Stylish Wheel Graphics at the Tour de France

As the rest of the cycling world re-hashes the drama of this year's Tour - we are turning our attention to some of the sweet rolling wheels! We HAVE to give credit to Bontrager and TREK for embracing the Lance-ness of Mr. Armstrong and throwing out some fantastic, artist designed wheel graphics. These guys know how to throw a good wheel party and ALL of Lance's latest rides have included some element of wicked sweet rim graphics. From KAWS, Marc Newson and Damien Hirst to name few - these artist-designed rims help complete an overall creative, charitable (and no-doubt branding) objective.

The beauty of Bontrager's embrace of the kicked up wheel graphic proves the power of customization - as Zack Vestal of VeloNews recently put it in this article that "new and highly customized bike graphics are a great way for bicycle and equipment brands to attract attention. Sponsors want the media attention, and they want the teams to feel important, while riders benefit from the psychological boost of having a new (but familiar) personalized frame, saddle or wheelset."

We couldn't agree more, and hope that Lance's return to the peloton will continue to force open the wheel graphic envelope. After all, this "need" for customization was pegged in 1992 as an approaching storm in the land of brand management - Stephen King (not THAT Stephen King, the marketing expert) stated that confident, mature, affluent consumers will breed rapant individualism. Here's hoping it breeds some more deep rim wheels too - all the more room for Wheeltags goodness!

Check out some more pics (thanks to Tyler at Bike Rumor) and full stories about Lance's custom Tour Bikes on bikerumor.com

Below are SOME photos of sir-Lance-Alot's sweet wheels. There are more, I know, but I can't turn this into a Bontrager/Lance love fest page.