DERESTRICTED Colour of the Year 2026 · bikes, e-bikes and apparel · verified by data · provisional
Chalk.
#E5E5E5 · L 91 C 0 · family White · median of 906 measured colourways
+1.8 ptsshare gained by the same brands, 2025 to 2026, bikes, e-bikes and apparel combined
9.8%of every colourway measured this season
9.8%of apparel colourways, up 1.8 points for the same brands
1stlargest gain of any family; Yellow, Blue and Grey within a point
Measured on the 1 October 2026 count, when the call was made. The charts below follow every count since; the call is scored in public in November.
Our Colour of the Year is chosen by the market: it is the colour family that gained the most share across bikes, e-bikes and apparel this season, counted across the same brands, in the same kinds of product, in both seasons, and its hex is the median of every colourway in that family. Every claim on this page comes from the Colour Index, our yearly count of the colours on sale.
The trade calls it white, off-white, chalk, cloud, pumice or bone. In our count it was about 4% of what was on sale in 2022 and 2023, and about 10% in 2024 and 2025. In 2026 it grew more than any other family, most of it in apparel, though not by much: three other families finished within a point of it. Here is what that looks like when you count it.
The story
The colour of a market that wanted some calm.
Three years of black, dark grey and raw carbon left room for something lighter. White filled it.
5.6% → 9.8%White, share of apparel colourways, 2025 to 2026
Same brands both seasons: +1.8 points, more than any other family.
4.2% → 10.6%White on e-bikes, same brands
The sharpest move in the count, off a small base.
1.6% → 2.1%White on bicycle frames, same brands
Frames went darker instead: dark grey +7.7, grey +4.7.
−2.0 ptsEarth, same brands, bikes, e-bikes and apparel together
Desert and coyote had a real run and plenty called it for 2026. It lost ground. That is why we count.
White reads as clean and calm, and it photographs well against everything around it, in a trade that sells from photographs. It is also the easiest colour to over-order and the hardest to keep clean on a shop floor, and a family that doubles in a season can fall as fast. The November call for 2027, revealed below, will say whether frames follow apparel or apparel gives some back. If we are wrong, you will read it here.
Trajectory
How it got here.
White’s share of colourways, season by season, in each index, from the same table as the Index page. A season with fewer than five brands or forty colourways behind it, or one brand making up most of it, is left out, which is why a year can be missing.
Share of colourways, all marketsMeasured
Where it is rising
Where it is growing, and where it is not there yet.
Share by market in 2026, with the change since that market’s last published season, for the brands on sale in both. If you supply the trade, this tells you which lines to book. If you are a brand, it tells you whether you are early or late. Only published markets are shown.
What the trade calls it
The names for one colour.
The names brands gave to colourways that measured White in 2026, sized by how many carry each. A name appears once two or more brands use it, or when it is made only of colour and finish words, so nothing here points at a single brand. These are the names the trade is already using.
Next year
The November call for 2027.
Two calls for 2027, both revealed in public in November 2026 with a probability on each, and both scored in the open against the measured Index, hit or miss. The steady one comes out of the count. The Wildcard does not.
Measured · 2026 · This year
Chalk
How it is chosen. The colour family with the largest gain in share of colourways across bikes, e-bikes and apparel together, weighted by colourways and counted across the same brands, in the same kinds of product, in both seasons, so a brand or a product line we added cannot decide it. The hex is that family’s median for the year. The count decides.
If two families tie within a point, we name both. This year it was close. White gained 1.8 points, the most of any family, and one finished within a point of it: Grey gained 1.4. So we name that one with it: White leads, narrowly, and Grey is close behind. The result is provisional until the December 2026 count, the last of the 2026 season, when we re-run it and either confirm it or correct it, in public.
Colour of the Year · 2027
Revealed Nov 2026
Revealed November 2026, in public · the eighteen-model panel plus the studioInputs limited to seasons up to 2026. Scored a year later, in November 2027, against the measured 2027 Index, with a Brier score and the edge against persistence, whether it hits or misses.
The colour family we think grows most next season, with a probability on it. Anyone can read the call. Season subscribers get what sits behind it: the argument, the market-by-market numbers and the palette to ship it with. About the Season →
Wildcard · 2027
Revealed Nov 2026
Revealed November 2026, in public · picked by Piers from a computed shortlistOne colour and a palette, with a probability and a share to beat. Resolves against the 2030 Index, three seasons out, the same distance as this year’s.
The long call, made the same way as Flax. It will usually be wrong, and the card says so before anyone has to ask.
The other call
The Wildcard 2026.
