With the 2025 WorldTour season already fast approaching it is time to familiarise ourselves with what everyone will be using for 2025. Over the offseason, there have been a few notable changes in equipment used by teams, including a welcome return to the WorldTour for Campagnolo.
Elsewhere, team bike changes have been driven by the transfer of headline athletes like Demi Vollering, who brought Specialized bikes with her when she moved to FDJ-Suez.
In general, sponsor movement seems to have slowed going into 2025. This can partly be attributed to a lot of existing contracts continuing their course through the 2025 season as well as a few teams extending with long-term partners for the coming season.
On the men’s side, three teams have changed names for 2025 with Astana Qazaqstan becoming XDS-Astana with Chinese carbon specialists XDS Carbon Tech bringing some welcome investment to a team that has struggled for results in previous years. UAE Team Emirates picks up XRG as a co-title sponsor.
And DSM-Firmenich PostNL have also changed its title sponsor for 2025 with the Dutch team now going by the name Picnic-PostNL bringing a new kit design along with new bikes in the shape of Lapierre’s newly launched Xelius SL4.
Although the transfer season for women was among the most active in memory, just two teams will change formal names. The women’s DSM team also becomes Picnic-PostNL, while Canyon-SRAM adds Zondacrypto to its title sponsor lineup.
Who’s on what
It can be hard to keep track of which team rides what and what bike your favourite riders are using now that they are on a new team. That is why we have compiled a list of equipment that each team will be using for the 2025 season.
Men’s bikes
In the men’s WorldTour, there have been several changes to the framesets used by the world’s top cycling teams. Some teams have simply added new bikes to their lineups. UAE Team Emirates-XRG, for example, has introduced the newly released Colnago Y1RS to its collection. Similarly, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale officially added the RCR-F aero bike, which debuted at the 2024 Tour de France.
Elsewhere, more significant changes are taking place. The most surprising shift in bike sponsorship comes from Picnic-PostNL, which has switched from Scott to Lapierre for 2025. This change is notable for two reasons: first, the team was believed to have a contract with Scott through the end of the 2025 season. Second, and more importantly, this switch leaves Scott without a WorldTour team. While Scott still sponsors the second-tier team Q36.5, that deal ends after this season. Q36.5 clothing brand backer Ivan Glasenberg owns Pinarello, and the team’s marquee new signeed, Tom Pidcock, will continue to ride Pinarello in off-road events.
Scott recently launched the new Addict RC, marketed as an ultra-lightweight, race-optimized bike. However, it seems unlikely to feature prominently at the front of the peloton in the upcoming season and perhaps not at all after this season. With WorldTour sponsorship being a costly endeavour, Scott may be hitting pause to address its financial challenges. In recent years, the company has faced notable financial difficulties.
In December 2023, Scott Sports’ parent company, Youngone, provided a short-term loan of 150 million Swiss francs (approximately $176 million) to stabilise its finances. The loan, set to run from December 28, 2023, to December 27, 2024, is nearing its end. As a result, 2025 could mark a year of financial recovery for the Swiss brand.
Finally, there’s a noteworthy change involving XDS-Astana (formerly Astana Qazaqstan), which is switching from Wilier to the relatively unknown Chinese brand XDS. This move comes as part of a deal with XDS Carbon Tech, the team’s new title sponsor. XDS aims to use the team as a marketing platform to gain global recognition. The company is reportedly committing to a sponsorship period of five to 10 years, bringing a significant financial injection. This investment aims to position the team’s budget alongside top-tier squads such as UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike.
Women’s bikes
The Women’s WorldTour has seen a similar story to the men’s with a few notable changes but with the majority of the teams remaining as they were in 2024 for equipment partners. The biggest switch-up in the women’s field comes from FDJ-Suez. With the headline signing of Demi Vollering comes a new bike sponsor for the team, as Specialized replace Lapierre for the French team going forward.
Lapierre, meanwhile, has found a new home much like in the men’s peloton with the newly named Picnic-PostNL. As with the men’s WorldTour, this leaves a Scott-shaped hole in the women’s peloton; with no women’s pro team on Scott the brand will be completely absent from the top tier of women’s racing in 2025.
The final new bike sponsor in 2025 comes courtesy of Uno-X Mobility, which switches out Dare bikes for Ridley. With what looks to be a new Noah Fast having been leaked already 2025 looks to be a big year for the Belgium-based bike brand which will be supporting both the Women’s WorldTour team and the men’s ProTeam going into the 2025 season.
Men’s groupsets
It has been a relatively quiet year for changes in groupsets. Shimano continues to dominate the WorldTour peloton, with 13 of the 18 teams using the Japanese brand’s Dura-Ace Di2 platform. However, eagle-eyed readers may notice that this is one team fewer than last year.
After a one-year hiatus, Campagnolo has returned to the WorldTour through a four-year partnership with the French team Cofidis. When Decathlon switched to Shimano for 2024, Campagnolo was left without a team partner at the top end of the sport for the first time in around 75 years. Admittedly, the number of teams using the Italian brand’s flagship groupsets has been on the decline since the turn of the century, and its return with Cofidis is unlikely to yield significant victories.
