AG Insurance–Soudal’s Kim Le Court Pienaar is a relatively new name in the women’s WorldTour, but she is already building a sizeable reputation.
The 29-year-old Mauritian has competed on and off-road in Africa and Europe for a decade. Her palmares includes four wins at the Mauritius national road race championships, two cross-country mountain bike gold medals at the 2019 African Games, and Absa Cape Epic and Swiss Epic MTB race wins.
Last year, Le Court signed with AG Insurance-Soudal, having reportedly contacted every women’s WorldTour team asking for an opportunity. She then went on to win a stage at the 2024 Giro d’Italia Women, and this year she won Liége–Bastogne–Liège Femmes.
Now, Le Court leads the biggest women’s bike race in the world, the Tour de France Femmes, having won the yellow jersey after stage 2 and taken it back from Marianne Vos following a stage win on Wednesday’s stage 5.
Le Court is also the first African woman to pull on the lauded maillot jaune at the Tour de France Femmes. In honour of the jersey, Specialized has decked her out with a custom yellow Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8.
Italian paintwork
Le Court’s yellow S-Works was painted by the Italian company Lumar Colours, which also painted Lorena Wiebes' green Tarmac SL8 and the bike of Florian Lipowitz, who finished third and won the youth classification in the 2025 men’s Tour de France.
Like Wiebes and Lipowitz’s bikes, Le Court’s features a graded checkerboard design to represent racing. The paint also goes from a dark head tube to a yellowy-green and then a lighter yellow at the rear of the bike.
The colour continues as a theme through Le Court’s accessories, with yellow Tacx Deva bottle cages and yellow Supacaz bar tape.
Groupset and wheels
Le Court’s bike is fitted with a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset, which features a 54/40-tooth crankset up front.
Specialized’s in-house component brand Roval supplies Le Court’s cockpit and the Rapide CLX Sprint wheels.
These wheels were launched just before the men’s Tour de France, and feature a 58mm-deep rear wheel and a 63mm-deep front wheel. While having a deeper front wheel may seem unusual, Roval said wind-tunnel testing revealed that up to 90 per cent of the aerodynamic benefit of deep wheels comes from the front wheel.
The wheels are wrapped in Specialized Turbo Cotton TLR 28mm tyres. These road bike tyres are among the oldest gear still used in pro road races.
Launched in 2014, the tyres were fast for their time, with Specialized claiming they had the lowest rolling resistance of any tyre it had ever made – and they still look to be competitive, aiding Le Court in her GC performance.
A new saddle?
One interesting feature on Le Court’s bike is the Specialized S-Works Power EVO with Mirror saddle.
Specialized launched a new version of the 3D-printed saddle in July, claiming there is significantly less saddle pressure compared to the previous version, thanks to its 47,000 struts and 21,000 nodes, which make up its lattice structure.
Le Court's saddle is a special version of the new design. It has a clear lattice and red base, which is allegedly a pro-only colourway.
