Jonas Vingegaard explains the thinking behind his DIY Paris-Nice bib tights

Jonas Vingegaard stormed to an impressive win at Paris-Nice on Wednesday, surviving an onslaught from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and truly bleak conditions to take the stage win and race lead.

But Vingegaard's choice of foul-weather clothing and how he wore it arguably drew more attention than the win itself.

In particular, the Danish champion's choice to wear his modified, and slightly messy-looking bib tight straps externally, over the outside of his race jersey, garnered a lot of attention.

Vingegaard appeared to be wearing an extra pair of bibtights over the top of his shorts and leg warmers, which had been cut at the rear, and also appeared to have had the chamois pad removed; this could be spotted thanks to an additional cut lower down on the tights.

Vingegaard removed a few outer layers inside the last 40 kilometres of the race, including a backwards-fitted jacket, but it seemed he didn't have the chance to remove his bibtights.

After the race, he told media, "It was just full gas racing, there was not even time to take clothes off. So maybe you can call me a trendsetter with the long pants, but there was just no time to take them off."

Today, a post on the Visma Lease a Bike Instagram page has appeared, with Vingegaard himself explaining the strategy behind his unusual bib tights.

Unsurprisingly, Vingegaard wore the extra bibtights to keep warm, and explained his plan was to rip the pre-prepared extra bibtights off as the race progressed.

"To keep me warm in the beginning, I wore the extra-long pants. We prepared the bibs so that two teammates could easily rip them off.

"After that, I could just take the parts on my legs off like leg warmers. In the end, the race was so hard that there were never two teammates around to tear the bibs off," he explained.

There we have it, Vingegaard pre-cut the extra bib tights at the rear to ensure team mates could more easily rip them, and remove them deeper into the race. The brutal nature of the stage, however, meant they stayed on until the end.

Comments sections reacted with mirth after seeing the Dane's kit choice, but it was the two-time Tour de France winner who had the last laugh as he crossed the finish line alone to win the stage. The huge time gaps on Stage 4 of the Race to the Sun highlighted just how hard it had been.

Vingegaard's multiple layers to stay warm did what they needed to on a horrible day. Anyone who has frozen in a bike race or been going so hard they could barely reach into a pocket for a gel will know how hard it is to do the basics sometimes when the race is on.

And for a man who will have fresh memories of his recent training crash, anything that helps him maintain extra control over his bike will be an important upgrade, no matter how rudimentarily put together

Over the years, cycling champions have often appeared to wear more clothing than the rest of the peloton during races. Seeming comfortable enough not to need to remove outer layers, Tom Boonen keeping his leg warmers on in the early season spring classics when the rest of the bunch were in shorts and jersey springs to mind.

Yesterday seemed more about keeping warm, and Vingegaard's clothing plan aligned with Mathieu van der Poel's strategy to wear more at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad to keep warm.

Foul-weather clothing is very good now, but sometimes it seems old school, or even DIY methods work just as well.