Assos of Switzerland and EF Pro Cycling have unveiled a limited-edition "Ride In Peace" switch-out kit for the men's and women's 2026 Giro d'Italia, continuing the team's tradition of swapping out its regular pink livery to avoid clashing with the race's iconic maglia rosa. This year's switch-out has landed on a vision of peaceful relations across Earth and beyond
The collection, which went on sale on Monday, May 4, is the first Giro alternate kit produced under the multi-year apparel partnership Assos and EF announced at the start of 2026. From 2020 to 2025, Rapha held that role and produced the team's annual Giro changeouts, several of which were talking points in their own right, from the Palace Skateboards collaboration in 2020 to last year's white-and-diamond design. Assos inherits that creative brief and has gone in its own direction.
The design theme is space-flight-inspired. Assos's product pages describe silver seams and numeric detailing intended to recall "the suits worn during the first space flights," while the campaign tagline, "We Ride In Peace," frames the kit as something between a mission patch and a brand statement. The press release stated: "We made contact… A signal. A message: We ride in peace."
The collection
The range spans both race-specification pieces and consumer-oriented items. On the racing side, the Equipe RS Jersey S11 EF is a second-skin aero-cut jersey using Assos's miniCheck Tex fabric, while a long-sleeve version targets skinsuit-like aerodynamics for cooler stages. The Mille GT Jersey S11 Evo EF translates the same graphics onto Assos's endurance platform, built around the brand's AirCell body fabric and a new Eclipse textile on the sleeves. A casual long-sleeve Tactica jersey rounds out the tops.
Bib shorts come in two tiers: the Equipe R Bib Shorts S11 EF, described by Assos as replica racing bibs with a compressive, second-skin fit, and the Mille GT Bib Shorts S11 EF, a daily-ride endurance option with a plusher chamois insert. Both carry EF Pro Cycling's 2026 graphics.
"We believe innovation happens when you challenge conventions, both in how products perform and how they are expressed," Edwin Navez, Assos CEO, said in the press release. "Too often in this sport, performance and identity are treated separately. We don't see it that way."
Whether the cosmic theme lands with fans the way Rapha's Palace collab or the duck-print Giro jerseys did remains to be seen. But EF's annual kit swap has become one of the more anticipated rituals of the Giro calendar, and Assos has been given room to play.
The "Ride In Peace" collection is available in limited quantities at assos.com and through select global partners.
Cover image credit: ASSOS
