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It took just one day for Fernando Gaviria to add a special touch to his Specialized Venge. He now has an ‘S-Works’ decal in yellow… to match his jersey.

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A little change of colour for the Specialized bike of the race leader is one difference from yesterday to today. The Colombian race leader also has… you guessed it, yellow handlebar tape. But the bling isn’t too extreme. Fernando Gaviria also has a yellow helmet and knicks with yellow highlights but his Quickstep team hasn’t gone overboard with the special-issue elements.

Although the Belgian squad leads the team classification, only the race leader has opted to wear a yellow helmet. His team-mates and he wear yellow race numbers for stage two but they have not opted for yellow helmets, as has been the case (if the leading team wants to) since 2012.

Below are a few photos from the start of stage two to show some of the interesting product on display at the Tour in 2018.

July is now a time when major changes to equipment are unveiled and, with the Eurobike trade show on in Germany this weekend, we are bound to see a glut of new product. This is just a small hint of what’s yet to come…

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Gaviria’s bike now features the “1V” decal on his race number: one stage win – a 100 percent strike rate for him at the Tour.

Photos: Rob Arnold

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The Specialized bikes used by both Quickstep and Bora-Hansgrohe have been updated in advance of the Tour. Again we see plenty of disc brakes in the selection, including the one ridden by the Colombian race leader (above).

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Disc brakes and special paint for Sylvain Chavanel – yep, back at the Tour… again!

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Direct Energie, as we all know, has switched from BH bikes in 2017 to Wilier for 2018. And the Italian marque has created a special-issue paint scheme for the veteran Frenchman, Sylvain Chavanel who is racing in the Tour for the 18th time!

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A late change of bikes for Fortuneo-Samsic (above): from Look to BH just 10 days before the Tour.

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The Spanish brand BH has replaced Look as bike supplier for Fortuneo-Samsic in advance of the Tour. The team continues to use SRAM Red eTap components but there’s a mix of parts, including pedals from… yep, Look, and cranks by FSA.

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Stefan Küng has the new BMC Timemachine Road for today’s stage (above).

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With interesting bottle cage placement and an interestingly sculptured down tube, the new BMC Timemachine certainly stands out. There are a wealth of innovations for this new release (unveiled officially only four days ago) and in time we’ll get to understand how it functions and what improvements are to be found on the road… in the meantime, the pictures say a lot about this funky bike.

While we’re showing off Stefan Küng’s disc brake BMC (above), we also took a moment to have quick look at Richie Porte’s bike for the second stage… (below).

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