There’s been a flurry of new bike sponsor announcements for WorldTour men’s and women’s pro teams, with three teams swapping the bikes they’ll be riding next year.
Probably the hardest to get your head around is that the team currently called Mitchelton-Scott will not be riding Scott bikes next year. The underlying licence belongs to GreenEdge Cycling and for 2021 the men’s and women’s teams will be aboard Bianchi bikes.
It marks quite a departure for GreenEdge, whose riders have been on Scott bikes under the team's various guises ever since it was launched in 2011.
According to GreenEdge owner Gerry Ryan: "The UCI WorldTour is consistently seeing more technology innovations and we are confident our collaboration with Bianchi will result in our riders racing on the most cutting-edge road and time trial bicycles, that will deliver many victories in the world’s biggest races."
GreenEdge, whose riders include the Yates twins (although Adam Yates will move to Ineos-Grenadiers and ride a Pinarello for 2021) will ride Bianchi’s Oltre XR4 aero bike, Specialissima climbing bike and Aquila time-trial bike.
And new bikes for Jumbo-Visma and Sunweb
That means Bianchi bikes won’t be under the Jumbo-Visma team of Tour de France runner-up Primož Roglič next year.
Roglič, predominantly riding the Oltre XR4, led much of the 2020 Tour but was overhauled by fellow Slovenian – and eventual champion – Tadej Pogačar on the penultimate stage time trial.
Roglič’s Jumbo-Visma team will instead be riding Cervélos in 2021. Jumbo-Visma is also founding a women’s team for next year, with its headline signing Marianne Vos.
Cervélo says Jumbo-Visma will be using the R5 Disc, S5 and P5, as well as the new Caledonia ‘performance-endurance’ bike, and that it will be developing new products to help support the team. The women’s and development teams will be riding on carbon wheels from the Reserve brand, co-designed by Cervélo.
The men’s team currently ride on Shimano wheels and use the brand’s groupsets, but were also seen on unbranded wheels in the Tour and other races, which were made by Corima, so there might be a wheel sponsor change in the offing too.
To complete the sponsor merry-go-round, that leaves Sunweb, after one season on Cervélo bikes this year, riding... Scott bikes.
That includes the Scott Addict RC aero lightweight bike for climbing stages and hilly one-day races, the recently-redesigned Foil aero bike for sprinters and flat stages, and the Plasma time-trial bike (although not the latest UCI-illegal Plasma 6).
All bikes will be kitted out with cockpits from Syncros, Scott’s component brand.
