{"id":357120,"date":"2025-12-19T00:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T00:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357120\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T00:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T00:05:12","slug":"ineos-grenadiers-challenge-cycling-tradition-with-white-shorts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357120\/","title":{"rendered":"Ineos Grenadiers Challenge Cycling Tradition with White Shorts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ineos Grenadiers ignites debate with grayish white bib shorts, challenging one of pro cycling\u2019s most hallowed unwritten rules.<\/p>\n

\"Ineos<\/p>\n

Ineos Grenadiers is causing a stir with its gray-white bibs. (Photo: Gobik\/Ineos)<\/p>\n

Updated December 18, 2025 08:53AM<\/p>\n

Ineos Grenadiers<\/a> is vowing to shake things up in 2026, and it didn\u2019t take long when it rolled out a new-look team kit featuring white(ish) racing bib shorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesigned to stand out\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s the teaser line attached to Ineos Grenadiers\u2019 latest kit reveal, and it\u2019s difficult to argue with that assessment.<\/p>\n

Up top, the kit\u2019s not so bad. The jersey breaks from the team\u2019s familiar red-and black-heavy look and replaces it with an orange-white contrast to make room for new co-sponsor Total Energies.<\/p>\n

Not great, but at least it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n

Then come the shorts.<\/p>\n

Call it whiteish gray or grayish white, but the bibs are getting all the attention.<\/p>\n

In elite road racing, white shorts have long been taboo. Among the old guard, white racing bibs are close to outright heresy.<\/p>\n

The reasons are practical and aesthetic.<\/p>\n

White shows everything (and we mean everything). And bibs pick up whatever the road kicks up, from dust, mud, grime, and worse.<\/p>\n

As one pundit succinctly put it, \u201cmarginal stains.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Velominati<\/a> \u2014 self-appointed guardians of cycling\u2019s unwritten code \u2014 the matter is already settled.<\/p>\n

\u201cShorts 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,\u201d states Rule No. 14.<\/p>\n

Ineos Grenadiers kit unveil blows up the internet
\n\"GobikThe new Ineos Grenadiers kit is triggering strong reactions from fans. (Photo: Gobic)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So, the question begs, is Ineos Grenadiers deliberately poking the bear?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Manuel, Gobik\u2019s design and pattern coordinator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe replacement of darker combinations with white as a complementary color reinforces that luminous and recognizable vocation,\u201d he said. \u201cThe transition between both colors is achieved through a texture that brings cohesion and modernity to the set.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unveil certainly blew up the internet, and the reaction on social media was fractured at best.<\/p>\n

Some joked that \u201cGeraint Thomas retired at the right time,\u201d others declared it \u201cthe worst new kit of the season,\u201d while a few chimed in \u201cspectacular\u201d and \u201cone of the best new kits in years.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the goal was to be different in 2026, Ineos Grenadiers has already done that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ineos Grenadiers ignites debate with grayish white bib shorts, challenging one of pro cycling\u2019s most hallowed unwritten rules.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,68224,85,195499,195500,67883],"class_list":{"0":"post-357120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-parent_category-road","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tag-cycling-kits","14":"tag-tag-ineos-grenadiers","15":"tag-type-article"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}