The dastardly dozen: The 12 ugliest pro cycling kits of all time… Where does the Ineos Grenadiers’ orange and grey monstrosity rank?

Mirror, mirror on the team bus wall, which is the ugliest cycling kit of them all? Well, recency bias may be at play here, but I’m sure the same thought popped into quite a few of your heads: Ineos, 2026.

It’s fair to say the British squad’s latest design choice – a bizarre blend of bright orange and white, paired, inexplicably, with grey shorts – has divided cycling fans around the world. Actually, scratch that, it’s united them all in a shared hatred of what is, let’s face it, a sartorial car crash (expect for white short-loving Adam Blythe, of course).

“Offensively awful.”

“Truly terrible.”

“A ‘breach of contract’ kit.”

Those were just a few of the comments made in the aftermath of the Ineos Grenadiers’ kit release back in December. But at least they’ve had the sense to ditch the grey shorts for some good old fashioned black bibs for the often-rainy early-season European stage races and classics (which makes you think, why go for grey in the first place, then?).

To be honest, Ineos’ orange-grey meltdown is nothing new. Pro cycling has a long, not-so-illustrious history of fashion disasters, from DIY cosplay to painted-on abs (looking at you, HTC). So, inspired by Ineos’ new questionable design, I decided to list my ‘top’ ugly cycling kits.

Obviously, this is all down to personal taste, which means I skipped the much-derided pink and yellow Chazal kit of the 1990s, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Barbie Movie (and I mean that as a compliment).

Anyway, here’s my own dastardly dozen – and please let us know your ‘favourite’ ugly kit in the comments.

Ineos Grenadiers, 2026

The grey shorts, the wannabe Land Rover… I feel ill. A visual and style match made in team Tinder hell with a broken screen and a dodgy thumb flip? I guess there was a visual hint (or alarm) of things to come for the British team when TotalEnergies came on board as sponsor last year, and things would only get worse on the optical front from then on.

Personally, I always found the Ineos kit a tad lacking anyway, to say the least, but with Geraint Thomas strutting it, I guess we all had to squint and bear it.

As for TotalEnergies, what can we say? The kit of their namesake French team is pretty dire itself, mix it all together with the Ineos theme, and throw in some sickly grey shorts, and yeah, not great. I have the feeling there’ll be a few riders gasping to win national titles this year in order to get out of those grey shorts.

Castorama (1990-95)

When Monsieur Bob Le Builder got left with a box of Lego and the chance to design the team kit for the French Castorama team, visual hell broke loose in the peloton. It’s crazy to think the late, great Laurent Fignon had a hand in the design of this DIY abomination, paying homage to the uniform worn by the home improvement retailer’s staff.

Rumour has it that riders had to deliver paint and nails by bike on no-race weekends, and tiles after a bad showing.

Footon-Servetto (2010)

Spanish squad Footon-Servetto’s riders must have been shocked when they rocked up to their first winter training camp to be greeted by these ghastly skin-beige coloured jerseys and shorts. And don’t forget that massive footprint (they were selling shoes after all).

The team general manager, Mauro Ginaetti, a former top pro and now head of the UAE Emirates, seems to have had a hand in a few, ahem, dodgy team kits over the years.

Astana (2006)

Sadly, cycling photography was all in full colour by 2006, the year that Alexander Vinokourov and his Astana team rode out in their full cyan-pale blue team kit, along with matching shorts. Things didn’t improve much over the years that followed, but I guess you could say that original Astana kit always stood out – a bit like Vino’s drug test results.

Phonak (2000s)

Phonak were perhaps one of the most questionable pro teams of all time (I know, it’s a crowded field), and not just due to their rag-tag roster of questionable stars.

Phonak was a hearing aid manufacturer owned by the late Andy Rihs, a man who was crazy about the sport of cycling. So much was his enthusiasm for bikes that he went and bought Swiss bike brand BMC, too. The Phonak team was the passion-led meeting of his hearing aid business and his new bike company.

Swiss precision didn’t quite arrive on time with the squad’s eye-wateringly ugly kit, all green, white, and yellow, with a huge great ear plastered on the front. Floyd Landis did, however (with some extra help, of course).

