What do these colors represent ?
 

On both my Wilier and Ridley there are small color scheme sections of blue, red, black, yellow and green stripes. I’ve also seen this on various other cycling items and am curious what it is related to?

Reigning world champions may wear the stripes on their jerseys. National champions wear the stripes that signify their country.

The UCI owns the rights to these world champion stripes. For a manufacturer to include them on a road frame, the UCI must grant permission. Likely a royalty was paid for the honor.

If the world champion is a member of a team, such as in the TdF, he or she will wear the stripes on their sleeves.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...26af4cdd2.jpeg

Unless you're this guy ;)

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...1515763923.jpg

A former world champion is allowed to wear the rainbow stripes on collar and sleeves for the remainder of their career.

The reigning champion wears the white jersey with the rainbow stripes across the chest.

And it's considered to be very bad form to wear a rainbow jersey you did not win the right to.

Cheers

In the past, some companies wanted the “look”, so they simply rearranged the order of the stripes.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bacd52682.jpeg

That's funny. There was recently a thread wherein a guy asked why his UCI stripes were in the wrong order. Turns out his frame was all kinds of counterfeit.

I got a pinstripe kit for a different project. I totally world champed one of my bikes with it. I probably won't be confused for an actual WC.

Does this mean that bike shops will not carry garments with those stripes? What about online or eBay merchants? Is there nowhere a friend of mine might be able to make a fashion statement with these stripes?

What fashion statement would that be? That the person is pretending to be a former world champion? People can pretend to be whatever they want, but it doesn't make it right.

What if he just likes the color combination? Or what if he just wants to emulate the current champion?

I know how the yellow jersey thing has been beat to death, but is it the same deal with the champion jersey? It’s obvious what I’m getting at. The point is that in any other sport you can sport your favorite team’s jersey . . . doesn’t cycling want to be emulated by enthusiasts like in other sports? It just makes no sense.

Not hating on those that love to wear authentic team stuff. But a couple years ago I passed a guy with the full Bora kit, bibs and all, with the uci stripes. Thought it was a little much. Saw someone else with a EF jersey. That's really the only two times I've seen world team stuff around here. Mostly it's smaller clubs.

Did he know he was racing you? And one day I rode with (behind, really) team 7-11 and team Coors Light the day before the U.S. pro road racing championship in Philadelphia. That was in the mid-80s. Many years later I would have done the same with Motorola and some dude named Lance, but I was on the side of the MUP attending to a mechanical. One year, before the start of the race, a friendly fellow from Euskadi gave my girlfriend his cap. She gave it to me. I wore it for years. Was I wrong to do that?

If it were frowned on enough, it wouldn’t be for sale

Agreed. Nobody's going to mistake an old fred like me for the champion, or try to draft me for 100 miles, for a variety of reasons. ;)

In the last few years, we have been spoiled with Sacramento being the start city for the Tour of California. Last year, we had some of the boys from Lotto-Jumbo jump in our local Saturday ride. That was fun.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f7f2ea4787.jpg

By the way, that's my son in the RSR shorts. He had just turned 15.

different wavelength frequencies of reflected light?

He‘s being given the look.😀

It was funny riding with 7-11. I was fairly new to the sport as an adult, having lost 90 lbs. in 9 months through diet change and exercise. The team was doing an easy ride the day before the race. They were cruising on the flats at maybe 24 mph, talking amongst themselves. A bunch us rag tag locals were strung out behind them trying to hold on for dear life. Good times.

Saw Pantani while riding to a stage finish at the Bianchi factory during the ‘95 Giro. He was sitting out the race due to an injury. He was riding in the opposite direction in his full Carrera kit, including those horrible faux jeans shots. We all did a double take and he smiled at us.

In 2000 I was climbing the Puerto del Viento towards Ronda in southern Spain during a self contained tour in the region. Out of nowhere a team caught up to me. Never noticed which one, but they gave me props. I jokingly asked one of them if he would help me with my baggage. He smiled, laughed and politely declined. Then they left me in their dust.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BORA-Mens-C...tem56d79696ef:

(see 372984157935 on da bay direct from china, inexpensive but decent quality jersey that is sort of a "replica" )

And 99.9% of the people who saw this imposter wouldn't actually know, much less care.
Major league teams and players encourage and make lots of money on pretender fashion statements,

Maybe during June which is Pride month.

Personally, wear whatever you like. But if you are wearing a Rainbow jersey you just need to be faster than everyone else.

I bet you can find a cycling jersey with a swastika on it if you look hard enough.