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

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Anderis said:
If they're all in the same team, it's more likely they'll not all ride for GC and therefore have a good chance of winning some mountain stages. Also if you have plenty of good riders, someone will always have a good race, it's a much better place to be than to be all in for one guy who crashes out or underdeliver.
I think GTs, especially TdF, get more media exposure than classics, so not sure if it's better to spend money on classics. All of the best classics prospect are tied to other teams anyway. If we talk about cobbled classics and such, of course, of which there are very few in the calendar thus offering little return for the money. For mountainous classics, Almeida and Higuita seem like good prospects actually.
+ we don't know yet if they sign some classics riders too. But as I said, they're unlikely to build up a top classics team with riders who are on the market. You're not only limited by what you want to do but also who's available for you to sign. If there are more good climbers available on the market, it's rational to go for them.
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It seems Almeida had an early focus on hilly courses, won LBL U23, was 2nd in Giro dell'Emilia (behind Vlasov) and the fifth or sixth better climber at third week Giro 20. But this year it seems he changed his focus: he was the strongest rider on the big mountains at the Giro and lost loads of time on the more punchy early stages (obviously he was also towing Remco on second week).
 
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Anderis

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BlueRoads said:
I'd immediately sign Narvaez.
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I would be happy with that signing but I can't assume what I want is what will happen. It's much more complicated than "a good rider, let's sign him!", especially for budget limited teams like EF, unfortunately.

42x16ss said:
Pretty sure Chaves is that replacement
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I'm going to say that if EF don't have more signings at the same level as Chaves or better, they're in a bad position for 2022. Chaves is no match for Higuita who is a more versatile rider and presumably with more potential for development. And EF already had too few good riders this year after bleeding a lot of talent due to sponsorship problems caused by pandemics. So many races this year where they don't even have a proper leader or stage win hope and I'm not talking about some small races but WT races actually. And their biggest name rider is getting old. They faded from a very good WT team to a low end WT team in a matter of one year and need to have a good transfer period to recover. So far the signs haven't been promising so I can only hope they'll surprise with some good transfers nobody is talking about right now.

Remy55 said:
it sounds like also Jonas Rutsch will sign a contract with Bora until 2024.
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Ah, another "great" news for EF.
 
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Anderis

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42x16ss said:
You serious? No first year Pro is worth that, not even Pogacar's first pro season in retrospect. Plapp is a huge talent but that's ridiculous if true.
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Well it's clear to me that there has been an attitude change and big teams fight more aggresively to secure young talents than ever before. They don't let them develop at smaller teams, they want them locked up on long term deals straight away, they want to oversee their development from the youngest age. And these kids start to perform on the highest level a few years earlier than they would 10 or 20 years ago too.
This kind of attitude will only lead to bidding wars and bigger earnings for the most promising neo-pros.

And I guess Ineos have at least 5x salary budget of a lower end WT team, maybe even more. They can afford to overpay.
 
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Rackham

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The era of superhyped youngsters is upon us, just like 1990's football all over again.

Anderis said:
Well it's clear to me that there has been an attitude change and big teams fight more aggresively to secure young talents than ever before. They don't let them develop at smaller teams, they want them locked up on long term deals straight away, they want to oversee their development from the youngest age. And these kids start to perform on the highest level a few years earlier than they would 10 or 20 years ago too.
This kind of attitude will only lead to bidding wars and bigger earnings for the most promising neo-pros.

And I guess Ineos have at least 5x salary budget of a lower end WT team, maybe even more. They can afford to overpay.
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If someone in the peloton takes the time to check the "best youngster" white jersey classification in the Tour de France (under 25 year olds) from 1990 to 2020, it's a literal graveyard of lost dreams & careers that never took off.

So I think some people in the sport are blinded by Pogacar, Bernal & Evenepoel & have allowed wishful thinking to take over. Cycling is "the" hardest sport in the world, physically for sure & arguably mentally as well, so all I see coming from these highly paid youngsters with huge pressure on their shoulders is disappointment.

Football has a failure rate (i.e. young players who lose their way & vanish after early promise) which the peloton really doesn't want to encourage in cycling. And I just can't imagine young riders doing all the big races & 3 week GT's at a young age being A-Okay both physically & mentally by the time they're 28.

Maybe I'm totally out of touch here, but there's a reason cyclists peaked when they were men & not boys, i.e. due to the aforementioned difficulty of the sport.
 
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Anderis

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Rackham said:
The era of superhyped youngsters is upon us, just like 1990's football all over again.



If someone in the peloton takes the time to check the "best youngster" white jersey classification in the Tour de France (under 25 year olds) from 1990 to 2020, it's a literal graveyard of lost dreams & careers that never took off.

