That's right, he's done it. Tadej Pogačar has done the unthinkable - or maybe just the inevitable.
On Sunday, the Slovenian rocket lifted off with over 100km to go, taking the competition by surprise. An attack that Mathieu van der Poel thought might have been "throwing away" a rainbow jersey, proved to be too powerful for the chasing favourites, who rolled in more than half a minute behind.
Drawing almost as much attention as the victory itself, however, is the bike on which he became World Champion. Pogi was riding a special edition Colnago V4Rs, specifically designed by the Italian outfit to commemorate his incredible results over the last few seasons.
Want one yourself? Sure - just get ready for the £17,000 invoice...
A special bike for the world stage
So first things first, the frameset. Pogi was still aboard the Colnago V4Rs frameset, which he has been so dominant on all season, but this one has to be the best looking yet. Keen racing fans amongst you will have already noted down a few colours significant to the cycling world on the custom frameset, but not all of them are so obvious...
You'd be hard-pushed to forget the six stage wins that Pogačar racked up at this year's Tour de France. As a nod to this success, and the three overall victories Tadej has racked up at the Tour, the 26-year-old's new bike has flashes of yellow throughout, on the top tube, downtube, and fork blades.
But with constant attacking often comes a consolation prize when you are as good as Pogačar - the new World Champ has also racked up wins in the mountains classification at both the 2020 and 2021 Tour de France. These polka dot jersey wins have been alluded too with a subtle band of red and white around the seat tube. The white paint also frames the special edition golden Colnago bottle cage bolt, a touch of bling if there ever was.
Pink flashes all over the bike represent the Maliga Rosa, the leaders jersey from the Giro d'Italia, which Pogačar won with relative ease earlier this year.
Beyond that though, it's slightly less obvious. The bronze details which sit alongside the flashes of yellow represent third place finishes in both the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Road Race, and 2023 World Championship Road Race, while blue accents show off Pogi's Paris-Nice success.
Beyond the frameset, Tadej Pogačar's new race bike features the exact same build that has been so reliable for him for the last couple of seasons. A Dura-Ace Di2 groupset can be found throughout the bike, with the exception of brake rotors, and chainrings.
Team UAE Emirates are sponsored by Carbon-Ti, which provides lighter than standard chainrings and disc rotors, helping to get the World Champions bike as close to the UCI's 6.8kg minimum weight limit as possible.
There will be one or two small differences if you chose to get one of these bikes for yourself however, with Team UAE Emirates edition Enve integrated bar and stem will be switched out for a Colnago offering.
If you want to purchase one of these beautiful, but incredibly costly examples, you will have to put down a £1,000 refundable deposit on the Colnago website.
55 wins on the Colnago V4Rs
Since the middle of 2022, when Tadej Pogačar first started to race on the Colnago V4Rs, he has racked up a staggering 55 professional victories aboard the bike.
It's a bike/rider pairing that will no doubt go down as iconic in the years to come, and clearly one that has been lucrative for the brand too. Colnago reported a revenue increase of 33% in 2023, something which can surely at least in part be attributed to the success of Team UAE Emirates.
All that remains to be seen, is what stellar paint job might be coming the way of our new World Champion...
