DaveTwoBob wrote:
Awesome team, Grellier will certainly learn a lot during his year with you, maybe he can pass on some negotiation tips when he returns
Grellier will be a great rider to have this season. Good flat stat and well rounded across all other terrains, so should be useful pretty much everywhere we send him.
Booker wrote:
Love some of the signings here - Brozyna obviously top among them
Congrats on securing Guarnieri, and most importantly, the beast that is Vichot! This clearly isn't your first ride at the rodeo; will be very interested to see how you plan this calendar year in the absence of a real mountain presence aside from my big Polish lad. We'll make sure to juice him up in preseason for you.
Much appreciated We won't ride any races with mountains in them, besides the few ones in C2HC of course. We'll certainly lose points here compared to most competitors, but hopefully we can limit it a bit through breakaways and targeting easier stages.
And will be very interesting to see Vichot this season. I hope he can replicate the season he had with you last year
Marcovdw wrote:
Thank you for taking Hodeg on board, I'm sure he'll learn a lot from a master like Guarnieri!
I hope so, they'll get to race together a lot, so should be plenty of opportunities for him to pick up a few tips and tricks along the way!
The 2018 season has come to an end, with Delvaux finishing at the top of the CT team ranking in it's debut season. Having improved gradually from a so-so start to the season, the team took the rankings lead in mid-September, before finishing the season strongly. Expressing his excitement to the press after the publication of the final CT rankings, general manager 'Sykkel_Freak' said: "We had a bit of a shaky spring season with some poor performances, but after finding our rhythm towards the summer, the team has simply been outstanding! The title fight against Valio - DeLaval was exciting down to the wire, and we want to thank them for pushing us to perform at our best level this season. We look forward to racing them, and the other promoting teams, again in the PCT next season".
Fastman Jacopo Guarnieri was the team's best performer in the individual rankings, ending 2nd, some small six points behind Cyril Gautier of Valio - DeLaval. Despite what some have called a 'disappointing season' for the Italian, Guarnieri won USA Procycling Challenge and Hanko Classic, and can additionally look back on four more podium finishes, eight stage wins, and two point jerseys. Vegard Breen also finished in the top ten, at 9th place. The cobbler finished on the podium three times this season, and got a stage win and the points jersey at Tour du Faso. Veteran puncheur Blel Kadri ended the season at 11th place, with four 2nd places, two stage wins, and a points jersey. All together, the team won two races, finished on the podium an additional 13 times, took ten stage wins, and won five point jerseys, one KoM jersey, and three team classifications.
Guarnieri sprinting to victory in USA Procycling Challenge.
Looking ahead to next season, Delvaux aims to build on the same principles as this season, but expect some changes to the roster. "We'd like to be competitive in the PCT, so it's only natural that we'll do some changes to our team after promoting. We hope to continue what worked so well this year; depth scoring across flat, hilly and cobbled terrain. However, you might see us adding a stage racer if we can find the right rider at a fair value. In addition, we have a Belgian main sponsor that would like us to increase the number of Belgian riders in our squad that can have a place in the team for multiple seasons", said 'Sykkel_Freak', possibly hinting that Delvaux have one or two young Belgian talents on their radar ahead of the upcoming transfer season.
Edited by Sykkel_Freak on 01-08-2019 21:00
Congrats on winning the division. Given your strategy, your knowhow and experience (and your current roster) I'll give a cautious, bet that you will be back-to-back promoting up into the Pro Tour.
Riders like Guarnieri, van der Haar, Vichot, Favilli, Kreder and Breen can easily work in both PCT and PT and with the added money you have to invest in the team I feel very confident that you will end up having a very nice and pointy looking team - maybe not in all areas, but the targeted ones.
Big ups mate your season was amazing and you pretty much built your team out of nothing. Total classics domination, you've got yourself a really strong base for PCT and it's only working on the future now
SotD wrote:
Congrats on winning the division. Given your strategy, your knowhow and experience (and your current roster) I'll give a cautious, bet that you will be back-to-back promoting up into the Pro Tour.
Riders like Guarnieri, van der Haar, Vichot, Favilli, Kreder and Breen can easily work in both PCT and PT and with the added money you have to invest in the team I feel very confident that you will end up having a very nice and pointy looking team - maybe not in all areas, but the targeted ones.
Anyway, another big congrats!
Thank you!
There is for sure going to be some tough competition for the top spots, but I'm definitely hoping to be in the discussion for promotion. As you said, we have a good foundation to build on in order to achieve it, even if some of our guys are getting up there in age. Of those you mentioned, I'm a little bit unsure about Favilli, who didn't really show up many times this season, but the rest could definitely do a job!
Yellow Jersey wrote:
Big ups mate your season was amazing and you pretty much built your team out of nothing. Total classics domination, you've got yourself a really strong base for PCT and it's only working on the future now
Thanks, mate! Definitely hoping to add one or two prospects for the future, though adding quality leaders in certain terrains probably will be the priority
A total of 15 riders have left Delvaux, following the completion of the renewals process. Piotr Brozyna, Lucas Eriksson, Fabien Grellier and Alvaro Hodeg have returned to their respective teams after successful loan spells, while the stagiaire contracts of Ivan Centrone, Gaspar Goncalves, Enzo Wouters and Abderrahim Zahiri have come to end. Dries De Bondt, Elia Favilli, Romain Feillu, Jacopo Guarnieri, Blel Kadri, Pavel Korzh and Evert Verbist have all left the team after the riders were unable to agree new contracts. We thank them for their contribution to the team and wish them the best of luck in the future!