For fans of Campagnolo, this development will be welcome news, as it underscores the brand’s commitment to its racing roots. As Ronan Mc Laughlin highlighted when breaking the story, Cofidis’ switch to Campagnolo may be more of a cost-saving measure than a performance-driven decision. Previously, Cofidis was a non-sponsored partner and had to purchase all of its Shimano groupsets. Switching to sponsor-provided equipment could significantly reduce the team’s budgetary burden.
On the topic of Shimano-sponsored teams, UAE Team Emirates has become the latest official technical partner in a deal set to run until 2028. Unlike other official technical partner teams, UAE appears to be exempt from using Shimano’s full range of products, instead limiting their use to the Dura-Ace Di2 groupsets and Dura-Ace pedals.
For UAE, one of the wealthiest teams in the sport, this partnership appears less beneficial than it does for Shimano. The cost of purchasing groupsets from any brand is of little concern for the sovereign wealth-backed team, which has a history of simply buying the best equipment when needed. For Shimano, however, this four-year deal ensures their presence on the most successful team of the moment for the foreseeable future.
Women’s groupsets
Everything looks to stay the same on the groupset front for 2025 in the women’s ranks. Much like UAE Team Emirates on the men’s side, UAE Team ADQ will become a Shimano official technical partner through 2027. However, as Cofidis’ women’s team sits one rung down from the Women’s WorldTour in the new ProTeam level, Campagnolo remains absent from the top tier of women’s racing for 2025.
Unlike in the men’s WorldTour, there is a little more balance in the groupsets used. Out of the 15 teams, eight are using Shimano’s Dura-Ace Di2 groupset whilst six are on SRAM’s Red AXS offering.
Men’s kit
It is much of a muchness on the clothing front with all but two men’s WorldTour teams remaining with the same kit provider as in 2024. The exceptions to this come from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Team Jayco-AlUla.
Midway through the 2024 season Red Bull joined Bora-Hansgrohe as title sponsor (and majority team owner) With it came changes to the design of both bike and kit, but for the rest of that season the team remained using Sportful. Now for 2025, the team kit has been bought under the Specialized umbrella with the big S providing the team with on-bike apparel. This means that the team will be using Specialized bikes, wheels (Roval), helmets, shoes, and clothing in 2025.
The other change comes from Jayco-AlUla who were using Alé clothing in 2024. Fresh to the WorldTour for 2025 Australian brand MAAP has partnered with the team with an eye-catching purple and grey colour palette that should make the team easy to spot in the bunch.
Women’s kit
There is only one change to the clothing sponsors in the Women’s WorldTour for 2025. Much like its brother team, Liv-AlUla-Jayco will replace Alé with MAAP. The move into both men’s and women’s WorldTour pelotons for MAAP looks to signify the strength of what is still a relative newcomer to the cycling apparel market. The brand was founded in 2014 and has steadily increased its reach with its mix of muted and classic cycling kit palettes along with more striking and punchy designs. The brand has sponsored a number of individual athletes like Freddy Ovet and also in the past supplied the Trinity Racing team with its kit.
FDJ-Suez has announced that even with Specialized supplying the team bikes it has extended its partnership with GOBIK until 2026 so we won’t be seeing Vollering in Specialized kit anytime soon. However, it is reasonable given the moves Specialized is making with other teams that when this partnership expires they will be the likely replacement kit sponsor, bringing everything under the Specialized banner much like they have done in 2025 with Red Bull.
Winners and losers for 2025
It is hard to look past the biggest loser of 2025 being Scott. With no presence in the women’s peloton at all and with only Q36.5 on the men’s side, the Swiss brand will be largely out of the limelight. 2024 was a good year for Scott, with Roman Bardet winning the opening stage of the Tour de France aboard the Foil. With the new Addict RC having just launched the brand will likely be looking to return to the WorldTour as quickly as possible, but that may depend on its financial health.
Specialized, on the other hand, has expanded its net in both the men’s and women’s fields, adding apparel to its Red Bull deal and becoming FDJ-Suez’s bike sponsor. This expansion marks the brand’s third women’s WorldTour team; 20% of the women’s WorldTour is set to be riding Specialized bikes in 2025. With Lotte Kopecky aboard the Tarmac at SD Worx along with Lorena Wiebes and now Vollering bringing Specialized to FDJ-Suez, plus AG Insurance-Soudal, the big S is likely to end 2025 with an impressive haul of wins.
Another winner – albeit slightly – is Campagnolo. Returning with Cofidis might not be the return the brand deserves but for a groupset that was born in road racing it will be a welcome return to the peloton in 2025. It’s hard to say that having a WorldTour presence will do anything to boost groupset sales in consumer circles but the most winning groupset manufacturer certainly deserves to be in the biggest races.
As far as lesser-known brands are concerned there is no winning or losing to be had, but rather simply a change. Uno-X Mobility’s switch from the Taiwanese brand Dare to Ridley has been balanced out by XDS-Astana trading Wilier for X-Lab. This relatively unknown brand (at least in western markets) will be hoping that entry into the WorldTour will have the same result as Van Rysel got in 2024 with Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale.
With the WorldTour calendar getting underway on January 17 for the women and January 21 for the men at the Santos Tour Down Under we don’t have that long to wait to see all the teams in action under their new equipment.
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