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

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Apr 13, 2021
7,571
19,777
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2019 Sunweb, a far cry;

Screenshot-2025-12-24-001254.png


brazil-vs-belgium.jpg
Amazing list of names but that team only had 9 wins in 2019. 3 of them were by sprint superstar Cees bol!
 
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Reactions: Sandisfan
I know but 3 years is a long time. They'll be relying on Poole and Knox in particular as well as a past their best Barguil and Jakobsen for points, but there's talent in their squad with the likes of Pavel Bittner, Timo De Jong and Casper Van Uden that if they get natural improvement from those kids.

Pavel Bittner is one I really like for the future
What are the terms of the one year WorldTeam licence? Is it purely financial, or is their competitiveness also up for scrutiny at the end of the coming season?
 
Apr 2, 2010
5,289
477
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Easy enough to do for the 2026 WTs, with PCS points (basic order won't be much difference whichever scale you use), using figures slightly updated from Potomac's data above:

Pts from 2025 teampoints incoming-outgoingpoints by 2026 teamchange in rank
1​
UAE Team Emirates - XRG
13600​
-1541​
12059​
(-)
2​
INEOS Grenadiers
5786​
3958​
9744​
(+5)
3​
Lidl - Trek
8128​
1144​
9272​
(-)
4​
Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe
6350​
2087​
8437​
(+2)
5​
Team Visma | Lease a Bike
8791​
-1261​
7530​
(-3)
6​
XDS Astana Team
6727​
457​
7184​
(-2)
7​
Decathlon
5659​
685​
6344​
(+1)
8​
Soudal Quick-Step
6550​
-783​
5767​
(-3)
9​
Uno-X Mobility
5130​
428​
5558​
(+2)
10​
Movistar Team
4391​
667​
5058​
(+6)
11​
Bahrain - Victorious
5382​
-379​
5003​
(-2)
12​
IPT/NSN
4702​
138​
4840​
(+2)
13​
EF Education - EasyPost
4739​
92​
4831​
(-1)
14​
Alpecin
5365​
-651​
4714​
(-4)
15​
Team Jayco AlUla
4541​
166​
4707​
(-)
16​
Groupama - FDJ
4152​
391​
4543​
(+1)
17​
Lotto Intermarché
3976​
293​
4269​
(+1)
18​
Team Picnic PostNL
4703​
-2755​
1948​
(-5)

Does look bleak for Picnic...
Wow. That’s a great transfer period for Ineos.
 
Apr 2, 2010
5,289
477
18,580
I am staggered that Miles Scotson could not get a gig, less so, the other two.
Yes, it’s unfortunate. Just too many riders on the market and not enough spaces available, particularly after Arkea’s collapse and the Lotto/Intermarche merger. PCS still lists 25 World Tour riders from 2025 with no future settled for 2026.
 
Nov 12, 2024
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1,980
Yes, it’s unfortunate. Just too many riders on the market and not enough spaces available, particularly after Arkea’s collapse and the Lotto/Intermarche merger. PCS still lists 25 World Tour riders from 2025 with no future settled for 2026.
Shocked Carthy is still on that list.
 
Sep 4, 2017
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he has had too many bad years, I'm afraid. His last good race basically was the 2023 Tour of the Alps.
Would be interested to know what went wrong there. Was he just lucky earlier in career to get in at a time when the Froome/Contador/Nibali/Valverde etc were declining and Pogacar/Vingegaard yet to ascend and have done big performances like Angliru?

Why so bad in the last 3 years while still relatively young?
 
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Aug 1, 2016
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1,517
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Vuelta is the perfect race for one hit wonders. Nozal in the early 00s, Peter Velits in 2010, Horner in 2013, Carthy in 2020, etc.

Anyways there's obviously a non-disclosed issue with Carthy, given he did not race since June. He was also supposed to be contracted until 2026, the team did not post any farewell content (which you should expect given he has raced for EF / Cannondale for almost 10 years).
 
Sep 20, 2017
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Vuelta is the perfect race for one hit wonders. Nozal in the early 00s, Peter Velits in 2010, Horner in 2013, Carthy in 2020, etc.
Horner had a better career outside of his one Vuelta than the other three combined. Given that Kuss, Haig, Kashechkin and Pérez also exist, he somehow struggles to make a top-10 of randomly great Vuelta GCs this century...
 
Nov 12, 2024
383
367
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Horner had a better career outside of his one Vuelta than the other three combined. Given that Kuss, Haig, Kashechkin and Pérez also exist, he somehow struggles to make a top-10 of randomly great Vuelta GCs this century...
In fairness to Haig, he's had 3x top 5 in the Dauphine, 4x top 10 in Paris-Nice and a top 10 in his only feature in Tirreno-Adriatico. Top 3 in the Vuelta is obviously an outlier but he does have good GC palmares.