Rapha’s latest kit for Team Amani is said to pay homage to East Africa’s “rich cultural traditions in cloth textiles”, while expressing the belief that the region will become for cycling what it has for running.
“East Africa is a heartland of record-breaking runners responsible for incredible feats of human endurance but the region's potential for cycling is largely untapped. That's where Amani comes in. Based for much of the year in Iten's "Home of Champions", Amani riders train in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley at 2,400m above sea level,” Rapha says.
Team Amani was founded in 2020 and addresses the inequalities that have kept African cyclists out of the top tier of the sport, Rapha says.
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“From limited access to international races and lack of high-performance infrastructure, to barriers in visa, travel, and sponsorship systems, the obstacles have been many – but not insurmountable,” Rapha continues.
Having started in gravel racing, the women’s team stepped up to the UCI Women’s Continental last year. It now aims to take its success to the road, and to reach the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift by 2028, alongside the Giro d'Italia Women and La Vuelta Femenina.
Team Amani’s 2026 kit features recurring motifs representing sunshine, peace and energy. The Adey Abeda flower, an emblem of the Ethiopian new year, is used across garments.
“Inspired by multi-hued fabrics that reflect centuries of craftsmanship, Rapha's 2026 collection for Team Amani brings the heritage of East African printing and materials to proven aerodynamic apparel. From the Kanga of Kenya to the Congolese Kuba, in East Africa, cloth is culture. Patterns and materials are passed through generations,” Rapha says.
Reflective of this craft heritage, Rapha has introduced irregularities into the design to represent hand-woven textiles based on natural dyes that have been tweaked to match a “contemporary palette”.
To launch the new kit, Rapha worked with former bike racer and photographer Finley Newmark and Nairobi-based stylist Kennedy Mirema. They incorporated the “foundational materials of East Africa”, including Sisal, a fibre common across Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia for making traditional attire. This is used in the campaign to create a headpiece as “a tribute to the craftsmanship and textures that define the region”.
Rapha has been an official sponsor of Team Amani since 2024, despite a shake-up elsewhere at the brand.
Last year, Rapha ended its partnership with EF Pro Cycling after seven years, before announcing a new partnership with Team USA.
Rapha’s CEO Fran Millar said the relationship with EF Pro Cycling had “gotten tired” and that working with Team USA is a way to speak to a “new and different demographic”.
