The 2026 pro cycling season is now in full swing – and Campagnolo groupsets no longer feature on any WorldTour team bikes.
The stalwart of pro racing has been giving way to Shimano in road racing since 1973, and to SRAM since 2007. This changing of the guard got me thinking, could we see one of the upcoming Chinese groupset brands in the front line of top-level racing chalking up victories soon?
It would have seemed ridiculous only a few short years ago to even consider anyone but the big three. However, now I’m not so sure.
Wheeltop, L-Twoo, TRP and the partnerships between Rotor and Wheeltop, and TRP and Classified have all arrived on the scene in recent years. All have come on in leaps and bounds since we started to see Chinese groupsets emerge.
The next step for wider acceptance and adpotion of these brands will be representation in pro racing. The inevitable goal will be taking a stage win in a major tour or top-level race.
A pipe dream?
It sounds somewhat far-fetched that a company such as Wheeltop or TRP could win stages at a race such as the Tour de France, when the current state of play sees Shimano and SRAM dominating the pro peloton so comprehensively.
But is it impossible? Forgotten group manufacturers such as Simplex, Mavic, FSA, Mafac, Stronglight and Suntour have all featured in the Tour, and Campagnolo has the history and the victories to outweigh them all with 43 wins (although the last of those came in 2020).
We think of Shimano as the dominant force in racing, but it certainly wasn’t always that way.
Shimano was first used in the Tour in 1973, and it first won in 1999 under Lance Armstrong. If you eliminate the Armstrong years, it took Shimano 40 years to win the Tour – in 2011 with Cadel Evans.
SRAM’s rise was much more meteoric. It was used at the Tour for the first time in 2007. Two years later, Alberto Contador won the race with a SRAM groupset.
Shimano’s rise, and then SRAM’s, are lessons in why we shouldn’t accept the hegemony in road bike groupsets– perhaps there is an opening for upstarts.
A brand with the budget and quality components to compete could make a huge impact relatively quickly in modern racing.
Electronic equalisers
With all three of the major players offering very similar electronic options now, and with brands such as L-Twoo and Wheeltop coming up with alternatives based on motors and electronic hardware, I think the stage could be set for one of these challengers to offer a viable alternative.
The increased accuracy associated with electronic drivetrains makes the playing field more level.
Yes, the likes of L-Twoo still need to make higher-grade options, but we’ve seen vast improvements in that area already. They also need to flesh out their ranges with cranksets and power meters, although there’s no lack of lightweight carbon cranks and power meters coming out of Asian manufacturers.
Financial fragility could mean opportunities
Pro cycling is an expensive sport with not much financial reward, and teams are frequently left struggling for sponsors and equipment.
It wouldn’t take much for one of the upstart Chinese brands to do a deal with a lesser-funded team and prove their worth at the highest level of performance. If this happened, they would suddenly be deemed a truly viable alternative.
Our prejudices around Chinese components are seemingly becoming unfounded, as we’ve reported in recent months. In my interview with Panda Podium’s Joe Whittingham, he said he believes that while people’s perceptions of Chinese cycling equipment are that it is poor-quality, the bikes are good enough to win the Tour de France.
It’s a similar situation to how Shimano would have been treated back in 1973, when everyone assumed your cycling equipment should be made in France or Italy.
With some of the fiscal challenges facing larger brands who have major race teams at retail, we could see more opportunities for groupset manufacturers that aren’t from the big three to gain exposure at the sharp end of racing.
We’ve already seen bike brands such as China’s X-Lab in the WorldTour, while both Wheeltop and L-Twoo sponsor Chinese UCI Continental teams. Perhaps we aren’t as far away from their breakthrough as I’d thought.
