One of the stranger (or charming, depending on who you ask) aspects of professional cycling is the perennial churn of private sponsors and teams, with the best riders in the world regularly turned into a pedalling billboard for whoever is paying the bills.
Over the years we’ve seen more than a few amusing, controversial and downright whacky sponsors in the sport, from bizarre businesses hoping to get some Tour de France airtime to the rise of the now-common deep-pocketed state-funded backing, sportswashing, greenwashing and the rest of it.
Watch a pro bike race and you may witness a contest between someone wearing a caffeine shampoo-branded kit, taking on a rival promoting laminate flooring, versus a third rider sporting an advert for the entire nation of Bahrain.
> Cycling’s most controversial sponsors
At least with the nations it’s obvious where the money’s coming from — but what about those less obvious ones? Here are the most obscure sponsors of pro cycling’s peloton.
CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto
Needless to say we’re not here for Canyon or SRAM. zondacrypto (not capitalised, of course) is “one of the Central and Eastern Europe region’s largest regulated cryptocurrency exhange marketplaces”. Founded in Poland, the country of star rider and Tour de France winner Katarzyna Niewiadoma, it was initially launched as a platform for Bitcoin but now hosts trading on a number of cryptocurrencies and apparently has 1.3m active users.
Over to team manager Ronny Lauke for the marketing talk… “As we evolve as a team, it’s essential to align with partners that share our drive for innovation and ambition. The dynamic approach to digital finance that zondacrypto has, coupled with its vision for the future, makes it the perfect partner to help us push boundaries both on and off the bike. Together as CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto, we look forward to forging new paths and continuing to elevate women’s cycling globally…”
It’s always good for the obscurity rating when you visit a website and are met with this…
Obscurity: 3/5, fun name but is crypto that obscure in 2025?
Instagram followers: 18,500
UAE Team Emirates (Analog)
UAE Team Emirates’ latest sponsor drummed up a fair bit of chatter on social media, with fans accusing the team of “sportswashing” by having a UAE-based artificial intelligence start-up onboard. Analog had just 14 Twitter followers when the announcement was made, its Instagram following now up to the heady heights of the 200s.
UAE Team Emirates are no strangers to obscure sponsors, the men’s team having the letters XRG tagged onto the team name for the next six seasons as part of a partnership with the… *checks notes*… international energy and chemicals investment company “committed to accelerating the transformation of global energy systems”. The women’s team has ADQ in its name too, that an investment company and strategic partner of Abu Dhabi’s government.
AI start-up Analog, the team’s official technology sponsor, is the star of the obscure sponsor show, however. Launched during the Davos Forum 2023 by Abu Dhabi-based Brazilian engineer Alex Kipman, it received an undisclosed amount of funding from another UAE-based AI and cloud computing giant G42 last year, with the latter also sponsoring F1 team Mercedes-AMG Petronas.
Anyway, they seem to be enjoying watching Tadej Pogačar rampage around Europe wearing the company’s logo on his collarbone…
Obscurity: 5/5, what do you mean you haven’t heard of UAE-based artificial intelligence start-up Analog AI?
Instagram followers: 250
AlUla
The men and women of Jayco AlUla and Liv AlUla Jayco are backed by the ancient city of AlUla in Saudi Arabia’s Medina Province. Following in the footsteps of the classic state-driven investment of UAE, Bahrain, Astana, Israel, it’s the cycling equivalent of Newcastle United suddenly whipping out a green away kit once the Public Investment Fund got involved.
AlUla went one step further and the AlUla Tour represents the rebranded Saudi Tour, as won by Tom Pidcock earlier this year, his on-brand leader’s jersey seen below.
As well as an obligatory sponsor-friendly winner’s photo…
Obscurity: 3/5, Visit Scotland or Welcome to Yorkshire on steroids
Instagram followers: 344,000
Team Picnic PostNL
One of the more fun names in the WorldTour this season is Team Picnic PostNL. Even better it’s the same name for both the men’s and women’s teams, so double the fun. Picnic is a Dutch grocery delivery service and app. Handy for when you’ve bonked and need a banana to get you home.
Obscurity: 2/5, maybe just our British bias to blame for having not heard of it before… it’s probably well-known in the Netherlands, but definitely more obscure than the underrated chocolate bar of the same name
Instagram followers: 107,000
CERATIZIT Pro Cycling Team
One of those names that you know and would recognise in the real world, but only because of how many hours we spend watching cycling. Watch bike races, you’ll learn about manufacturers of high-quality precision tools for the cutting tools industry.
Based in Luxembourg, Ceratizit is one of the world’s leading international suppliers in the cutting tool industry, no less. They’ve got what you need, whether you’re “turning, drilling, milling, parting, boring, spinning or clamping”.
Obscurity: 4/5, been sponsoring the team for half a decade, had no clue what they did until today
Instagram followers: 13,000 (on Facebook; turning, drilling, milling, parting, boring, spinning or clamping doesn’t make for good Insta content apparently)
XDS Astana
If ever there’s going to be a WorldTour team sponsored by a bike brand that you’ve never heard of, decent money says its XDS Astana. Or maybe you read our recent article about the X-LAB AD9 aero road bike (as used by Astana on cycling’s WorldTour) now being on sale in the UK at £2,553 for the frameset.
