Updated October 29, 2025 12:13PM
Blockbuster moves in pro cycling go beyond just the riders. Just look at Pinarello and the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe back room if you don’t believe us.
Multi-million-dollar sponsors, Tour de France-winning bike brands, and Olympic gold-winning coaches are trading teams or parachuting into the peloton for the first time in 2026.
And just you wait, they’ll shake up the hierarchy just as much as the mega-transfers of Remco Evenepoel, Juan Ayuso, Olav Kooij, or any other win-harvesting rider.
Here are our top 5 off-the-bike shake-ups of 2026:
Red Bull staffing revamp for the Remco era
Vanthourenhout links up with Evenepoel at Red Bull after the two worked together to immense world and Olympic success with Team Belgium. (Photo: DIRK WAEM/Belga/AFP via Getty Images)
Red-Bull Bora-Hansgrohe tossed its old leadership structure out the window this off-season and gambled on a bold, maybe risky, revamp for the Remco Evenepoel era.
Team lynchpin and lead sport director Rolf Aldag is out, as is his sidekick Enrico Gasparotto.
Zak Dempster and Oli Cookson come in for an Ineos-styled coup of the team car. Belgian national coach Sven Vanthourenhout and Remco’s long-time DS, Klaas Lodewyck, join them in what’s a seismic staffer shake-up.
Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, the squad’s mastermind lead coach Dan Lorang is handing the reins to team trainer John Wakefield. Lorang will pivot his prime focus to the Red Bull Performance Center.
Is this a “restructure” or Remco’s hostile takeover?
Either way, it’s heck of a gamble for a squad that’s not only about Evenepoel. Remember Primož Roglič, Florian Lipowitz, Giulio Pellizzari, and Jai Hindley?
Red Bull’s bid to become a bona fide super team must finally be complete with Evenepoel, Dempster, and Vanthourenhout in the paddock. The mega-bucks sponsor will now want a quick return after only a Vuelta a España title saved it from 18 months of mediocrity.
Vanthourenhout and Co. will be bracing for a whole lot of cheesy team bonding sessions and tiresome strategy meetings in Red Bull HQ this winter.
Pinarello goes all-in with Tom Pidcock at Q36.5 Pro Cycling
It seems all-but certain that Pinarello will join Pidcock and Q36.5 as supplier of road, CX, MTB, and gravel bikes in 2026. (Photo: Piotr Staron/Getty Images)
Eagle-eyed bike nerds will have noticed some upstarts named “Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling” tried to apply for a 2026 WorldTour license this month.
And while the team of Doug Ryder and Tom Pidcock won’t likely be granted top-tier status just yet, it looks like they’ve bagged their new bike sponsor.
While officials are yet to confirm the switch, the UCI filing as Pinarello-Q36.5 appears to rubber-stamp the team’s inevitable transition away from Scott Bikes.
The move has seemed imminent since the day Pidcock arrived on the team this winter.
South African billionaire Ivan Glasenberg has a stake in both Q36.5 clothing and the Italian bike manufacturer, which Pidcock raced on top of for four years at Team Ineos.
As a reminder: This year, the multi-discipline superstar raced Q36.5-issue Scott bikes on the road but continued his long relationship with Pinarello for his flirts with the dirt.
Q’s supplier switch-up will come as part of a Pid-centric spending spree for 2026. The team welcomes nine new recruits custom-picked to send Pidcock to the top.
Eddie Dunbar, Fred Wright, Quinten Hermans, and Chris Harper headline a Class of ’26 that will give the Brit all the backing he lacked in what was nonetheless a wildly successful debut season with his new team.
New bikes, new teammates, and the momentum of a podium finish at the Vuelta a España – it’s only a matter of time before Pidcock gets Q36.5 that WorldTour license.
Decathlon creates a ‘sprint ‘n’ Seixas’ superteam with new mega-sponsor
Seixas and newly signings Riccitello and Kooij will lead a new super team-in-the-making in 2026. (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
Decathlon got on board with a shipping giant and is steaming its way toward super team status for 2026.
Behemoth logistics business CMA CGM arrives to the Decathlon-Ag2r squad for the new year, and it’s bringing a whopper budget and a whole new sprint train for the journey.
Decathlon-CMA CGM will reportedly boast a €40 million budget in 2026. Sure, that’s nowhere near WorldTour steamrollers UAE Emirates-XRG, but it’s fistfuls more than what the French team has now.
And the squad has been investing its bonus bucks wisely.
U.S. super-climber Matthew Riccitello joins French wunderkind Paul Seixas in the team’s GC division. Olav Kooij kicks out Sam Bennett and leads a whole new sprint train into the team’s new era.
In the longer term, CMA CGM will be crucial for Seixas and his Tour de France ambitions. It’s a sad fact of modern cycling that success is directly correlated to budget – aero testing, backroom expertise, and extensive altitude camps don’t come cheap.
Team Decathlon is moving forward fast, and it’s doing it on a shipping container.
Unibet Rose Rockets evolves from YouTube hustle to Tour de France hopeful
Unibet Tietema Rockets gets Groenewegen, Poels, a new name, a new bike partner, and is a shoo-in for a Tour de France invite in 2026. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images )
A YouTube team might be jostling in the paddock alongside $50+ million UAE and Red Bull next year at the Tour de France.
The scrappy but social-savvy Unibet Tietema Rockets team took some key steps toward its dream Tour de France debut in 2026.
Dylan Groenewegen and Wout Poels come in to hoover UCI points, and who knows, scoop some lucrative wins.
Rose Bikes replaces Cannondale as bike sponsor.
Founder and creative mastermind Bas Tietema takes himself out of the team name to allow better branding opportunities for potential future investors.
Meanwhile, the winter tangle of promotions, relegations, team collapses and mergers have made it very likely the Unibet Rose Rockets will get the golden ticket for a Tour de France wildcard in 2026.
It would mark the worldwide arrival of a team that may not have the winning clout of Tudor or Q36.5, but the storytelling capacity of Netflix’s “Unchained” x “Better Call Saul.” And to stay relevant in a world of dual screens and goldfish attention-spans, that’s almost as important as a yellow jerseys.
Geraint Thomas trades the bike for the boardroom at Ineos Grenadiers
Geraint Thomas is done with the bike, but he’s not done with Ineos Grenadiers. (Photo: Getty Images)
It seems Geraint Thomas just can’t get enough of life with Team Sky/Ineos. That’s why he’s jumping directly off the bike and into the boardroom in 2026.
The recently retired Welshman could be crucial in putting the pulse back into “his” dormant super team. Even when he stopped winning in his swansong seasons, Thomas was the talismanic soul of the Ineos Grenadiers.
He was with Team Sky on Day 1 and pedalled through its Tour de France peak. He brought a semblance of stoke to a squad that spent much of its history with its back against a wall.
And while Ineos Grenadiers seemed on the up in 2025, it’s still several echelons from the one Thomas led to its sixth Tour de France win in 2018.
If anyone can jump-start the British behemoth, it’s Thomas. His job description is yet to be released, but it’s rumored to be some type of conduit between top brass and the boys in the trenches.
No, Thomas doesn’t have experience in management. But he has the riders on his side, and a first-person view of how it feels to win the Tour de France, to be beaten by Tadej Pogačar … and to crash into ditches.
Thomas won’t make Ineos Grenadiers Tour de France winners in half a season. But he might get it moving in the right direction.