{"id":171319,"date":"2018-11-09T14:38:55","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T14:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=171319"},"modified":"2018-11-12T08:42:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T08:42:44","slug":"toys-and-exhausts-weirdest-cycling-sponsors-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/11\/09\/toys-and-exhausts-weirdest-cycling-sponsors-of-all-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Toys and Exhausts: Weirdest Cycling Sponsors of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Given how entwined caffeine is with performance, it\u2019s easy to understand why Segafredo, the \u201cAmbassador of the Italian Coffee Culture\u201d, would sponsor a pro cycling team. But how on earth can you justify these strange partnerships?<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Alpecin<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>If you think there\u2019s no compelling link between shampoo and cycling, think again. German shampoo manufacturers, Alpecin, put so much caffeine in their product that they felt confident using the tagline \u2018doping for your hair\u2019. Then along came Jan Ullrich.<\/p>\n<lite-youtube videoid=r2hdGd9q7DM params=\"enablejsapi=1\" style=\"background-image: url('https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi_webp\/r2hdGd9q7DM\/maxresdefault.webp');\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<p>Unfortunately, Jan Ullrich got slapped with a doping ban soon after Alpecin wrote him a cheque, and the tagline looked less than clever. Fortunately, it wasn\u2019t enough to dissuade Alpecin from investing in cycling, and Team Katusha-Alpecin now have, in my humble opinion, the best-looking kit\/bike combo in the peloton.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Baby-Dump<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Online Dutch baby-shop doesn\u2019t have a flattering translation in English. For our Dutch readers, \u201cdump\u201d pretty much translates as uitwepsel &#8211; Google at your own risk. Even so, Baby-Dump is still an off-the-wall sponsor. But there may be some method in this baby shop\u2019s madness.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ls0ImC30rZg<\/p>\n<p>First-time fathers must put their child first \u2013 and that means taking better care of themselves.\u00a0 Cycling may take them away from the family, but they\u2019re getting themselves in shape \u2013 and their wives rarely complain about that. Maybe Baby-Dump have done their research after all.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Bonjour<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>At the turn of the century, the French classifieds paper, Bonjour, decided to sponsor a pro team \u2013 and that team eventually went on to become Direct-\u00c9nergie. There\u2019s something apt about a print-publication sponsoring a cycling team, given that both require no external energy source to operate.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/11\/a037f76ea8c51cae8d0072a727065c85.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-171324\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/11\/a037f76ea8c51cae8d0072a727065c85.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"612\" height=\"612\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But while newspapers and magazines have fallen by the wayside, bicycles have continued to thrive in the digital age, and happily co-exist with motor-vehicles. It now seems weird to think that any cycling team was sponsored by a print-rag as recently as the year 2000.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Androni Giocattoli \u2013 Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>One of the most formidably named teams is also notable for the strange alliance of sponsors.\u00a0 Giocattoli was a games and toy shop for very young children, whereas Serramenti is a large PVC window retailer. They combined to form a pretty decent Italian racing team.<\/p>\n<lite-youtube videoid=UL50sN1GpWs params=\"enablejsapi=1\" style=\"background-image: url('https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi_webp\/UL50sN1GpWs\/maxresdefault.webp');\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<p>Here we see Michele Scarponi give Philippe Gilbert a run for his money in the Lombardia tour \u2013 perhaps Serramenti were the inspiration for dealing with the wettest of conditions. The cyclists certainly could have done with some PCV protection.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Ebersp\u00e4cher<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>This is truly the weirdest of cycling sponsors as Ebersp\u00e4cher are a German company that develop and supply exhaust technology, vehicle heaters, and air-conditioning systems to the automotive industry. They\u2019re also involved in developing electronic networking in vehicles. They sponsor Danny Macaskill.<\/p>\n<lite-youtube videoid=dr-wLhP_HpM params=\"enablejsapi=1\" style=\"background-image: url('https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi_webp\/dr-wLhP_HpM\/maxresdefault.webp');\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<p>Perhaps we shouldn\u2019t be surprised at this weirdest of alliances, but we\u2019re witnesses to the increasing trend for transport integration, so maybe it\u2019s just another example of forward thinking. After all, how long do you think it will be before your bike is talking to your car?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Given how entwined caffeine is with performance, it\u2019s easy to understand why Segafredo, the \u201cAmbassador of the Italian Coffee Culture\u201d, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":171325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[2438],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-171319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-cycling-sponsors"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Toys and Exhausts: Weirdest Cycling Sponsors of All Time - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Given how entwined caffeine is with performance, it\u2019s easy to understand why Segafredo, the \u201cAmbassador of the Italian Coffee Culture\u201d, would sponsor a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/11\/09\/toys-and-exhausts-weirdest-cycling-sponsors-of-all-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Toys and Exhausts: Weirdest Cycling Sponsors of All Time\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Given how entwined caffeine is with performance, it\u2019s easy to understand why Segafredo, the \u201cAmbassador of the Italian Coffee Culture\u201d, would sponsor a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/11\/09\/toys-and-exhausts-weirdest-cycling-sponsors-of-all-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-09T14:38:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-11-12T08:42:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/11\/Baby-Dump-CVR.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Christopher Ashley\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/11\/09\/toys-and-exhausts-weirdest-cycling-sponsors-of-all-time\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/11\/09\/toys-and-exhausts-weirdest-cycling-sponsors-of-all-time\/\",\"name\":\"Toys and Exhausts: Weirdest Cycling Sponsors of All Time - 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