High-vis custom bike and kit for Trek-Segafredo at Japan Cup

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The Trek-Segafredo team will be hard to miss at this weekend's Japan Cup in Utsunomiya, with the WorldTour team to ride in custom high-visibility kits and custom Project One bikes.

The American bike company's Project One programme allows riders to customise and personalise their paintjob and has been utilised to create a bright bike and draw attention to 'on-road detectability'.

The Japan Cup race kit will become the standard training kit of Trek-Segafredo following the race. While the team is also competing at the Abu Dhabi Tour this week, the riders are wearing the red, white and black standard issue kit.

"Increasing rider safety is a core value for Trek. The company recently released the results of an ongoing safety study about rider visibility, conducted in partnership with students at Clemson University's Perceptual Awareness department," read a statement from the team.

"The results of the study formed the foundation of the company’s safety message, the ABCs of Awareness. The ABCs of Awareness—Always on (ride with lights, day and night), Biomotion (highlight the the body’s moving parts), and Contrast (fluorescent during daylight, reflective in low-light conditions)—are the simple steps every rider can take to increase detectability."

Along with raising rider awareness through the high-vis bikes and kit, the team will also be aiming to defend Bauke Mollema's title that he won last year and will be farewelling Fabian Cancellara in Saturday's criterium. The Swiss rider will be making his final appearance as a professional cyclist at the race and this week told Cyclingnews that "I already feel like an ex-rider".

Japanese rider and 2015 Japan Cup criterium winner Fumy Beppu, Greg Rast, Jasper Stuyven, and Eugenio Alafaci are the other rider to have been selected for the race.