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

[gavia88]

In Paris Roubaix the last 2/3 years Alpecin were excellent and it wasn’t just a one man army.

First Paris Roubaix is just one race, second, I made an exception for the flatter races. Paris Roubaix is the one race where MvdP always has a strong team (although most of those helpers are leaving now).

 

[AupaPyama]

Serry, Huby, Warlop and Cerny are leaving Soudal Quickstep end of the year.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Burgos have signed Alexandre Mayer from today onwards. He's not the current champion of Mauritius, but the next championships are only a couple of days away, so we might soon get to see their take on the almost rainbow jersey.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

In the hopes that someone from Alpecin is reading this:
sign Sander De Vet, I know he's an average CX-rider, but he's such a big engine. He'd be amazing and cheap

 

[AupaPyama]

Burgos have signed Alexandre Mayer from today onwards. He's not the current champion of Mauritius, but the next championships are only a couple of days away, so we might soon get to see their take on the almost rainbow jersey.

Last year he had more than 500 UCI points (!) with the African Games (only ridden ever 5 years), The Indian Ocean champs, the Mauritius champs and the African champs RR/ITT. Burgos has currently 1500 UCI points so a good find of the HR team! Looking forward for a teamphoto with the national champs.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Last year he had more than 500 UCI points (!) with the African Games (only ridden ever 5 years), The Indian Ocean champs, the Mauritius champs and the African champs RR/ITT. Burgos has currently 1500 UCI points so a good find of the HR team! Looking forward for a teamphoto with the national champs.

I'm not expecting him to be the next Kim Le Court, but hopefully he'll prove himself as more than a modern-day Tarik Chaoufi or similar riders from that time, who weren't signed as a result of their cycling abilities.

 

[AupaPyama]

I'm not expecting him to be the next Kim Le Court, but hopefully he'll prove himself as more than a modern-day Tarik Chaoufi or similar riders from that time, who weren't signed as a result of their cycling abilities.

Haha yes, you cant say they arent creative with Burgos. A rider from Mongolia, Guatamala, Greece, Eritrea, Mauritius, Uruguay, Japan: everything to be in the top 30 at the end of the year!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Haha yes, you cant say they arent creative with Burgos. A rider from Mongolia, Guatamala, Greece, Eritrea, Mauritius, Uruguay, Japan: everything to be in the top 30 at the end of the year!

Certainly the team has done its fair share of dumpster-diving and points selections, or gambling on riders who've had potentially unsustainable breakthroughs (George Jackson, for example, who may still be able to deliver on his promise as he's still under 25, but it's very clear his 2023 score was artificially inflated by filling up in some rather questionable fields in the Asia Tour), or just straight-up pay riders (notorious pay rider Gabriel Muller (still going by that name at the time) spent a couple of years on the team as his first pro team in his mid 30s, for example, DNFing everything he entered for two years, save for the Tour of Turkey, one small French one-day race and one of the Trofeo Mallorca February one-day races - and he was last of all classified finishers in the Tour of Turkey).

Sérgio Chumil and Eric Fagúndez are far from the points-farming kind of signings though, those are among the team's strongest riders and have been coming through the Spanish amateur scene so the team will have been well aware of them long before they signed them and I don't really see them as being any different to the team's Spanish riders they've picked up through the domestic scene, like Pelayo Sánchez Mayo or Carlos Canal, who've done ok for themselves and are now both at the WT, on Movistar. Fagúndez is a bit of a late bloomer but he's had some solid results even ignoring the Qinghai Lake points farm, coming 4th in the Tour de Doubs, 3rd in the Vuelta a Asturias, 5th in Gran Camiño and even a top 25 in the Volta a Catalunya in 2024. Chumil was already a top prospect in Central America in his late teens and was brought over to the Spanish amateur scene where he won races like the GP Vigo with its Mur de Huy-like final climb. He came across into a Galego team as well, where they tend to have a few more older and ex-pro riders than the mostly U23 Valencian and Basque-Navarrese scenes. In his neo-pro year he won the queen stage of the Volta a Portugal, and he also won the queen stage of O Gran Camiño, riding away with Derek Gee who got the GC win out of the pair of them breaking for it. Realistically he's probably a mountain stagehunter or a mid-train guy if he ever steps up beyond ProConti, but he's come across to Spain at 21 and turned pro with Burgos at 23, it's not like Bouglas being signed over at 33 as a journeyman from those smaller races. But even then... it worked pretty well with Aaron Gate.

Merhawi Kudus is also a very solid rider with 9 years of WT experience behind him, he dropped down to Continental and showed himself to be more than strong enough to deserve another go around, winning and getting podiums not just in the far-flung races like the Tour de Banwuyangi Ijen and on Mount Fuji, but also against a decent enough WT/PT péloton in the Tour of Turkey. He's definitely the kind of guy that a team like Burgos will target - he may not be a slam dunk reclamation project like that year Luís León Sánchez spent at Caja Rural, but while he may not merit a WT spot anymore he is also clearly above Continental Pro level, at least on the Asia Tour. It's maybe a bit like what they got out of Ángel Madrazo or Mihkel Räim.

They've also done a lot of desperation throws for previously promising prospects whose careers had gone awry and who were in career last chance saloon - it's weird now to see Silvio Herklotz (winner of the Tour Alsace at 19), Matvey Mamykin (podium of l'Avenir at 20, top 10 of THAT Formigal stage at 21), Nicolás Sessler (top 20 of a mountain one-day race with Passo Rombo and Passo di Monte Giovo in his very first pro race), and I guess you could throw Andres Camilo Ardila in there too after he was let go by Team UAE. By and large, however, despite their attempts to become more of an option for young riders which they haven't historically been compared to Caja Rural or Kern Pharma, I kinda associate the team with veteran ProConti journeyman climbers (José Manuel Díaz, Jesús Ezquerra, late career Dani Navarro, Ander Okamika, José João Mendes) and last-throw-of-the-dice dopers (Igor Merino, Ibai Salas, José Fernandes, Ricardo Vilela)... or the occasional one that falls under both headings, such as Edwin Ávila and the man that is still the first name that comes to mind when I think of the Burgos team: David Belda.

 

[RedheadDane]

(notorious pay rider Gabriel Muller (still going by that name at the time) spent a couple of years on the team as his first pro team in his mid 30s, for example, DNFing everything he entered for two years, save for the Tour of Turkey, one small French one-day race and one of the Trofeo Mallorca February one-day races - and he was last of all classified finishers in the Tour of Turkey).

Well... it was before he became a Turkish Cycling Champion...

 

[claude cat]

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLHx4Ihyri2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MTQ3dmpxajE1aW1icA==


Jack Ward thumbs his nose at Jayco and signs with Lidl Trek development squad.