Ineos Grenadiers ignites debate with grayish white bib shorts, challenging one of pro cycling’s most hallowed unwritten rules.
Ineos Grenadiers is causing a stir with its gray-white bibs. (Photo: Gobik/Ineos)
Updated December 18, 2025 08:53AM
Ineos Grenadiers is vowing to shake things up in 2026, and it didn’t take long when it rolled out a new-look team kit featuring white(ish) racing bib shorts.
“Designed to stand out” — that’s the teaser line attached to Ineos Grenadiers’ latest kit reveal, and it’s difficult to argue with that assessment.
Up top, the kit’s not so bad. The jersey breaks from the team’s familiar red-and black-heavy look and replaces it with an orange-white contrast to make room for new co-sponsor Total Energies.
Not great, but at least it’s different.
Then come the shorts.
Call it whiteish gray or grayish white, but the bibs are getting all the attention.
In elite road racing, white shorts have long been taboo. Among the old guard, white racing bibs are close to outright heresy.
The reasons are practical and aesthetic.
White shows everything (and we mean everything). And bibs pick up whatever the road kicks up, from dust, mud, grime, and worse.
As one pundit succinctly put it, “marginal stains.”
According to Velominati — self-appointed guardians of cycling’s unwritten code — the matter is already settled.
“Shorts should be black. Team-issue shorts should be black, with the possible exception of side-panels, which may match the rest of the team kit,” states Rule No. 14.
Ineos Grenadiers kit unveil blows up the internet
The new Ineos Grenadiers kit is triggering strong reactions from fans. (Photo: Gobic)
There have been exceptions. HTC-Columbia flirted with white in the past, and riders like Mathieu van der Poel or Lotte Kopecky still roll them out on occasion to match the rainbow bands.
So, the question begs, is Ineos Grenadiers deliberately poking the bear?
The team itself offered little explanation in its rollout, but kit supplier Gobik had a bit more to say, insisting that the emphasis is on orange up top, not the whiteish grey down below.
“The Ineos Grenadiers kit for 2026 incorporates a new exclusive shade of orange, designed to elevate visibility and give the team a clearly differentiated identity in the peloton,” said José Manuel, Gobik’s design and pattern coordinator.
“The replacement of darker combinations with white as a complementary color reinforces that luminous and recognizable vocation,” he said. “The transition between both colors is achieved through a texture that brings cohesion and modernity to the set.”
The unveil certainly blew up the internet, and the reaction on social media was fractured at best.
Some joked that “Geraint Thomas retired at the right time,” others declared it “the worst new kit of the season,” while a few chimed in “spectacular” and “one of the best new kits in years.”
If the goal was to be different in 2026, Ineos Grenadiers has already done that.