ivaneurope wrote:
It was revealed by some members of the Swisslion team that they've spotted Preidler in Adastra's team bus, changed his clothes and took a taxi to the airport without saying even a word.

The following statement from Adastra N - Hell Energy Cycling is in regards to the events that occured after the Amstel Gold Race surrounding the wherabouts of Georg Preidler.

After the end of the race as per MGUCI protocols every team has to ensure that all classified riders are here and thereby had not left the designated area. As I wasn't able to be at the event due to business committments, that task was given to Clive Ebejer, our chief trainer. Once he counted the riders, he has noticed that Preidler is not there. After a long search and inquiring members from other teams, he was reached out by some members of the Swisslion team telling him that they've spotted him in our team bus. The bus rider confirmed that he heard someone entering the bus.

Once the information was revealed, Ebejer informed the squad leader Petar Panayotov (as the most experienced in the team) while both went to the MGUCI officials to inform them that Preidler has left the area. As in protocol, the MGUCI has launched an investigation against both the team and rider. As per regulations we're going to aid the MGUCI with anything possible during the investigation.

I'd like to personally thank the members of the Swisslion Cycling Team for their co-operation. And I'd like to congratulate their lead rider Eduard Alexander Beltran for his Top 10 finish in the race - both teams have suffered immense hardship and I sincerely think that this finish will lift their spirits up.

As for Preidler - outside of the investigation, I'd deal with with him personaly and would require to explain himself. This act is very concerning and I know that he's been deeply frustrated over his poor results.

Signed,
ivaneurope, CEO of Adastra Hyundai N Cycling GmbH (operating under the Adastra N - Hell Energy Cycling)

During the International Österreich Rundfahrt the journalists surrounded the Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling Team with some news surrounding their star rider Georg Preidler. Instead the team droped a bombsell of epic proportions - they have announced that the team will undergo a radical image and ownership change.

Here's what the media managed to obtain - Adastra Group has decided to scale down their involvement within the team. They've sold their share to Hyundai Motor Europe, but are set to remain a backer. Ivaneurope still holds a minority share of 20% since MGUCI rules state that managers need to have a bare minimum of 20% stake in the team. Hyundai now has 70% with the remaining 10% being split between other shareholders, including Anastasiya Klymenko who owns 4%.

With these changes it is expected to see new color scheme. But rather than being light blue, black and dark orange (colors associated with Hyundai Motorsport), other colors were mentioned from the team - pink, magenta, gray and white. While those colors aren't associated with Hyundai, they however represent another company with rich portforlio in sports over the recent seasons. Enter......BWT



BWT AG, an Austian water treatment company, most famous for its sponsorship of the Racing Point Formula One Team (to become Aston Martin Racing in 2021) has decided to enter the MGUCI universe by joining the Hyundai cycling operation. Despite the team being one of the most likely candidates to slip down to CT division next season, BWT stated that they're going to committ to the project regardless of where the team will compete in 2021.

The team is set to become BWT Hyundai N Adastra CT (CT is short for cycling team) with some journalists saying that the team has applied to change the name with immediate effect, though it will be highly unlikely to accept the re-branding for this season.

After the announcements that Hyundai has taken over a majority share in the team as well as announcing the arrival of BWT as major sponsor further details emerged on the team's future in MGUCI pyramid. According to Austrian sources the team has formally requested a name change which was rejected by the MGUCI on the grounds that name changes can be made during the off-season. The change of the ownership however was approved by the MGUCI's board of directors. Meanwhile, it was confirmed that Adastra will remain as a sponsor and will appear on the jersey, but not on the team's name for 2021.

The second thing that was discussed was the roster itself and the payroll. Currently, the team pays € 2 475 000 for a total of 24 riders - 17 riders with direct contract, 4 loaned in riders (the team pays the full wages for Higuita and Otruba, while for Rochas and Kämna the team only pays partially), 2 stagiaries and Max Losch (currently at loan at Aker-MOT, but our team pays his wage). With the team being in danger of going down to the CT division next season which means a much smaller budget, the situation isn't great. This means that the team has to make the following choices: 1. Ask the main guys to take a pay cut 2. Sign the on big wage with the intention to sell or 3. Let the leave in free agency. Currently, the most expensive rider is Georg Preidler who is earning € 600 000 and apart from him and Alexander Kristoff (€ 380 000) no rider is earning more than € 200 000.

