All the new kits of the 2026 men’s WorldTour, and the sofas that they look exactly like.
For the graphic designers of the WorldTour, the off-season is no holiday. This is where their stakeholder management skills are pushed to the limits, where every square pixel of logo space is agonised over. Their task is immense, and the consequences of failure are vast. Their burden is to come up with a new season’s kit which, if they do the job right, looks cohesive while also displaying the mishmash of colours, fonts, and logos of the sponsors who are paying the bills. Their own personal Tour de France.
While simultaneously recognising this brave and solemn work, though, there are only so many ways you can write a round-up of new kits every year without it becoming formulaic. It’s great that such and such team has gone for a jaunty red sleeve, or a slightly different shade of greige for their bib knicks. But how can we, the cycling fans of the world, relate that to our own lives? Does it matter to us, really, whether there is a new industrial adhesive manufacturer jostling for our attention?
Our role, as spectators of this sport, is to sit in our chairs and watch these athletes on the television, and that’s about as much common ground as we share.
The Vuelta sofa is making riders melt
Do you want to see a bunch of pro cyclists in a state of deep relaxation? Of course you do.
At least, that’s what I thought. But maybe we’ve been going about it all wrong: what if the chairs themselves are the point? What if every kit designer is trying to reach through the screen and touch us on a human level, by reflecting the furniture on which we sit? What if, instead of using the sponsors as the starting point, there is a deeper truth to the mysteries of kit design? What if we could link each and every men’s WorldTour kit of the 2026 season to an armchair, a chaise longue, a gamer’s desk chair?
Does this sound totally deranged? Sure, maybe. But after consideration of the facts I present, maybe you’ll change your mind. Let’s dive in.
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