On Guarnieri, Delvaux' general manager commented: "We went into the renewals process with hopes of finding an agreement, however there was considerable distance between the two parties regarding wage. We presented several offers to the rider which we felt reflected last season's performances, and that where in line with what riders with similar abilities earn, but it was not enough to convince the rider to stay. Relations between the parties do however remain good, and we won't rule out new talks when the transfer window opens this Friday".
Delvaux' post-renewals roster.
Four riders then, remain with Delvaux going into the transfer season: Vegard Breen, Michel Kreder, Lars van der Haar and Arthur Vichot. On these riders availability, 'Sykkel_Freak' said: "It's very likely that these four still will be with Delvaux when the season starts, however we won't rule out any sales if large offers were to be made. In particular, we would need to throughly consider any offer we might receive for Michel Kreder". By the looks of it, the transfer season will be very hectic for the Belgian team regardless of any sales, with at least 16 spaces needed to be filled before the window closes in around two weeks.
Wow, that is a lean mean roster ready to take on the PCT, I like it! Shame to see some quality guys go but still looking very good if you can make the right moves in transfers, which I'm sure you will!
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Wow what a turnover
Definitely one of the most interesting teams to follow in the transfer season. I have absolutely no idea what you could be planning
Aquarius97 wrote:
And i thought that entering transfers last year myself with 6 riders was ridiculous...
More work, but nice to have that added flexibility!
Booker wrote:
Vichot finally makes it into the PCT - well earned by the punchy lad
Anyway, looking forward to seeing the squad you put together, I'm sure you know what you're doing
Yes, well earned indeed He has it in him to score some good results in PCT if the race plays out to his strengths, so looking forward to see what he can bring to the table.
jandal7 wrote:
Wow, that is a lean mean roster ready to take on the PCT, I like it! Shame to see some quality guys go but still looking very good if you can make the right moves in transfers, which I'm sure you will!
Yeah, not an easy decision to let some guys like Kadri, Favilli and De Bondt go, who could have done alright in PCT. I won't rule out re-signing one or two of these guys in the transfer window, but preferred to have that flexibility for now.
knockout wrote:
Wow what a turnover
Definitely one of the most interesting teams to follow in the transfer season. I have absolutely no idea what you could be planning
I have several ideas, all of them likely to go out the window Friday night
I wonder if it wouldn't have been a better solution to keep Guarnieri to sell him on... I suspect he will hit around 500K in wages in the off season. And I suppose he wasn't higher than that in the renewals. A possible 700K-1,2mio sale or a very good swap option.
SotD wrote:
I wonder if it wouldn't have been a better solution to keep Guarnieri to sell him on... I suspect he will hit around 500K in wages in the off season. And I suppose he wasn't higher than that in the renewals. A possible 700K-1,2mio sale or a very good swap option.
Never ideal to let a high profile rider leave on a free of course. Don't want to comment on demands, but I had every intention of renewing him and thought my last offer would be good enough, but unfortunately it was not!
redordead wrote:
You smashed the CT division last season, so I'm excited to see what rabbit you pull out of the hat this time
I hope I can keep up, good luck
Thanks, and same to you! You had a very impressive debut season last year, and I'll bet you do as well or better now that you have a bigger budget to play with and a year of experience behind you
Having completed a busy transfer season, Delvaux is happy to welcome 16 new riders to the team. Jacopo Guarnieri rejoins the team as sprint leader after the parties were able to resolve the contract issues faced during renewals. New signings Rüdiger Selig and Juan Jose Lobato del Valle, will along with Michel Kreder make up the team tasked with placing the Italian in a good position in the mass sprints. Guarnieri will also be tasked with tutoring young Malaysian sprinter talent Nur Aiman Zariff who has signed with the team for the 2019 season.
Our second big signing of the season is Maurice Schreurs, who will be the team’s captain in the hilly races this season. Jasper Stuyven has been brought in as main support, alongside Arthur Vichot. For hilly races with a not insignificant amount of TT-kilometers, Russian RR champion Mikhail Ignatiev will receive the captain responsibility, and he will have Ben Hermans and Tony Gallopin, who arrives from Aegon - Lavazza, to support him. Artemio Moschella, formerly of T-Mobile, Thomas Bonnin and Alessandro De Marchi will lead our mountain efforts.
The full 2019 roster in alphabetical order.
Making up the rest of the roster in addition to cobblers Vegard Breen and Lars van der Haar, is loan signings Ryan Christiansen (Bennelong - Mitchelton), Gregory Daniel (Equinor), Lennard Hofstede (Philips) and Andrea Vendrame (Centovalli - Fiat). The four riders will ride a variety of races, primarily as domestiques for our respective captains, while they gain experience themselves. «We are satisfied we the transfer season, and have in line with our philosophy built up a squad with lots of attacking potential. The riders are eager to get the season started, and we hope to establish ourselves amongst the top half teams in the division,» general manager Sykkel_Freak said in a statement.
Grellier will be a great rider to have this season. Good flat stat and well rounded across all other terrains, so should be useful pretty much everywhere we send him.
