After the unveiling of the decidedly conservative EF Education-Nippo 'Euphoria' kit yesterday, the Aldo Drudi-designed custom Kask Utopia helmets, which will be awarded to Giro d'Italia stage winners, look set to add a welcome splash of colour to this year's first Grand Tour.
Italian helmet brand Kask and its eyewear sister company Koo announced their continued partnerships as official suppliers at the Giro, at the same time revealing a series of special trophies to be presented to each stage winner.
Artist Aldo Drudi is best known for his distinctive designs for the helmets of MotoGP riders Valentino Rossi, Maverick Viñales, Franco Morbidelli, Fabio Quartararo and Enea Bastianini as well as America’s Cup teams Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Emirates Team New Zealand.
Having created the graphics for all of Rossi’s motorcycle helmets since the beginning of his career, Drudi turned his brush to the world of cycling helmets.
(Image credit: Giro d'Italia)
The team time trial is depicted as a retro video game with three riders in different fluorescent block colours each defined by a symbol – a waypoint, a hashtag, a heart, a snowflake (symbolising the high mountain passes), a star, an @ and the ‘G’ of the Giro logo.
Across the top from front to back is the legend ‘Made in Italy’ underscored by a flying Italian tricolour.
Kask will also have a strong presence in the race itself, being the helmet sponsor of Ineos Grenadiers as well as Eolo-Kometa, the new ProTeam run by Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso.
(Image credit: Koo)
Meanwhile, Kask’s eyewear brand Koo debuted a special Giro edition of its Spectro model.
Koo is the glasses sponsor of Trek-Segafredo as well as Eolo-Kometa – expect to see the Spectro and the Demos worn by the likes of Vincenzo Nibali and Bauke Mollema.
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Simon Smythe is a hugely experienced cycling tech writer, who has been writing for Cycling Weekly since 2003. Until recently he was our senior tech writer. In his cycling career Simon has mostly focused on time trialling with a national medal, a few open wins and his club's 30-mile record in his palmares. These days he spends most of his time testing road bikes, or on a tandem doing the school run with his younger son.