Age has also been discussed - excluding all loaned riders, the team's average age is 30.26 with only 6 being younger than 30. 5 riders (Leopold Konig, Alexander Kristoff, Petar Panayotov, Andreas Stauff and Martin Grashev) are 33 y.o., while 5 more (Lorents Ola Aasvold, Hersony Canelon, Damion Drapac, Bjorn Thurau and Ramunas Navardauskas) are 32 y.o.. With stat decline on the horizon the team is put in a very tough position come renewal time. Despite being 33, Leopold Konig is the best rider for the team right now, but the impending decline could force the team to let him go. The same goes for Kristoff, who is their best sprinter despite his inconsistency.

More tricky is the situation with Preidler. As it was mentioned, he earns more than any other rider on the roster, but after the Hong Kong Challenge he hasn't shown anything substantial other than Top 5 finish at the Tour de Romandie. During the last few months a rift was growing and after the Amstel Gold Race he walked out without telling the team. It was later announced by MGUCI that Preidler will have to seek help from sports psychologist. When renewals come around the team will have a monumental task of negotiating with him, though a proposal that will allow teams to have the leverage on contract talks depending on the results is being discussed.

For the Adastra team the bottom of the table, but well within a reach for the 21st place, which gives the last safe net for the PCT tier next season. The team has been very careful when the contract talks were rumoured, but now there's a key element in one of the major talking points that surrounded the team for its entire season - Georg Preidler.

The Austrian, who is paid 600k this season, started the season with much fanfare by winning two of the three stages in Hong Kong as well as top 3 in the GC (if it wasn't for the bad TT he could've won it) and the Points classification win. But that peak was followed by a gigantic drop - 17th in Pro Ötzal was OK, but the following races were a nightmare. Poor showing in Poland, California and even Cyprus (a race without TT) really rattled not only the team's morale (even though Leopold Konig was solid), but had negative effect on Preidler himself as critics called his contract one of the worst ever.

All of this reached a breaking point at the Amstel Gold Race. Though a non-points race (since PCT teams are ineligible to score points in PT races) Preidler disappointed yet again. And this was seen as too much, so difficult in fact that he choose to walk out. Though this was in breach of multiple protocols, it was revealed that he went to Switzerland earlier to be in the right state of mind for the Tour de Romandie. And his gamble paid off by finishing 5th overall - his best finish in months.

However the Int. Österreich-Rundfahrt (his second home race) was a different story. He finished 31st - another disappointing finish. Since then he hasn't raced until July's Kenya Mountain Classic. In Eastern Africa Preidler mounted an assault to the top places, but the competition was too stacked and in the end he settled for 7th, beating Farfetch's Hugh Carty at the finish.

However, this presents the queston on his situation for next season. His team is currently 23rd - 105 points behind GCN Racing. This is not enough for the team to survive in the second tier and the team is predicted to eventually relegate. There's only one race left for Preidler - the Tour d'Andorra (he'll also race at Il Lombardia, but as this is PTM race, he can't score points). Many experts believe that it will be difficult for Preidler to even find a team for next season if he doesn't take a serious pay cut. His yo-yo performances recently tanked his market value as well, so the team will have difficulties to sell him. Not to mention that the team may go for more different approach and only re-sign a handful of riders and let go their most expensive riders in Preidler Kristoff and even Konig to have cap space for next season in either PCT or CT

Here are the curent wage per point ratio for the riders within the team (NOTE: this excludes loned in riders)

Rider	Wage	Points	W/P Ratio
Leopold Konig	€ 145 000	325	€ 446
Bjorn Thurau	€ 50 000	73	€ 685
Momchil Robov	€ 50 000	54	€ 926
Lorents Ola Aasvold	€ 50 000	49	€ 1 020
Petar Panayotov	€ 65 000	56	€ 1 161
Alexander Kristoff	€ 380 000	268	€ 1 418
Ramunas Navardauskas	€ 80 000	53	€ 1 509
Damion Drapac	€ 60 000	39	€ 1 538
Georg Preidler	€ 600 000	304	€ 1 974
Martin Grashev	€ 50 000	16	€ 3 125
Hersony Canelon	€ 125 000	35	€ 3 571
Jempy Drucker	€ 50 000	8	€ 6 250
Tom Thill	€ 50 000	5	€ 10 000
Valentin Stoenchev	€ 50 000	5	€ 10 000
Sebastian Lander	€ 150 000	11	€ 13 636
Andreas Stauff	€ 85 000	2	€ 42 500

BWT Hyundai N Cycling Gmbh. in a statement has announced that they'll end their relationship with SCOTT Bikes after the current season ends. In the statement the team thanks SCOTT for the two years in which the team has been using their products and are wishing them the best.