The colour above came out of the count, which makes it the steady call. Every year we make a second one for a colour the count cannot see coming, and we publish it with the odds attached. It will usually be wrong. That is written on the card, before the fact, with the number.
Most of your range should be colours people have already shown they buy. One colourway or two can act as a lighthouse: they do not have to sell the most to do their job, they have to be seen. Being wrong about one costs you a single production run. Being right buys you two years as the brand that got there first.
Wildcard · 2026 · Named
Flax
How it is chosen. By hand, from a computed shortlist of colours the count cannot see yet, and then argued for in writing. No weighting, no median, no vote. Piers picks it, and his name is on it whichever way it goes.
It ships with four colours around it, because a colour on its own is not a decision: the cloth it sits on, the one that carries it and the one that finishes it. They are named after the cloth, so a CMF lead can repeat the whole palette in a room without notes.
It settles against the 2029 Index, not next season. A wildcard scored after one year would only ever be scored as a miss, and we would rather wait three years and be judged properly than look busy.
“Flax. We give this a 20% chance of reaching 2% or more of two-wheel colourways in the 2029 Index.”
Every part of that is checkable and was written before the fact: the colour, a probability, a share to beat, and the season that settles it. Piers picks it, from a computed shortlist, for a reason published beside it.
Named 23 September 2026 · scored against the 2029 Index · sha256 cae7b85a…390e
Why these names
Flax. It sits beside Chalk without trying: a plain material, one word, and it is the actual fibre the colour comes off. No army in it. The rest follow the same rule, so the palette has a story a CMF lead can repeat in a room. The colours are named after the cloth.
Why it is worth reading
The measured callOut of the count. Very likely. Worth little if we are right, because anyone holding the data could see it too. You plan the range on it.
The WildcardFrom outside the count. Not likely, and we publish the number. Worth a great deal if we are right. You take one slot on it.
Where we look
The categories that move first.
Snow and surf move on their own clock, and powersports on another. They are next: we will count them the same way, in an index kept deliberately separate so it can never leak into the two-wheel numbers, and a colour common in one and absent in the other is a colour with somewhere to go.
Neutrals are left out: black, white, grey and silver are the resting state of every category, so a gap in those is a fact about how two industries photograph their products rather than a signal about colour. Earth stays in. A gap is a shortlist, not a call, and deciding which gaps mean something is the judgement that gets scored.
Make it usable
A colour on its own is not a decision.
The leading candidate with the palette it needs to ship: the quiet colour it sits on, the colour that carries it and the one that finishes it. Open it in Play to move it around.
The record
How this year’s calls did.
The public colours of the year from the authorities the trade quotes, scored against the measured 2026 Index on one simple question: did the colour family they named grow? Our own calls go on this record too: the Wildcard 2026, named on 23 September 2026, and the two 2027 calls revealed in November 2026, each scored when its season is counted. We hold ourselves to exactly the same test.
2026
Pantone: Cloud Dancer, PANTONE 11-4201 (White)Scored on family. White gained 1.8 points for the same brands across bikes, e-bikes and apparel, the largest move of the season, with one family, Grey, within a point of it. A hit.
Gained share
2026
WGSN + Coloro: Transformative Teal (Cyan)Scored on family. Cyan lost 1.0 points for the same brands across the combined index: down in apparel and on bikes, up a little on e-bikes.
Lost share
2026
The trade's own story: Desert (Earth)The pick heard most often on the show floor, ours included. Earth lost 2.0 points for the same brands, after two seasons of growth. A miss, and we say so.
Lost share
2027
DERESTRICTED Colour of the Year 2027, revealed November 2026Scored a year later, in November 2027, against the measured 2027 Index, with a Brier score and the edge against persistence.
Revealed Nov
2029
DERESTRICTED Wildcard 2026: FlaxThe long call, named in the open on 23 September 2026 with a 20% chance of reaching 2% of two-wheel colourways, and left alone until the 2029 index settles it. A wildcard scored after one season would only ever be scored as a miss.
Named, open
2030
DERESTRICTED Wildcard 2027, revealed November 2026The next long call, made the same way as Flax and left alone until the 2030 Index settles it.
Revealed Nov
A public pick names a colour family without a probability, so we score it on whether that family gained or lost share. A Brier score needs a probability, and only our own calls carry one. Named forecasters are scored only on what they published themselves. The baseline for our calls is last season’s share, unchanged. Pantone is a registered trade mark of Pantone LLC, RAL of RAL gGmbH; colour names and codes are quoted only to say which call is being scored.
Use it
Take the colour with you.
The measured swatch in the files a design team uses, with the Lab values and the median hex, so the colour in your deck is the colour that was counted. The market-by-market detail behind it comes with the Season.