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

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Aug 28, 2021
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Oliver Knight as UAE stagiaire is a surprise. Has he been good at national races in France, maybe? His results on PCS are not super good, that‘s why I‘m asking.

Happy for the young man, of course. :)
 
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May 10, 2015
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Yes, but I would think he should have less options if his best result this year is a 4th place at a Tour of Hungry sprint.

He had a good UAE Tour last year and he's still fairly young. He should be pretty interesting for teams like Arkea who ride a lot of .1 races that end up in a sprint. Also don't forget that he didn't get a lot of opportunities at JV.
 
Jun 20, 2015
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Dunbar is a great signing for Bike Exchange - He'll get his chances in one week stage races and he'll get to ride a Grand Tour - It's criminal that after his good performance as a neo-pro in the 2019 Giro, he's never ridden another GT.
 
Mar 13, 2013
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To be fair, Ineos largely signed Dunbar in the first place because Aqua Blue collapsed and the team has good relations with his agent McQuaid who wanted him to keep racing at the tope level for Dunbar to race Worlds competitively for Ireland. They asked UCI for permission to sign an extra rider more than UCI rules allow and he got his chance. By Dunbars own admission recently, "“When you have riders of that calibre who are willing to be domestiques, if you want to win bike races you have to ask yourself do you keep pushing on and try to become one of those winners in the team and do your best to do that, or do you become a helper or ‘super domestique’?". He's clearly pushed to be a leader, but then he's being beaten this year by domestique level riders like Porte & Sivakov so if he wants to be a leader, he has to drop down the UCI Team ranking, it's just how it is, same as Landa had to do really.
 
Sep 1, 2021
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Raccani has joined Quickstep as a stagiaire. He finished 3rd on the gc in Valle d'Aosta and is Imo the best young climber in the Italian u23 ranks.
In the junior ranks he put over 1min into Mathias Vacek on the Pasubio climb in on of the few one day races with a big mtf.

How would you rate his chances for getting a contract for next year?
 
Jun 20, 2015
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I doubt Dunbar will be leading BEX at any Grand Tours - He will have the chance to lead at similar races to what he is doing at Ineos, will get the chance to ride more one day races BUT more importantly he will ride a GT which is essential in a rider's development.
 
Mar 13, 2013
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I think his point was that he needs to be leading at races in order to be selected to be a domestique at Ineos for GTs. At BEX he won't have that team depth to compete against to be a leader in the smaller races, so will be selected for the major races then.
 
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I doubt Dunbar will be leading BEX at any Grand Tours - He will have the chance to lead at similar races to what he is doing at Ineos, will get the chance to ride more one day races BUT more importantly he will ride a GT which is essential in a rider's development.
He has ridden a GT; 2019 Giro he got 3rd in a breakaway stage and came 22nd overall, and presumably some help to Sivakov in the process.
 
Sep 26, 2020
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The hottest transfer rumours among the women are these:

Lorena Wiebes from DSM to SD Worx, who takes advantage of a clause in her contract to make her the best paid rider in the peloton (reportedly 400000 Euros a year)

This transfer might lead to Paddy Lefevere and bis buddies buying out Lotte Kopecky and bringing her to AG Insurance - NXTG, where Jolien d'Hoore has been asked to get some star signings for their new WWT aspiring elite team.

Gaia Realini has reportedly signed for Trek, and Silvia Persico, Chiara Consonni and Eleonora Gasparrini will leave Valcar for UAE. Valcar's DS Davide Arzeni has promised Persico that his first grandchild will be named either Silvia or Silvio, but I'm not sure he has the authority to decide that. In other italian news, a new interesting project might be announced soon.

Fem van Empel to Jumbo-Visma, although I haven't seen it repeated recently.

Mavi García is set to leave UAE, and Amanda Spratt is leaving Bike Exchange. Ashleigh Moolman Pasio will continue her career, but it's not claer if it will be at SD Worx yet.

Anna Kiesenhofer will apparently be riding the Vuelta Challenge for the small Spanish Soltec team.
 
Sep 26, 2020
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The hottest transfer rumours among the women are these:

Lorena Wiebes from DSM to SD Worx, who takes advantage of a clause in her contract to make her the best paid rider in the peloton (reportedly 400000 Euros a year)

This transfer might lead to Paddy Lefevere and bis buddies buying out Lotte Kopecky and bringing her to AG Insurance - NXTG, where Jolien d'Hoore has been asked to get some star signings for their new WWT aspiring elite team.

Gaia Realini has reportedly signed for Trek, and Silvia Persico, Chiara Consonni and Eleonora Gasparrini will leave Valcar for UAE. Valcar's DS Davide Arzeni has promised Persico that his first grandchild will be named either Silvia or Silvio, but I'm not sure he has the authority to decide that. In other italian news, a new interesting project might be announced soon.

Fem van Empel to Jumbo-Visma, although I haven't seen it repeated recently.

Mavi García is set to leave UAE, and Amanda Spratt is leaving Bike Exchange. Ashleigh Moolman Pasio will continue her career, but it's not claer if it will be at SD Worx yet.

Anna Kiesenhofer will apparently be riding the Vuelta Challenge for the small Spanish Soltec team.

Ciro Scognamiglio also reported last week that Letizia PAternoster would leave Trek for Bike Exchange.

Last year I successfully predicted that Julie Leth would join Uno-X. It wasn't really a huge bombshell though. My bet this year is that Uno-X will unite the silver duo by signing Amalie Dideriksen.
 
Oct 4, 2020
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Ciro Scognamiglio also reported last week that Letizia PAternoster would leave Trek for Bike Exchange.

Last year I successfully predicted that Julie Leth would join Uno-X. It wasn't really a huge bombshell though. My bet this year is that Uno-X will unite the silver duo by signing Amalie Dideriksen.
I've not ideas, but it sounds a reasonable prediction to me.
Just looking at her results, can't believe worlds win was six years ago.
 
Sep 28, 2014
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This transfer might lead to Paddy Lefevere and bis buddies buying out Lotte Kopecky and bringing her to AG Insurance - NXTG, where Jolien d'Hoore has been asked to get some star signings for their new WWT aspiring elite team.
On the subject of d'Hoore and den Ouden's AG NXTG team, a video and press release on their website that all the riders from the Tour de France Femmes team (Wollaston, Pluimers, Borgström, Meertens, Louw, Masetti), as well as Rijnbeek and and (Britt) Knaven will move up to that team from the current u23 setup.
 
Sep 28, 2014
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Fem van Empel to Jumbo-Visma, although I haven't seen it repeated recently.
I googled this last month following her third place in the u23 road euros and found Dutch site quoting a report from a local dutch news site in April as the most recent thing. They were suggesting she wanted to leave earlier than when her contract expires at the end of this year, but the Pauwels Sauzen management wouldn't allow it.
 
Feb 20, 2010
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Is Lorena Wiebes' agent Jorge Mendes or something, holy crap. She signs a contract to break another contract which she already signed (like, a week earlier) which offers her more money and the option to break the contract to sign another one for more money.
 
Apr 10, 2019
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How would you rate his chances for getting a contract for next year?
No idea, he is a good rider but I don't know if Quickstep want more young climbers. Overall I think that a team like BEX could pick him up, they are (apparently) already signing Zana who is from the same town as he is and they are building a small Italian bloc inside the team.
1 or 2 years with savio would also not be a bad option before going to a WT team.
 
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