With the opening of the first World Tour tour of the United Arab Emirates this year, the competition between major teams for the top event of the 2022 season has officially begun.
Looking back at the 2021 season, it was relatively smooth compared to the previous season, but there were also some events that were highly concerned.
The most typical case of this is the announcement of the dissolution of the Qhubeka NextHash. The South African team spent the whole year last year looking for a new sponsor. Unfortunately, even though the UCI had given another grace period before the deadline, they still could not find a suitable sponsor, and eventually the UCI refused to issue it a 2022 World Tour license, and the team disbanded. That means the number of teams on the 2022 World Tour will drop from 19 to 18.
The arena is the battlefield of the major teams, and the equipment sponsors of the teams under the arena are also quietly engaged in a war without smoke. The equipment used by each team this year can be summarized like this: the frame has not changed much, the kit is dominant, and the wheels are competing for supremacy.
There are many ways for professional teams to receive sponsorship, which can be roughly divided into: title sponsorship, equipment sponsorship, equipment sponsorship, in-depth technical cooperation, etc. There are also smaller manufacturers who will take the way of giving away products for free to the fleet to use to increase the exposure of their own products.
Most of the equipment used by teams relies on the sponsorship of manufacturers, and the sponsors use whatever they give, of course, there are exceptions, such as inuitous and penalizable INEOS Grenadiers, which has purchased Lightweight wheels at their own expense to cope with the climbing stage, and the Priceton CarbonWorks wheels used at last year's Tour de France are also purchased at their own expense.
bicycle
At the end of 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, the CCC team was forced to disband, and Giant, which has never been absent from the World Tour since the end of the 90s, was forced to disappear from the arena. This year, Giant reached an agreement with Team BikeExchange, and Giant and its sub-brand CADEX sponsored the team's equipment and returned to the World Tour! And they will also carry out in-depth cooperation with the team, and the drivers will cooperate with Giant to participate in the development and testing of the new generation of products.
The changes in team vehicles this year have been much less than last year, with 17 of the 18 World Tour teams already confirming that they remain unchanged in terms of vehicles. The only bike trading team that has changed, they worked with Giant after the end of their one-year contract with Bianchi, and the men's and women's teams' vehicles were replaced by the Giant brand.
Shifting kit
The kit sponsors for each team have not changed for several years, and this year is a bit different, with Lotto Soudal announcing last October that the kits used by the team would be changed from Campagnolo to Shimano, the frame remaining unchanged, and the wheel sponsor being changed from Campagnolo to DT Swiss.
That is to say, of the 18 World Tour teams this year, the number of teams using Shimano has changed from 12 to 13, the Sram remaining unchanged, and the team using Campagnolo has changed from 4 to 3.
Currently, the Movistar Team and Trek–Segafredo use the 12-speed Red eTap package from SRAM, the AG2R Citr en Team, the Cofidis and the UAE Team Emirates use super Record from Campagnolo EPS kits, in addition to this, all 13 other teams use the Shimano kit.
Due to the global shortage of kits due to the epidemic, only 11 of the 13 teams using the Shimano kit this year are currently using the latest Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 12-speed kit, intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux and Israel-Premier Tech are still using the old 11-speed kit.
Cycling clothes
There have been some rotations in terms of cycling clothing sponsorship. Bioracer ended a partnership with DSM Racing in favor of Ineos Grenadiers, whose former jersey sponsor Castelli became a sponsor of The Quickstrotters.
At the same time, Nalini stopped sponsoring the Kofidis team's cycling suits and switched to sponsoring the DSM team and the Vendi team. Kofidice was sponsored by Decathlon's sub-brand Van Rysel for cycling clothing, while Vermarc single-mindedly sponsored Lotto Soudal.
Wheelset
Competition in the wheels is fierce, Fulcrum was kicked out this year, the Kofidis team no longer uses the Fulcrum brand of wheels, instead of astana Qazaqstan Team's Corima wheels, and Vanti team changed from Fulcrum to the wheels of the bicycle sponsor Cube sub-brand Newmen. Veteran wheels such as Mavic and Enve do not appear in the equipment lists of each team.
A list of equipment used by each fleet
Edit: Johnny
Image source: Infographic Gallery