When Remco Evenepoel rolled down the time trial start ramp for the World Championship in Zurich on Sunday, he did so on a golden bike polished to such a deep lustre it looked almost as though it could have been made from the very material that English poet Percy Bysse Shelley described, not entirely inappropriately, as "a living god".
He wasn't the only rider on a golden bike. Like Evenepoel, Australia's Grace Brown won her time trial at the Paris Olympic Games in August, and opted for a gold finish. But the more muted hue on Brown's Lapierre couldn't match that of the Belgian's Specialized Shiv, which almost looked as though it had flakes of gold floating in its finish