BigMat Auber 93 (1990s)

What is it with French building and DIY suppliers sponsoring cycling teams, and then making some of the most tragically blocky team kits of all time?

BigMat Auber 93 have been around since the early ‘90s, and have gone through various guises and disguises over the years. To be fair, they have surprised with a couple of half decent team kits over the past 30 years, but their hit ratio stands at about 10 per cent to the good.

There have been so many shocking BigMat kits over the years, but perhaps the worst was the Castorama dungaree-rivalling (or topping) approach they took in the ‘90s, which was a rung too far up the dodgy builder’s ladder.

EF’s Palace Giro d’Italia collaborations (especially 2020)

When seemingly suffering from lockdown stir craziness, EF-Pro Cycling turned up at the re-scheduled Giro d’Italia in a ‘one race only’ special edition kit, somehow drawn up between Rapha and skateboard company Palace. Eyebrows raised (and eyes closed), questions were asked, attention was gained – job done.

To be honest, some of EF’s one-off kits have been fun (though the novelty has worn off a bit now). However, for that duck-tastic 2020 version, I think I’d need a fair old dose of dayglo-infused fire water before daring to wear it outside.

Belkin (2014)

When Belkin turned out in their bland and industrially techy green, white, and black team kit in 2014 it felt like they were stuck between a big rock and a sandy place in kit design terms.

From the often equally, but more dazzlingly, questionable Rabobank kit they’d ridden in the past, Belkin – the phoenix from Rabobank’s EPO-strewn ashes – seemed like a digital blip before they would soon transform into Visma, and one worth forgetting from a kit point of view. Restart and reset?

Columbia-HTC (2009)

Rising, or rather side-stepping away from the old Telekom team, which was left smouldering in a great huge pile of unholy pink tainted smoke, came Highroad, made from the remnants of the once mighty but fallen German squad.

Over the years Highroad, in its various forms, and with its new ID, scored some great victories, many of them thanks to Mark Cavendish, including his last-gasp win at the 2009 Milan-Sanremo – which no doubt masked the questionable team kit for many. Let’s face it, no-one wants to see Marvel-style abs on a cycling kit.

Intermarché–Wanty (2021-2025)

It has to be said that the French don’t have a monopoly when it comes to producing terrible pro team kit. There are a whole ruck of smaller (and bigger) Belgian teams strutting around in some of worst kits ever seen.

Take Intermarché–Wanty, for example, the underdogs who scored big on results, but not with their fashion choices. While the last few years of the team’s existence (before its merger with Lotto this winter) fared a bit better on the sartorial front, those earlier billboard clashers were a tad frites and chocolate with a generous coating of mayo too far.

AG2R-La Mondiale (2011-2023)

For a brazen 13 years French team AG2R strutted around in brown shorts, and somehow. they got away with it.

Did they ever grow on us? Well, kind of. Brown even caught on with cargo short wearing bike packers and graveleurs, for a while. Thankfully, the team have had a major spruce up of late when it comes to their kit, and the brown shorts are now lingering in the lofts of Europe alongside flares and creeper shoes.

IDRD-Bogota Humana San Mateo-Solgar (2014)

Finally, let’s all shake our heads in exasperation one last time at the pinnacle of bad cycling kits – Bogota Humana’s flesh-coloured horror show from 2014, a frankly ridiculous, obscene design which prompted a huge backlash and was described by then-UCI president Brian Cookson as “unacceptable by any standard of decency”.

Well, at least the new Ineos kit isn’t that bad, I suppose.

Dishonourable mentions

Of course, it’s hard to limit a list of cycling’s worst kits to just 12, so dishonourable mentions must go to Milram, Festina, Tonton Tapis, Predictor-Lotto, Fassa Bortolo, Le Groupement, Toshiba, Androni, Rock Racing, Carrera’s denim, Alpecin’s double denim… I could go on.

Call the fashion police on the lot of them.

Do you agree with Steve’s list? Did he miss out your ‘favourite’ ugly jersey? And is the new Ineos kit really that bad? Let us know in the comments…