So why the team choose to move on from the Swiss bycicle manufacturer and what was the motive behind the move? Well, SCOTT is currently supplying five teams with their bycicles - apart from the Adastra team, ISA - Hexacta, Podium Ambition, Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff and Xero Racing are also using SCOTT Bikes. While five teams don't sound as much, it's the contract tier system that could be the reason. SCOTT has a 3-tier system of how it handles its contracts - standard, partner, elite. The standard contract only includes the supply of the current range of bikes. The partner tier allows the contracted teams to get the newer models later on in the season, while the elite teams get the chance to used them from the start. Given the current standings, it's way too difficult for the team to even qualify for the partner tier.

So what are the alternatives? Well, the team hasn't entered talks with any manufactuers yet, but there are some rumoured potential choices. It was rumoured that KTM could become the new supplier, but they already support DK SVA - Zalgiris (set to become Red Bull Zalgiris from the nex season) and Sauber Petronas (long time partner). Simplon have already announced that they don't have the resources. Others such as BMC, Specialized, Cannondale and Cervelo already support 2 or more teams. Out if the current major brands, Trek has not supplied any teams yet during the 2020 MGUCI season, but their tier system is also result based. If the team falls into the CT, Trek may not be willing to sign exclusive works deal with the team.

If the team does not find new supplier next season, it is believed that they'll continue racing with SCOTT bikes on a stadard contract.But the team has stated that a decision will be made until the end of the off-season

Tour of Deutschland was another race where the Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling team was pretty much invisible. The best this team could muster was 5th place on the final stage by Sebastian Lander.At the post-race press conference Ivaneurope talked about how the team could look next season, but before that one of the journalists raised a question about Marildo Yzeiraj - former Adastra rider, who joined the top division Aker-MOT in 2019.

"I'd like to ask you on your thoughts on Marildo Yzeiraj, who is a former rider of yours - do you think that your team made a mistake by letting him go give his performances in this race?"

Rather than avoiding this awkward question on someone else's rider, Ivaneurope decided to give his take: "Hindsight is always 20/20. Do I regret letting him go in 2018? Well, if you asked me back then, I'd have probobly said no, but we don't know how things will turn out in the future. But right now, I can say that we should've given him a chance, but unfortunately we couldn't and someone else did."

When asked about Lander's 5th place finish and whether or not impacts the roster for next season, he replied: "At the moment we don't know who will stay and who will leave. We'll have to wait until the end of the season and our position within the MGUCI pyramid before making any major decisions regarding the roster for next season."

Journalists again raised the topic surrounding Georg Preidler and his future - while it was reported that both parties agreed to part ways prematurely, that request was denied by the MGUCI. Ivaneurope wanted to avoid the issue, but he was compelled to answer: "Yes, the MGUCI did not allow us to do mutual termination of Preidler's contract. We're currently in contact with Preidler and his agent to discuss potential future plans surrounding him. We all understand that re-signing him will be difficult since at the moment his trade value is low and we don't know if we can remain in PCT next season."

The PCT ranking update were released earlier in the day and after the calculation the Adastra team has 1505 points, which is good enough only for 25th place out of 26 teams with 283 points behind the 21st placed Andorra Cycling Project. With only 3 races where the team can score points - Tour of Lithuania, Rheden GP and Tour du Maroc (the team is also scheduled to compete in Il Lombardia, but PCT teams can't score points in WT races), only a miracle could drag this team out of the drop zone. And considering how the team performed at the Lithuania's curtain raiser, it's safe to say that all hope is certainly lost.

In Rheden they'll rely on the sprinting duo of Hersony Canelon and Andreas Stauff (both of who were underwhelming all season) while in Morocco the veteran Leopold Konig is scheduled to appear. However neither is moving the needle to bring enough points. It is extremely unlikely that the team will finish dead last considering that Campari is nearly 500 points behind.

But what does this mean for the team and their future? The way it stands the team will move back to the CT division, but there were rumours that the team could disband and return in 2022. The MGUCI were contacted by journalists and they replied that they could take legal action as the team already signed a letter of intent to compete in the 2021 season. They have also confirmed that the team could face further punishment if it fields uncompetitive team on purpose in 2021.

The team has categorically denied any claims that the team would either disband or field an intentionally inferior team.

redordead wrote:
Hopefully any talks of disbanding are just rumours.

Surely some rebuilding to do in the off season, but with some shrewd moves you should be in contention to bounce back up.

Tour of Morocco is due to start this week. And for the Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling team it will be participating in their final race in the PCT division (N.B. the team will race as an invitational non-scoring entry in Il Lombardia). Before the race rumours circulated that the team was considering taking a sabbatical for the 2021 season with a view to return in 2022. However those claims were denied by the team during the pre-race press conference stating that the team is commited to the MGUCI regardless of their current stance.

