Metron 45 SL wheels, FSA cranks and a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset complete the package. His gloves and helmet remain team-issue in their colourways.

Ineos Grenadiers stalwart Jhonatan Narváez recaptured the Ecuadorian national title for the first time since 2017 in February this year. He’s been riding a variation of this Pinarello Dogma F bike design since then.

At the Giro d’Italia in May the subtle (apart from the gold logo) colour scheme was very similar but with a black rear triangle. Our guess is the white rear has come in for the Spanish race as its more likely to stay clean here.

Attila Valter has been Hungarian road race champion since 2022. The Cervelo S5 he’s riding at the Vuelta is the same he’s been on most of the year. The design replaces Visma-Lease a Bike’s usual yellow with red and green at the front, but is otherwise mostly black. SRAM Red and Reserve Wheels complete the bike.

Similar to Rafferty’s bike, Cannondale has also gone bold on Rui Costa’s Portuguese champ’s bike. The Supersix Evo Lab712 has no trace of the team’s trademark pink, which it swaps for the colours of the Portuguese flag.

When Costa earned the national champs stripes in June it had been four years since he last won. His current team have embraced it much more than his 2020 UAE-Emirates squad did. That year they sent him to the Vuelta España on a standard black team-issue Colonago.

Groupama-FDJ’s Kevin Geniets is racing the Vuelta with a bike that looks very similar to the one he started the Tour de France on. However, look closer and you’ll see that Wilier Filante SLR had a standard team issue navy fork.

He picked up this new one with the Luxembourg tricolore fork for the Tour’s final week and has been on it ever since.