The 2021 WorldTour season has made for a game of bike frame bingo as a number of teams traded equipment partners for the new year, and Ag2r-Citroën is the latest squad to reveal their new race machines.
The newly renamed French team unveiled its BMC team bike Monday as it gets in the saddle with the Swiss brand for the first time having ridden Eddy Merckx frames last year. Ag2r-Citroën will be atop of BMC bikes through 2023.
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The newly reformulated Ag2r-Citroën team – headlined by new signings Greg Van Avermaet and Bob Jungels – will be riding Campagnolo 12-speed electronic groupsets and Bora WTO wheels on its SLR01 road bikes, with Wahoo GPS head units providing the data.
2021 will be the first year Ag2r partners with Citroën in what will mark a year of change for the French squad as it brings in a bold new jersey, waves goodbye to long-time leader Romain Bardet and pivots toward the classics with Van Avermaet. Classics veteran Van Avermaet rode BMC bikes for eight seasons with BMC Racing before swapping to Giant with CCC Team.
“I’ve won Paris-Roubaix, the Rio Olympics, and all my major victories on the BMC Teammachine SLR01 and I have such fond memories of my time on BMC bikes,” Van Avermaet said recently. “The Ag2r-Citroën project was very attractive to me for various reasons and the chance to ride BMC again eventually made my decision an easy one to make.”
BMC is also continuing its relationship with Team Qhubeka-Assos (formerly NTT Pro Cycling) in 2021.
Meanwhile, the three-way bike trade between Jumbo-Visma, Team DSM (formerly Sunweb), and Team BikeExchange (formerly Mitchelton-Scott) has been completed, with all three teams showing off new-look machines in recent days.
Jumbo-Visma has traded their Bianchis for Cervélos, with the Italian bike brand moving on to work with Team BikeExchange. Scott, who used to partner with the Australian squad, has now moved on to working with Team DSM – who previously rode the Canadian brand Cervélo.
