This past summer, when we visited their Italian bike assembly factory to preview a still unreleased Infinito CV road bike and two new gravel bikes, Bianchi also teased their return to the WorldTour. After several years out of the top echelon of professional road racing, Bianchi’s new leadership promised the brand planned to “reassert its rightful position” at the front of the pro peloton.
They even teased that we’d see a new MY27 Bianchi raced in 2026, flashing only this outline to whet our appetites.
We’ll, now we know who will be piloting the new Bianchi bikes – Team Bahrain Victorious.
Team Bahrain Victorious racing Bianchi road bikes in 2026
Merida recently shared that Bahrain Victorious would split with their previous bike partner after 9 years. And now, we see Bianchi take over as their new bike provider and technical sponsor, in what is described as a “landmark multi-year agreement”.
“At the core of the sporting project envisioned by Bianchi and Team Bahrain Victorious is the creation of an integrated ecosystem between athletes and high-performance products with Italian design, developed by Bianchi Reparto Corse. This model is driven by data, continuous athlete feedback, and a shared ambition to express maximum performance in every race scenario, with the clear goal of targeting some of the most prestigious competitions on the UCI calendar.”
For now, Bahrain Victorious are on custom dark transparent blue-to-Celeste fade painted Oltre RC bikes, revealing the texture of the carbon material layup of Bianchi’s “hyperbike” that debuted in 2022.
Only, just minus the bolt-on headtube air deflectors, which the UCI did not approve of.
The wild one-piece swoopy carbon cockpit with its own aero scoop hole is still there, plus the airflow directing ribs on the handlebar and fork legs.
Otherwise, it looks like the team is still racing Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupsets, Vision Metron 60 RS carbon-spoked aero wheels, and Continental GP 5000 TT tubeless tires. Breaking from Shimano, this team bike build features an ultralight Elilee X310 carbon crankset with a Sigeyi AXO power meter spider.
Bianchi says an Oltre RC Team Bahrain Victorious replica edition will go on sale in 2026, so fans can get that same look.
What’s next?
As for the unreleased Oltre, Bianchi hasn’t received UCI approval for any new bikes in 2025. So not even the coming soon 2026 Infinito CV is approved yet (even though that bike I photographed in July did already have a UCI sticker on it.)
Besides the vague but unsurprising hints in that sketch of a new integrated cockpit, angular fork to frame transitions, a rear wheel cutout, and wide-set seatstays… we know little else about what we can only assume is the next generation Oltre Reparto Corse. Shut down by the UCI over the bolt-on air deflectors, Bianchi likely will incorporate any new aero tech directly into the new frameset. So the UCI can’t tell them to simply take it off to race.
In the meantime, we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for a new bike in the Bahrain Victorious team paddock at road races in the new year.
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