Legendary cycling brand Bianchi is joining forces with Bahrain Victorious starting in the 2026 season, after the team’s long run with their previous supplier Merida ended.

From 2026 onward, Bahrain Victorious riders will use Bianchi’s full Reparto Corse lineup: the aero road bike Oltre RC and the all-rounder Specialissima RC for road races, the time-trial machine Aquila RC, and the gravel-ready Impulso RC.

The Oltre IMO, is not a looker…

The two sides say the collaboration aims to “create new iconic moments and build the future upon Bianchi’s remarkable legacy,” nimbly sidestepping suggestions that Bahrain – much like UAE (Pogacar’s only flaw, perhaps?) – is using cycling and other sports as a means to cleanse its otherwise terrible human rights record.

Journalist Jonathan Liew had this to say on the relationship between cycling and these states where even basic human rights are denied many people: “In many ways cycling is the ideal sportswashing partner: a sport with no real tradition of political activism, where cash-strapped teams are generally none too precious about where the money is coming from.”

Cash-strapped or not, road cycling in particular is a sport that has always seemed to me be be eerily lacking in compassion and empathy. I cannot back up this feeling in any concrete terms, but if you look at the hardness of the top pros, the mafia-like Omerta – which persists – and the insularity in general of it all, it’s makes for a very tough environment, where self-expression is at best frowned upon, and at worst seen as a weakness, a betrayal of the code.

And when I say insularity, I’m talking about the conditions created by the sport’s internal, often exclusive culture, and its hierarchical nature, where people are judged rarely if at all upon their character and ethics, but rather on the power they can produce and races they have won. Need I mention Armstrong? Ok, I won’t. This murky cocktail is unlikely to produce people that will (or even can) stop to consider the wider ramifications of riding / working for dodgy states – and brands are brands, the very nature of them is to chase profit by any means necessary, so they aren’t going to be having any qualms, unless public opinion turns, and then they fly coop, looking for somewhere else to roost, their image largely unaffected.

One other point to consider is that professional road cycling is a team sport without stadia, without paying fans that turn up every other week, whose whims and fancies, if collectively held, must be considered. There is no fan power in this sport, so why should they care what we think?

Anyway, Team Bahrain Victorious have a new sponsor…