XDS Carbon-Tech is a pretty big deal, to be fair. It’s the world’s largest carbon fibre factory, based in Shenzhen, China. However, the X-Lab’s move into the WorldTour also perhaps promises to be the first time we’ve seen a Chinese bike brand establish itself at cycling’s top level. Maybe its inclusion will look very silly in a few years time, but for now, to many fans watching on it may as well be just another nondescript finance or tech sponsor.
Obscurity: 3/5
Instagram followers: 871
Soudal Quick-Step… and their 49 sponsors
If we ever run a ‘most iconic sponsors’ feature then Quick-Step will be in it. Soudal Quick-Step’s inclusion is more to do with its list of 49 official sponsors. 49! Two title sponsors, seven main sponsors, eight co-sponsors and 32 official partners, give their commercial department a sponsor-funded raise. It’s a shame they’re not all plastered across the jersey in the chaotic style of the old Androni kits but still, there’s got to be some obscure ones in there.
In the full list of 49 you’ve got all the usual component brands, other cycling products, and then… Safety Jogger Works and its extensive range of workplace safety products. Brilliantly obscure, but a disappointing lack of hi-vis vest and safety hat for Mr Lefevere here…
Obscurity: 5/5
Instagram followers 5,500
Arkéa
Any French readers will probably be rolling their eyes at Arkéa’s inclusion, this the banking group behind the team of Arnaud Démare and Kévin Vauquelin. Think Lloyds-Travelodge if they were British.
Obscurity: 1/5
Instagram followers: 8,235
Wagner Bazin WB
UCI ProTeam Wagner Bazin WB is our new favourite pro cycling sponsor, the André Bazin brand a specialist in delicatessen products for manufacturers, wholesalers and mass retailers. A family business, based exclusively in France, the company employs more than 430 people to manufacture more than 27 tonnes of cured meats, delicatessen meats and cooked meats per year. Here’s the team’s riders on a factory visit…
Obscurity: 4/5
Instagram followers: 12,300
Uno-X
We’d always assumed everyone’s favourite Scandi cycling team was backed by just another tech or financial services company. Uno-X certainly has a dull, techy ring to it. So imagine our delight when we discovered it’s in fact a chain of unmanned service stations throughout Norway and Denmark. Again, just like any French readers rolling their eyes at the suggestion Arkéa is obscure, any Norwegians and Danes are more than welcome to shout abuse and throw tomatoes. Anyway, great kit, great sponsor.
Obscurity: 3/5, fair play for making what’s essentially Team Welcome Break sound cool
Instagram followers: 265 on their Norwegian page, sorry that’s 266 as I couldn’t resist seeing unmanned service station content on my feed
Blast from the past
Obscure sponsors are nothing new, here’s a few of the road.cc team’s favourites from seasons past…
Agritubel: Tubular metal products for the breeding of cows and other livestock (animal husbandry as the website calls it). Equal parts bizarre and hilarious. Enough to put you off your tea, but also brilliantly obscure. 4/5.
Le Groupement: Was it a pyramid scheme? An evangelist sect? A cult? Who knows? It’s now widely accepted that the team’s financial problems were tied to the negative publicity sponsor Le Groupement Européen des Professionnels du Marketing attracted. Why? Probably something to do with the French door-to-door sales organisation being a pyramid scheme, relying on 50,000 independent salespeople selling goods to friends and family.
It’s a good sign for your obscurity score when even now many still don’t really know what it was. Ironically, probably loses a few marks for how famous its obscurity made it. 2/5.
NextHash: Despite sounding like what an inebriated British tourist might call for during an Amsterdam stag do, NextHash was also the final iteration of the African WorldTour outfit run by Doug Ryder.
Investigative reporter Iain Treloar’s best guess is it’s a trading platform called NexInter Exchange which uses another company’s software. Then there’s the ‘Token’ which allows buyers to “purchase security tokens under the same conditions as professional investors and secure the current and future benefits of being among the first to join.” Right.
NextHash had little to no online presence when their sponsorship began (less than 100 Facebook followers and around 500 on Twitter)… and in response to a question from a cycling fan, the former CEO Daniele Mensi called the company “crooks”.
Clear as mud. 5/5.
ITeamNova: The (very) short-lived ITeamNova from c2002 or so — an attempt at a fan-owned or partly fan-owned team. It wasn’t successful. 4/5.
Blanco: Having confirmed the team’s financial security for 2013, Rabobank no longer wanted to be involved, leaving a fully functioning team but no sponsor.
Hence Blanco. 5/5, when it comes to obscurity you can’t beat a sponsor that doesn’t exist.
Chazal – Vanille et Mûre: Vanille et Mûre was children’s perfume, while numerous people in the road.cc office went down a Chazal rabbit hole and believe it’s a French meat distributor. 4/5.
2 thoughts on “The most obscure sponsors of the pro cycling peloton — from crypto to state-backed funding, we dive deeper into some of cycling’s more peculiar patrons”
Good bazim team photo, and
Good bazim team photo, and unmanned service stations, what madness is this…
Arkea is more like a French
Arkea is more like a French First Direct than a Lloyds