"Mr. Ivaneurope, there were rumours around the MGUCI circles that the team was considering temporary withdrawal from the MGUCI amid abysmal first season in the PCT division and (at the present moment) relegation to the lowest tier of MGUCI pyramid. Would you care to comment on this msubject?"

"I can assure you that there's absolutely no chance of the team withdrawing from the MGUCI - temporairly or otherwise. The team has already signed the letter of intent to compete in next season and the organization is commited to it. We've received assurances from our main sponsors - BWT and Hyundai Europe, that they are supporting our project. I mean, yes, it sucks that we're going straight down after only a single season, but in the end you take valuable lessons from the experience. To survive, you must adapt and unfortunately we couldn't adapt enough to stay afloat."

ivaneurope wrote:
This thought me one thing - never bid big on a rider who can't do jack sh*t on TT.

While the 2020 season isn't over yet, the soon to be BWT Hyundai N Cycling team has already made preperations for the next season. And on a small presentation, the team unveiled a small glimpse on the 2021 kit by releasing an "blackout" edition.



Made by Alé and Kappa (which will enter the second year of their joint partnership), the blackout kit is mainly black/gray with the logos and other details being in the lighter shade. One of things that is noticed is that the team got another sponsor. After 3 years Adastra Grp. announced that it will not continue its partnership with the team. In its place will come TeamViewer - a German software company. Their logo will be visible on the front, as well as the sides of the jersey.

Another thing that was confirmed was the continuation of the partnership with Scott Bikes for one more season. There were rumours that the team could be on the hunt of a new supplier, but Scott choose to stay with the team for a third year.



Another question is though hanging in the air - with Hello Fresh scheduled to take over as main sponsor of whitejersey's franchise (currently competing as Nordström-CA) as well as switching to a German license, there were rumours that the team could swtich nationality again, this time to an Austrian license (to reflect BWT's involvement, though the team will still be based in Germany). The team has yet to comment on their primary nationality for 2021

With the end of Tour du Maroc, the Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling team ended their 2020 season. Though they are scheduled to compete in Il Lombardia, PCT teams are not allowed to score points, meaning that whatever result the team will acheieve will mean nothing anyway. And thus the worst outcome has happened - the team has been mathematically relegated from the second tier of the MGUCI pyramid.

This puts the team in one of the toughest tasks - by moving down to the lowest tier, relagated teams are now operating on much reduced budget, salary cap and roster size, meaning that teams need to make serious cuts in order to have flexibility in all three areas. Here's the team's current roster:

Last name	First name	Age	Wage	Likelyhood to stay
Preidler	Georg	30	600000	**
Kristoff	Alexander	33	380000	*
Kämna	Lennard	24	165000	-
Lander	Sebastian	29	150000	***
Konig	Leopold	33	145000	***
Higuita	Sergio	23	140000	-
Canelon	Hersony	32	125000	*
Stauff	Andreas	33	85000	*
Navardauskas	Ramunas	32	80000	**
Panayotov	Petar	33	65000	*
Drapac	Damion	32	60000	*
Robov	Momchil	27	50000	****
Thurau	Bjorn	32	50000	***
Aasvold	Lorents Ola	32	50000	***
Thill	Tom	30	50000	****
Rochas	Remy	24	50000	-
Grashev	Martin	33	50000	*
Stoenchev	Valentin	29	50000	***
Otruba	Jakub	22	50000	-
Drucker	Jempy	34	50000	*
Marchewka	Krzysztof	27	50000	*
Lavric	Martin	22	10000	**
Wildauer	Markus	22	10000	**
Losch	Max	27	50000	***

To be in a flexible position in the market next season the team will need to cut huge chunk of the roster. Underperforming riders or aeging riders will be the ones that will be most likely cut. This includes riders like - Hersony Canelon, Petar Panayotov, Jempy Drucker, Martin Grashev etc. Alexander Kristoff and Leopold Konig though getting older, were productive, but they can be axed as due to their age aren't bringing any long term stability. Same with Navardauskas, Thurau and Aasvold, who had strong results. Sebastian Lander could be retained, but his results leave a lot to be desired and the team will be likely hunting for a new primary sprinter.

The big question is what to do with Preidler. He's still productive, but if his poor 2020 season is anything to go by, he's not living up to the payday he's getting. And renewing him could eat up around a third of the cap at bare minimum which could mean a very limited cap room to build the team around with the goal of bouncing back.

There are a lot of questions to be answered in the offseason.