This article was produced in collaboration with Sportful
Mapei’s eye-catching 1-2-3 at the 1996 Paris-Roubaix, Fabian Cancellara’s cobbled exploits decked out in Swiss champion’s jersey and Peter Sagan’s rainbow-clad wins at the Ronde van Vlaanderen (2016) and Roubaix (2018) are some of the iconic moments of the Classics in the past three decades. From the cobblestones to the climbs, one thread runs through all of those moments: Sportful kit.
The images of the champions are part of what has shaped Classics history. For example, Cancellara’s famous red jersey with the white cross worn over 15 years ago has almost a cult-like presence in the minds of cycling fans. The legend himself said: “That Sportful jersey from 2010, it is the symbol of an era.”
Cancellara winning Paris-Roubaix in 2010 decked out in his iconic Swiss champion's jersey (Image provided by Sportful)
"Back then,” Cancellara goes on, “cycling apparel was already performance-focused, but compared to today, it was still quite simple. The priority was mainly lightweight fabrics and basic aerodynamics. The fit was good, but not extreme. Jerseys and clothing in general did the job, but they didn't feel like a second skin."
That phrase – a second skin – comes up again and again in conversations about what cycling clothing has become. It is the destination the entire industry has been travelling toward, and Sportful, quietly and methodically, has been one of the primary navigators of that journey.
The story of Sportful in the Classics is really several stories running in parallel. It is the story of a brand from Italy that understood, long before the wind-tunnel era, that protection was the first principle of performance. It is the story of riders who learned to trust the kit enough to stop thinking about it entirely. And it is, increasingly, the story of Tudor Pro Cycling — Cancellara's own team, now in partnership with Sportful — taking those decades of accumulated knowledge and helping them forge something new.
Alaphilippe is one of Tudor Pro Cycling's current stars (Image: Sprint Media Agency)
Sportful has become synonymous with the Classics - races in which the right apparel can make all the difference. In the one-day races, riders face all kinds of conditions: rain, cold, mud, dust, sleet and snow. Something which the superstar of the mid 2010s, Peter Sagan knows more than most. Going back to 2016, when the Slovak lined up at the Ronde van Vlaanderen in a Sportful-designed rainbow jersey, he understood, instinctively, what the collaboration required.
"When you are racing the Classics, whether it is the Ronde Van Vlaanderen or the Paris-Roubaix, you can't afford to think about your gear; it has to be an extension of your body," explained Sagan.
For a world champion – Sagan wore the rainbow bands for three consecutive years while racing in Sportful kit – the demands are non-negotiable. Reliability. Functional design. The absolute certainty that on a wet cobbled rise, the kit will simply work. "On the cobbles or in the rain, you need a kit that just works very well, allowing you to focus entirely on the performance."
Sagan in the rainbow jersey on his way to the Tour of Flanders title in 2016 (Image provided by Sportful)
That relationship between Sportful and its riders has always been symbiotic. "My strong relationship with Sportful was built on this constant improvement: taking our experience from the pro peloton and engineering it into every stitch,” noted Sagan.
Within that constant improvement, one product line has come to define Sportful's Classics identity more completely than any other. The Fiandre range – named after Flanders itself, for the region of rain and wind and grey cobblestones where cycling's most brutal theatre plays out – is the piece of kit that serious Classics riders reach for when the forecast darkens. It is the garment that sits at the intersection of protection and performance, designed specifically for the conditions that make one-day racing both magnificent and merciless.
The Fiandre range has evolved alongside the riders who have worn it. A jacket that breathes without surrendering warmth. Fabrics that manage moisture across five hours of effort without ever making the wearer feel entombed. Fit that keeps its geometry when a rider is stretched low over the bars in a headwind, or hunched into the sleet on a Flemish climb. This is not incidental engineering. It is the result of years of listening to what riders actually experience in races that most people never fully appreciate from the roadside.
The Fiandre – worn here by Sagan – has been Sportful's longstanding go-to protective jacket (Image provided by Sportful)
Julien Alaphilippe, who has lit up one-day races over the years and now races for Tudor Procycling Team alongside Classic stars like Matteo Trentin and Stefan Küng, frames it in terms of what a race like that actually demands. "Apparel is very important, especially over such long and demanding days like Strade Bianche, the other Spring Classics or the Tour de France."
The Frenchman is somewhat of a traditionalist: "I still personally like the feeling of a jersey and bib shorts. It's comfortable, it breathes well, and it gives you a bit of flexibility when conditions change."
But he is equally clear-eyed about where the sport has arrived. "Cycling has evolved a lot. Today, the level is so high that every detail counts and it is proven that a skinsuit is more aerodynamic. Even in a race like Strade, where you have climbs, gravel, and constant changes of rhythm, you still spend a lot of time at high speed and that's where the suit makes a difference."
Trentin is one of the strongest Classics riders of the last decade (Image: Sprint Media Agency)
Both the riders and managers at Tudor Procycling Team understand this evolution. Cancellara said: "Today, everything has evolved into something much more precise, something scientific. Aerodynamics is now king. We're talking about saving watts just from a jersey alone, which would have sounded crazy back then." The skinsuit, once reserved exclusively for time trials, has migrated into one-day racing — a shift that reflects both the data and the culture of marginal gains.
"The fit has also completely changed. Today's clothing is like a second skin. Riders are involved in development, and sometimes even scanned, so the garment works in every position on the bike. Today, clothing is part of performance."
What makes the Tudor Pro Cycling partnership with Sportful significant — beyond the obvious synergy of Cancellara's name attached to a brand he wore through some of his finest hours — is the depth of the collaboration. Tudor is not a team that accepts kit off the shelf. Cancellara has always approached everything in cycling as an engineering problem, something to be analysed, refined, improved. That instinct, which served him so completely as a rider, now shapes how his team develops its relationship with Sportful.
That symbolic weight does not disappear when the technology advances. It accumulates. Every Classics rider who has pulled on Sportful kit in the week before Paris-Roubaix, every one who has trusted the Fiandre to keep them functional in the worst weather Flanders produces, adds something to it. Cancellara himself, now on the other side of the relationship, is building something with the likes of Alaphilippe at Tudor that draws on all of his and the brand’s 40-year experience.
They both understand that kit is indeed an extension of the body. Sportful has spent decades proving it.
(Image provided by Sportful)
