Not a lot of contention here at Corza for this one. Colnago C50, but it has to be black with white decals. Road, 'cross, track Rabobank or Landbouwkrediet any flavour acceptable.

Photo Courtesy Paolo66

The Corza awards hand out continues with part 2 of our best and worst of the 2000s. Now choosing a favorite pro team jersey design of the last ten years is a little tricky. It's not that there haven't been some good designs but what criteria do you judge them on?

Watching the 2009 giro on TV the ISD jersey looked fantastic. All fluro and crazy shapes. Would you want to join a club with that jersey design though? Probably not, it worked because it was so euro-pro looking. If you are a euro-pro, racing on live TV, you can pull it off even if you aren't a big-gun on a Pro-Tour squad.

The inaugural Cervelo jersey seems to be one of the only jerseys that can look 'right' on TV whilst at the same time you wouldn't mind being seen in the caf' wearing it. It's understated enough to not be screaming 'dude I'm a pro' yet the large é doesn't leave you wondering if the printers forgot to do anything with the team jerseys. A few red accents to top it off and you have an instant classic.

There are those that may say the white Tour edition colour swap jersey looked even better. This may be true but it suffered from the classic white jersey syndrome; it looked great until it rained. Think stage 13 of the 2009 Tour.

Photo courtesy luca pedroni

It was pretty sad reading the news about the death of Franco Ballerini. Best known as a Paris Roubaix winner in 1995 and 1998 and then latterly as the Italian national road coach. Ballerini was the classic 'beast' of a bike rider, tall and powerful the sort of rider that would eat equipment for breakfast. He always reminded me of an Italian Sean Yates.

There has been some great tributes written in the press evoking memories of not only his two Roubaix wins but also the fact that he chose the 2001 race as the final one of his professional career. The words 'Merci Roubaix' written on the undershirt he was racing in that day.

There is one image though which really sticks in my mind. It is from a rear cover of Cycling Weekly in 1990 - back in the days when they had exciting and exotic photos of the pros. There was Ballerini riding in either the Giro del Piemonte or the Tour of Lombardy, the race didn't stick in my mind but the image did. A beast of a rider, in a classic yellow and blue Del Tongo jersey on a gorgeous red Pinarello with gleaming Campagnolo Corsa Record equipment, clips and straps, deep Italian tan. It all looked just so right...

Photo courtesy of Laurent

Here at Corza we have to give Javier Guillen 10 out of 10 for trying with the new red Vuelta leaders jersey. It can't be easy being the third grand tour. The Tour de France is 'the big one', the Giro is the really off the wall and passionate one and the Vuelta seems to have turned into the dry and dusty one with not many spectators.

Changing the design of a leaders jersey is always going to cause a lot of comment and create some attention and it is great to see the Vuelta organisers trying new things, remember the proposal a few years back for having separate bunches on the road at the same time? Maybe the Vueltas role will be as the 'blue sky thinking race'. Who knows.

What do we think of the jersey itself? Black and red is always a tricky combination of colours but Custo Dalmau's design pulls them off pretty well. It certainly looks very 'Euro' with it's abstract geometric shapes and electro panther pattern. Hopefully it will be like last year's ISD team jersey which you wouldn't wear yourself in a million years but looked oh so right on a pro on TV.

It's going to clash pretty badly with team Astana shorts though, Contador for the Giro again?

With 2009 disappearing more rapidly than Alexander Vinokourov from stge 12 of last years Vuelta, Corza thought it would be a good idea to have a look back over the last ten years and hand out some Corza awards for the best and worst of the pro peleton's design. There is some classic pieces of design loitering around out there from 2000 to 2009 but we'll start with with some of the 'not so good'...

Lifting Marco Pantani's 1998 Tour issue Bianchi whilst hanging around outside the Mercatone Uno bus is one of those good memories. Nevermind that seeing the race pass on the next day's stage Pantani was hanging around the back of the bunch with the rest of the Mercatine Uno team and didn't look like a contender, let alone a winner.

The bike itself was a classic, Italian frame, Campagnolo Record, the new factory built Campag Electron wheels, yellow Vittoria tubs. Back in those days the Mercatone Uno jersey though was middle of the road. You could see it in the bunch on TV. It was OK and I'm sure it worked well when partnered with Pantani for promoting the supermarket chain.

Into the 2000s the design just changed rather than evolved and always lacked a little flair, but, and this is why it is here, it just didn't create that rider/jersey 'je ne sais quoi'. Think Simpson/Peugeot, Fignon/Renault, Lemond/Z, you get the idea.

Here at Corza we aren't the biggest fans of riders with black clouds hanging over their racing results and we think the best way to remember Pantani is those early Giro triumphs in a Carrera jersey, sticking out ears,  bald head and faux denim shorts included.

Photo courtesy of Andrea Belducci