Michelin becomes the official technical partner of the Picnic PostNL cycling team.
- Michelin establishes strategic partnership focused on performance and innovation
- Competition drives technological development
- Michelin leads an ambitious collaboration with a successful mixed-gender World Tour team
From January 2026, Michelin will become the official technical partner of the Picnic PostNL cycling team. This partnership marks Michelin's return to road cycling competitions at the highest level and is part of a shared goal: to push the boundaries of performance through innovation.
In addition to supplying tires, this partnership is based on close technical collaboration between the Michelin teams and the experts at the Picnic PostNL team.
The objective is clear: to demonstrate the performance of MICHELIN tires in extreme conditions and to jointly develop, with a World Tour team, the technologies and tires of the future.
True to its DNA, Michelin integrates this collaboration into its global strategy, transforming competition into a true innovation laboratory. Competition drives technological development.
As part of this collaboration, the cyclists of the Picnic PostNL team will use specially designed tires to be tested and validated in real racing conditions. The team will utilize the latest and most advanced technologies, developed in conjunction with Michelin.
Feedback from the cyclists in competition will allow for continuous performance optimization, with a dual objective: to support the team towards the podium and to transfer these innovations to consumer products.
Vincent Ledieu, Director of the Cycling Program at Michelin, states: "By partnering with the Picnic PostNL team, Michelin demonstrates its support for high-level road cycling."
Working closely with the cyclists and the entire team allows us to better understand the demands of the competition and continue to develop innovative tire technologies, while also supporting the ambitions of the Picnic PostNL team in the World Tour."
Picnic PostNL: a successful mixed team on the World Tour
The Picnic PostNL team competes at the highest level of world cycling and participates in all World Tour events. For the 2026 season, it is composed of 28 men, 17 women, and 16 cyclists in training, reflecting a modern, inclusive, and ambitious vision of high-performance sport. With several renowned cyclists in the Grand Tours and Classics, the team shares common values with Michelin such as performance and innovation.
Piet Rooijakkers, R&D specialist on the Picnic PostNL team, says: "Our collaboration with Michelin allows us to have top-quality equipment, perfectly adapted to the demands of the World Tour. Working closely with their engineers, we quickly transformed user feedback and performance data into concrete improvements. This continuous learning and optimization process is essential for the Picnic PostNL team, and this partnership represents a fundamental step towards improving performance."
