If you needed any more proof that the center of gravity in the cycling industry is shifting eastward, look no further than your handlebars.
For the 2026 season, the familiar beep of a Garmin Edge is going to be replaced by the melodious chirps of Chinese hardware in at least two team buses. Magene and iGPSPORT have officially entered the WorldTour chat, marking a significant breach in the Western tech monopoly that has dominated professional cycling since the days of the SRM PowerControl.
Never heard of Magene or iGPSport? We’re pretending we haven’t either, since the emails they used to send us were strange and confusing, and our requests for free product went unanswered.
Astana Goes Full Shenzhen
XDS-Astana, the team newly bankrolled by Chinese carbon giant XDS, will be running Magene computers.
When XDS bought into the Kazakh squad and replaced the venerable Wilier bikes with their own X-Lab machines, it was only a matter of time before the accessories followed suit. The team will now be a rolling billboard for the Chinese domestic market, swapping their Garmins for the Magene C606 Pro head unit.
But the deal goes deeper than just the screen you stare at while getting dropped. Magene is supplying the full ecosystem: L508 radar tail lights, H613 heart rate monitors, and even the T500 smart trainers for warm-ups.
Magene has been openly gunning for Shimano with their QED groupset (which isn’t on the WorldTour bikes… yet), so consider this a warning shot across the bow of every legacy component manufacturer.
The French Connection?
If Astana’s switch was a corporate synergy play, Groupama-FDJ’s move is the real head-scratcher.
The French squad, usually a bastion of traditionalism (and Lapierre bikes, until recently), has dumped Garmin to sign a deal with iGPSPORT.
Yes, the team of David Gaudu will now be navigating the Tour de France using the iGPSPORT BiNavi and BSC300T units. Like Astana, they are also adopting the brand’s heart rate straps and radar lights.
It is a massive coup for iGPSPORT, a brand that has spent years as the “budget alternative” on Amazon and is now thrust into the spotlight of the biggest races on Earth. It also suggests that the check was either very large, or the tech has finally caught up to the point where a WorldTour DS doesn’t scream at the sight of it.
The End of the Beep Monopoly?
For years, the WorldTour computer market was a two-horse race between Garmin and Wahoo. The entry of Magene and iGPSPORT changes the math.
These brands iterate fast, undercut on price, and are clearly willing to spend to legitimize their products. The question is no longer “are they good enough?”—Groupama-FDJ clearly thinks so. The question is whether the average Sunday club rider is ready to trade their familiar interface for a challenger brand just because David Gaudu uses one.