“It’s renewals time, and for some reason sprinters are now aiming to be the most overpaid divas in the entire peloton.� These were the words that the boss uttered out of his mouth on our end-of-season meeting. The consequences of this statement were clear, Madushanka Perrera had now left the team after long winded negotiations for the Sri-Lankan sprinter. “More bad news, Ryan Anderson is no longer a part of this team, his demands were simply too high!� A bit of a let down for a lot of the fans of the team who’d gotten to know Ryan as one of the Canadian faces of our team since it’s inception. Other departures included stagiare Rasmus Wallin & Samuel Coronel, who after an amazing couldn’t come to terms with us after being stipened by the MGUCI last year. “Mamyr Stash is back he uttered, he was actually fine with a reasonable wage and will be a big part of our lead out this year�.

“Wage hikes, these hikes have been kept to a bare minimum this year.� I will spare you for his comments but here’s a quick summary: Joao Gaspar and Kumara are now on 60k and Van Poppel 70k. But very importantly their a fair few of their teammates are not greedy leeches and have taken wage cuts� Again he goes on some company culture rant that I’ll spare you for. The riders that have taken cuts are: Thomas Faiers, last years superstar have taken a moderate cut but have also been rewarded for his strong season, despite reclining, GVK and Boivin have both had sub 20k cuts, so has Adam De Vos however there’s a major wage cut in Davide Villella who has gone from 120k to 75k, which is a major deal for us.

redordead wrote:
Maybe you had to let go of a couple more riders than you intended to, but there will be plenty of space to attack the free agent market

the_hoyle wrote:
A nice renewals period for you! Minimal increases to a select few, and good savings elsewhere

cio93 wrote:
One less opponent for Demare, thank you very much!

knockout wrote:


Love it! Now please dont apply for a Tour wildcard

After securing Kump the back part of our transferwindow took a somewhat heavy turn for the worse being unable to land a proper secondary PCT worthy leader, which meant that we had to figure out what our plans were going forward in case relegation would end up being our fate.

Our set up of climbers is most likely the deepest it has been ever, not like that's supposed to mean something, however our set up does look somewhat promising in terms of securing ourselves some nice stage wins and secondary GC positions throughout the year. Grmay, who joins us in a double deal with Kristian Dyrnes, has shown in the past that he can pull out some absolute monstrous performances in GCs and we hope that we will see some of the same this year. Faiers has obviously gotten slightly worse due to his old age but is still a very valuable piece to our set up this year. Diaz joins us from free agency and we hope to see him put up some big results this year.

Our supporting cast has undergone some changes as well. Gaspar and Adam De Vos are familiar faces of the team, both being reigning national champs on the road and will have supporting roles in most races where it goes uphill, whether it's hills or mountains. Zachary Hughes is one of two Candian additions to the team this year and joins from free agency. The final addition to this climbing support is the young dutch talent Pascal Eenkhoorn who joins from Philips on loan.

A joke that we will never live down, is how our team was assembled last time we were in the PCT, it's not quite the same this time around albeit a pretty well rounded hills squad after the additions of Dyrnes and the Candian Duchesne. This will be core going to most hills races with a bit of Marko Kump sprinkled in here and there.

The loss of Coronel is still sad after his magnificient 2019 season, however we have kept a hold of GVK and Kumara who we hope will produce some good results this year.

Our sprint set up has 2 leaders this season. Obviously the first one is Marko Kump who is the out and out superstar of the team this year and he needs to have the best season of his career to keep us in the division. Boivinis going to race where Kump isn't, but might be tried as a leadout in one or two races this year, depending on planning. The rest of the leadout is assembled with loan riders coming in from other teams.

Our final adaptation in the end of the transfer window was to bring in some younger talent that we can develop into some good helpers and points scorers in the future. Medvedev will turn into a magnificient helper in more or less every terrain once he is fully developed. Chen and Bellaj will develop into good helpers in stage races and Beullens will turn into a sprinter cobbler hybrid. Smukulis has been with the team since our innargual season, but is most likely on his last legs but will act as a great captain du route this year. Phodingam & Carretero Millan have been loaned in and will gain valuable experience with us this year.

TheManxMissile wrote:
Going to be watching OK closely of course. And keeping an eye out for The Boss as well! Best of luck, but my gut says it could be a close run thing for survival. A lot riding on Kump's shoulders, but they are excellent shoulders to have.