Rapha splashes color on EF Education men’s and women’s teams
Rapha updates look for EF Education EasyPost and EF Education Tibco-SVB mens' and women's team kits.
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At a training camp in Girona, the men’s and women’s squads sponsored by EF Education First unveiled their Rapha cycling team kits for the 2022 season.
Rapha is the apparel partner for the EF Education-EasyPost men’s WorldTour team and the women’s professional EF Education-TIBCO-SVB cycling team.
In 2022, EF Education First joined TIBCO and Silicon Valley Bank as title co-sponsors of the longest-running women’s team in North America.
The men’s team has been racing under a variety of names and colors since 2003, and Jonathan Vaughters’ squad will continue on in the highly-recognizable pink livery it has worn since 2018.
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Both teams will wear uniforms with similar designs and with subtle variances in colors and patterns, which the team indicates is a “modern interpretation of the Argyle pattern that has been a staple part of EF’s visual language for years.”
The men’s team kit has been previously scrutinized for not complying with UCI regulations.
At the 2020 Giro d’Italia, the men’s team wore a modified color pattern, designed in a collaboration with Palace Skateboards so as to be easily identifiable from the pink leader’s jersey of the Italian grand tour.
Also read: EF Pro Cycling rebrands as EF Education-EasyPost
But sufficient notice of the changes to the team’s livery, as well as other UCI regulations surrounding rules about team colors drew the attention of — and fines from — the UCI.
In mid-January, Canyon-SRAM, which is also partnered with Rapha for team apparel, unveiled its new colors for the current season.
At the beginning of the year, cycling’s governing body forced several women’s WorldTour and ProTour teams to change their colors so as not to be confused with the Women’s WorldTour leader’s jersey.
Two ProTour teams — Bizkaia-Durango and Andy Schleck-CP NVST-Immo Losch — had already taken delivery of their 2022 kits after the UCI ruled the colors and patterns to be unacceptable for the 2022 season.