So I think some people in the sport are blinded by Pogacar, Bernal & Evenepoel & have allowed wishful thinking to take over. Cycling is "the" hardest sport in the world, physically for sure & arguably mentally as well, so all I see coming from these highly paid youngsters with huge pressure on their shoulders is disappointment.

Football has a failure rate (i.e. young players who lose their way & vanish after early promise) which the peloton really doesn't want to encourage in cycling. And I just can't imagine young riders doing all the big races & 3 week GT's at a young age being A-Okay both physically & mentally by the time they're 28.

Maybe I'm totally out of touch here, but there's a reason cyclists peaked when they were men & not boys, i.e. due to the aforementioned difficulty of the sport.
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Well. Pogacar, Bernal and Evenepoel all happened in a short period of time, showing it's not only possible but even not that rare. So there's nothing unusual that everybody tries to find the next one. Many will fail but some will succeed. Times have changed. There are many more riders who are real deals in their teens and early twenties already. Ayuso was already 2nd in a pro race at 18. Simmons has had some great performances too (don't forget the SB where he was super strong but had bad luck). It seems it's possible to be that good if you train well from a child, which I guess didn't happen very often back in the day, that's why we've all got the impression that cycling was a sport for more mature bodies.
 
42x16ss

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Rackham said:
The era of superhyped youngsters is upon us, just like 1990's football all over again.



If someone in the peloton takes the time to check the "best youngster" white jersey classification in the Tour de France (under 25 year olds) from 1990 to 2020, it's a literal graveyard of lost dreams & careers that never took off.

So I think some people in the sport are blinded by Pogacar, Bernal & Evenepoel & have allowed wishful thinking to take over. Cycling is "the" hardest sport in the world, physically for sure & arguably mentally as well, so all I see coming from these highly paid youngsters with huge pressure on their shoulders is disappointment.

Football has a failure rate (i.e. young players who lose their way & vanish after early promise) which the peloton really doesn't want to encourage in cycling. And I just can't imagine young riders doing all the big races & 3 week GT's at a young age being A-Okay both physically & mentally by the time they're 28.

Maybe I'm totally out of touch here, but there's a reason cyclists peaked when they were men & not boys, i.e. due to the aforementioned difficulty of the sport.
Click to expand...
You're being a bit harsh on white jersey winners there - Pantani, Ullrich, Basso, Cunego, Menchov, Contador, Schleck, Quintana, Bernal and Pogacar make up over half the winners during that period.

I do agree with you that contracts this big, this early is going to lead to a definite segregation of ability in teams when it comes to haves and have nots.

Also, there's no room for development when salaries are so big, so early. There's going to be immediate pressure to perform, with ruthless responses if a rider needs time to settle and grow. Not good at all.
 
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Anderis

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Landeirovic said:
Didier Merchanw, James Shaw and Ben Healy EF
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Merchan's results are very average as for a 22 y.o. who is supposed to step up to WT. I hope there's more to him than meets the eye.
For Shaw they better hope Tour of Slovenia was a real breakthrough rather than a false dawn across an average career.
Healy is the most intriguing of the bunch but is he the one who can pull the team forwards? We'll see.

I miss the potential their 2020 roster had and with these signings there's still a long way to get back to the point they were back then. Hell, I wouldn't even trade Rutsch and Higuita for all the names that have been linked to the team this year so far.
 
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Anderis said:
Merchan's results are very average as for a 22 y.o. who is supposed to step up to WT. I hope there's more to him than meets the eye.
For Shaw they better hope Tour of Slovenia was a real breakthrough rather than a false dawn across an average career.
Healy is the most intriguing of the bunch but is he the one who can pull the team forwards? We'll see.

I miss the potential their 2020 roster had and with these signings there's still a long way to get back to the point they were back then. Hell, I wouldn't even trade Rutsch and Higuita for all the names that have been linked to the team this year so far.
Click to expand...

I wouldn’t expect Healy to be “the one who can pull the team forwards”, at least next year. A 20 year old just isn’t signed to do that unless he has Evenepoel or Ayuso style freak results. But on its own merits, signing one of the top espoirs who everyone assumed was going to be joining the Ineos production line would be a nice bit of business.

I’d certainly like to see him at EF.
 
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Anderis

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I wasn't specifically talking about next year but more about the fact if Healy has enough potential to develop into a rider that will make a big difference to team's results at some point in the future.
I can't help but I think about the last Irish talent that EF hired- Ryan Mullen- who despite being acknowledged as a great talent prior to joining WT, never really did that much for the team.
 
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Breezy1985

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Anderis said:
I wasn't specifically talking about next year but more about the fact if Healy has enough potential to develop into a rider that will make a big difference to team's results at some point in the future.
I can't help but I think about the last Irish talent that EF hired- Ryan Mullen- who despite being acknowledged as a great talent prior to joining WT, never really did that much for the team.
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But the Irish guy that went to EF before him done ok. A fella named Martin something IIRC
 
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