Teams & Riders The Great Big Cycling Transfers, Extensions, and Rumours Thread

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Lol. Per Strand Hagenes? Have you missed the part where Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot and Matteo Jorgenson are quite good in the classics, [[deleted]]?
I just used that name to make a hyperbolous point that the classics team losing 4 riders including their far and beyond best classics rider would he a lot weaker. Of course they would have some sort of classics team still but not nearly as strong as before without replacements.
 
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But rather wierdly, these restictions only apply to JP joining a WorldTeam: UCI seem to have lost sight of the fact that some ProTeams are quite big enough to be aggressors in a transfer market.
Would be interesting to see what would happen if Astana failed to make the WT in 2026. They are currently last of all WT teams in that ranking and they have 3 ProTeams ahead of them. So they need a lot of points next season to get into the top 18.

If they fail then we'd have a superteam with chinese money in the ProTour.
 
Would be interesting to see what would happen if Astana failed to make the WT in 2026. They are currently last of all WT teams in that ranking and they have 3 ProTeams ahead of them. So they need a lot of points next season to get into the top 18.

If they fail then we'd have a superteam with chinese money in the ProTour.
I would hope that the rule will be rewritten (not specific to Astana-China, but because it seems an obvious oversight in drafting)
 
Kristian Blummenfelt says it's 90% sure he'll switch to road cycling next season and is looking to do the Tour in 2026 and will fight for the yellow jersey by 2028. No contract signed yet though hence the 90%.

The team is apparently rumored to be Jayco-Allula
 
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FDJ - SUEZ have announced that Célia Gery will be joining them, making her the second current female junior, after her rival Cat Ferguson, to have a confirmed pro contract for the future. The team has missed out on other French talents in recent years, but not this time around. It sounds like she will continue to ride CX for AS Bike Racing.

Gery staying with AS Bike for CX is interesting; they're currently on Specialized whereas FDJ-Suez are currently on Lapierre - though rumours about Vollering bringing Specialized.
 
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Gery staying with AS Bike for CX is interesting; they're currently on Specialized whereas FDJ-Suez are currently on Lapierre - though rumours about Vollering bringing Specialized.

Yeah, that is indeed interesting. But since Lapierre doesn't make CX bikes, it doesn't necessarily mean anything either. If they do switch to Specialized, then I assume they will also have to work out a new deal for Molengraaf, if she is to continue with CX and MTB.
 
Fatco is gone, Fatfelt is here
Vingegaard better watch out!

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You think it's possible to do a big enough body transformation in that time? He also said losing weight would sacrifice VO2max so he seemed a little apprehensive about changing too much it seemed.
I'm gonna go out on a limp, but I think the dude has a better understanding of how a VO2max relates to his weight than most of us here on the forum.
 
We'll see one of the upcoming days which of the bad French teams Aranburu is (for god knows what reason) is gonna end up. Benson mentioned he's going to Cofidis while it looked like he was going to Arkea for the longest time (Spanish press still mentioned Arkea a few days ago).

Cofidis has a lot of money to spend with Martin and Zingle leaving, but also their bigger budget (20M at least).
Teuns, Moniquet, Carr, Ferron, Izquierdo, Maisonobe and now also Aranburu are apparently all gonna end up there. Then you have Buchmann too who has supposedly signed there already in February/March, even tho Benson hasn't confirmed this and has spoken about UAE interest for example.

I think with those guys Cofidis makes a step forwards, even tho 2 good riders are leaving. Or at least if Aranburu is coming (cause like I said, Spanish press and some French journo's are still saying Arkea), he's still underrated. Not sure what happened with him at Movistar, how are they letting him go. His agent typically wanting to move their riders every 2 years I guess?