Welcome to Cyclingnews' first Women's WorldTour team bikes guide, where you'll find a full rundown of the 2021 Women's WorldTeams, the bikes they'll be riding and the equipment they'll be using. Just like the men's WorldTour bikes, we'll be looking at any changes that have occurred season to season, and in examples where the women's team is a mirror of the men's squad, we'll be highlighting any differences.
We're going to focus our attention on the UCI registered Women's WorldTeams, along with the notable inclusion of Marianne Vos' new team. As a newly formed team, the Jumbo-Visma Women's team officially sit at UCI Women's Continental level in 2021 alongside 31 other teams including Lotto Soudal Ladies, Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling, Rally Cycling and more. However, the Dutch outfit have expressed intent to climb to WorldTeam status in 2022, and with the signing of Vos, they clearly have the talent on board to make it happen.
In fact, the 2021 season sees the number of Women's WorldTeams grow from eight to nine, as the newly named SD Worx (formerly Boels-Dolmans) now have the long-term financial security required to qualify for WorldTeam status.
Same but different
Of the nine teams, five teams share a name, a title sponsor, and/or facilities with their male counterparts. These include Greenedge Cycling (formerly Mitchelton Scott), Team DSM (formerly Team Sunweb), Movistar, Trek-Segafredo, and FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope. With the inclusion of Women's Continental team Jumbo-Visma, the women's peloton experienced the same triangle of bike swaps as the men, with Greenedge Cycling swapping their Scott bikes for Bianchi, Team DSM swapping Cervélo for Scott and Jumbo-Visma stepping in to take Cervélo.
All of those five teams use the same bike brands as the men's teams, however, the peripheral equipment does vary slightly more. Jumbo-Visma Women, for example, will use Cervélo's own-brand Reserve wheels instead of Shimano and FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope will wear Poli clothing instead of Alé.
Liv takes up the Giant mantle
As we touched on in our men's WorldTour bikes roundup, when Polish footwear company CCC pulled funding from the sport, the men's CCC Team was forced to fold, meaning in 2021, Giant Bicycles will be missing from the pro peloton for the first time since 1997.
A positive sign for the women's sport, however, is that Liv-CCC was able to continue. The team has renamed to Liv Racing and will continue to fly the WorldTour flag for the Taiwanese bike manufacturing brand.
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Groupset wars
We're still waiting for confirmation from Liv Racing on their choice of equipment, but assuming they continue to use SRAM groupsets into 2021, then SRAM edges out Shimano with a score of five to three with Campagnolo taking the final spot aboard the Cipollini bikes of Alé BTC Ljubljana.
Josh is Associate Editor of Cyclingnews – leading our content on the best bikes, kit and the latest breaking tech stories from the pro peloton. He has been with us since the summer of 2019 and throughout that time he's covered everything from buyer's guides and deals to the latest tech news and reviews.
On the bike, Josh has been riding and racing for over 15 years. He started out racing cross country in his teens back when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s, racing at a local and national level for Somerset-based Team Tor 2000. These days he rides indoors for convenience and fitness, and outdoors for fun on road, gravel, 'cross and cross-country bikes, the latter usually with his two dogs in tow.
