Our penultimate transfer update this season. We end the transfer window by bringing in four more riders, one Free Agent, one transfer and two Stagiares. The final update will cover the CT Draft.

Only our second Free Agent signing, Van der Sanden joins the team to lead our sprinting department. While we are not expecting to concentrate too much on this terrain, he will definitely have enough race days to justify his abilities.

OVL	FLA	MON	HIL	TT	STA	RES	REC	COB	SPR	ACC	FTR	DHI	PRL
74.84	73	60	65	59	71	69	77	67	78	79	64	76	59

Henttala joins us from Valio - Viking Genetics, as a dometique to Keinath and as an addition to the TTT squad. He was involved in a rider swap which also took Lennard Hofstede to eBuddy.

OVL	FLA	MON	HIL	TT	STA	RES	REC	COB	SPR	ACC	FTR	DHI	PRL
72.67	66	74	68	73	73	72	72	50	60	67	63	71	73

The second Stagiare signing is up-and-coming puncher Scaroni, who is a like-for-like replacement for Hofstede.

OVL	FLA	MON	HIL	TT	STA	RES	REC	COB	SPR	ACC	FTR	DHI	PRL
69.28	66	68	70	63	69	67	65	65	64	69	67	68	62
Hills	67	71	76	63	73	70	68	65	65	73	71	69	62

Adding to our list of Dutch talents is Marten Kooistra who will join up with the team in August as a Stagiare.

OVL	FLA	MON	HIL	TT	STA	RES	REC	COB	SPR	ACC	FTR	DHI	PRL
67.90	69	59	64	58	68	66	57	66	70	70	61	62	63
Sprinter	76	59	65	58	73	67	69	71	77	77	61	63	63
Track-Sprint	76	59	65	59	69	71	68	66	77	77	61	63	70

quadsas wrote:
God, did you really have to choose THAT picture for Henttala?

Our final transfer update for this season includes our Draft picks, riders going out on loan and the deaprtures.

Last season's top amateur was our top pick in the Draft, and we were able to secure his services despite having the last draft pick. The Adriatic alumnus joins our sprinting team and will share the load with Van der Sanden and the next rider to be unveiled.

OVL	FLA	MON	HIL	TT	STA	RES	REC	COB	SPR	ACC	FTR	DHI	PRL
74.74	72	63	65	56	74	67	79	68	78	78	58	75	71

One of the happiest we've felt during this transfer window was when Kreder's name popped up in the Draft next to ours. Michel was a key part of our promotion adventure back in our first season - 2017. Circumstances following that meant that he was released and spent two successful seasons at Delvaux. He now rejoins us for one last hurrah, despite his growing years. And yes, he was the second draft pick on our list, meaning we picked up our top two picks! Kreder further improves our flat and sprints squad, where we took a conscious decision not to invest too much in the actual transfer window.

OVL	FLA	MON	HIL	TT	STA	RES	REC	COB	SPR	ACC	FTR	DHI	PRL
74.11	72	62	69	63	70	66	78	65	77	78	55	63	63

After two very successful years in our team, Saber leaves to join up with Swisslion and become their sprint/cobbled leader.

in any other season, Havik would have continued in the team as an able leadout and cobbles rider. However, relegation meant that he was surplus to the wage cap, and had to be sold.

Korosec joins a team where he fits in perfectly, after having levelled up with us last year. Will be interesting to come up against him this season.

Allegaert was on the market as we were aware that we would be able to level him up this season. Campari needed a cobbled domestique and the deal was struck to take the longest surviving rider on our roster away from our colours.

Lennard Hofstede joins eBuddy to continue his development, which we would not have able to provide him this season. We cannot think of a better fit than eBuddy for him to be able to do so. Along with Allegaert, Hofstede too joined us in 2017 - both as Stagiares, and breaks our last link to our first season as in the MG. This swap deal involed Jeroen Meijers moving in the opposite direction, before he was once again swapped with Joonas Henttala from Valio - Viking Genetics.

Nico Keinath leads our stage racing charge with Bardet tasked with the pure mountains, and being the second leader in a lot of races. Henttala is the designated domestique for the climbs. Inkelaar too, will be a domestique, and will also be a proime contender for the U25 classification in mountain races that he attends. Despite Storer's primary role being a support rider to Kelderman, we do expect him to join up with the mountain squad in a couple of races.

Kelderman needs no introduction and our primary target was to build the team around him. Watson and Storer will be his primary domestiques. We felt that Kelderman himself did not need an extra domestique to perform to our expectations, given his puncher capabilities. We hope we are not proved wrong in our judgement. Bovenhuis's all-round abilities will also see him join the hills squad on occasion.

Bert van Lerberghe will lead our charge on the cobbles, after having levlled up last season. Paprstka and Bovenhuis will be lieutenants. While we know that the competition in the cobbles is tough this season in the CT, we hope our 1-2-3 punch can provide enough depth scoring to help us in our cause.

Van der Sanden and Boev will be our leaders in the sprints this season, while Kreder is expected to support them, and he may get a couple of leadership opportunities himself. There isn't enough cobbled race-days available to Van Lerberghe and Paprstka, and they will join up with the flat squad to provide more firepower in multiple races.

Dumoulin is our absolute leader in Time-Trials. He will also be the captain for our mediocre TTT squads, wherever they might be needed. Henttala is expected to tag along with Dumoulin in races earmarked for the former.

Schelling has joined our squad this season and expected to take his first development steps this season. Cepeda Hernandez rides for us on loan this time, and will also be in development mode.

Scaroni is expected to help out our punchers when he races starting August. Per will tag along mostly with the cobbles and flat squads. Kooistra will be an addition to our sprint team.

We are very happy with how the transfer season has gone. We were able to get our top Stage Race target in Keinath. We were able to loan out exactly the riders we wanted to. We were able to sell the riders we wanted to, and more. We were able to build a team to challenge on all terrains, helped at the last minute with two fantastic pickups in the Draft. All-in-all, we expect good things this season, and hope our squad can deliver.

The team we have assembled is in a lot of ways reminiscent to our first season, back in 2017, and in the CT. Back then we had two climbers, two punchers, three sprinters, a Northern Classics leader and two Time-Trialists. This time around, our puncher squad is much better, while we lack another leader in Time-Trials. We will be delighted to be able to replicate that kind of success this season. However, at this moment, with this squad, we believe that this is the best ever opportunity we have had of winning a division, and maybe the best we'll have in quite some time to come. We are not making any predictions yet, but we wish to be up there challenging for the CT crown this time around.