Another transfer season has come and gone, and Carlsberg have their roster for 2022. There were a couple of big moves and a couple of smaller ones. At times, rumors flowed that even bigger moves were possible. But ultimately, the team's core remained largely unchanged. Nevertheless, some riders were of course let go.
As always, we also got team manager baseballover312 to speak on each departure:
Lawrence Warbasse - Stage Racer - 2019-2021
Onlookers were initially skeptical about Larry Warbasse, who came to Carlsberg late in the 2019 transfer season for a nearly unbelievable fee worth over 1.3 million euros. It was clearly a desperation transfer, but Larry rode like a rider desperate to prove he was worth that value. He rode well early in the year before his historic showing at the 2019 Tour of America, where he finished 2nd overall and won a mountain top finish on home soil.
His performance wasn't enough to save Carlsberg from relegation, but it was enough to convince baseballlover312 to build around Warbasse the following year in CT, and it paid off. Warbasse finished a remarkable 6th overall in the CT rankings, powered by GC victories in the Tour of Eritrea and Tour de Langkawi. It was a season for the ages as Carlsberg promoted easily, largely through his consistent excellence.
Unfortunately, Larry never quite found the same footing in his new role once Carlsberg acquired Rasmus Guldhammer to lead in the stage races. Domestique work didn't suit him, and so it was time for a change. He was sold back to the Continental Tour for 750,000 and will lead American team McCormick, hopefully once again in a promotion campaign.
"It's very rare you spend 1.3 million on a guy with Larry's palmares up to that point and don't regret it. But I have no regrets here. Larry was a bright spot in 2019 and an absolute stud in 2020. With several of our young climbers graduating, it seemed like the best time to part ways, but we're really glad he'll be representing his home nation in McCormick's promotion bid for his last maxed season. We're wishing him all the best in that fight."
Ramon Sinkeldam - Classics - 2018-2021
Ramon Sinkeldam was never the biggest star at Carlsberg, but his value and consistency could never be overstated during his tenure. He transferred to Carlsberg in 2018 fairly free of hype. His role was simple - to be the right hand man of Pieter Vanspeybrouck. Then the team couldn't sell Frederik Nolf, and he became part of a cobbles trident on paper, though still in effect the right hand man. He did his job dutifully for two seasons, making use of his punch to set up VSB and get good results himself.
Then, when the team demoted for 2020, Sinkeldam finally got his chance to ride his own race. And he made the most of it, most notably in his victory at the C1 race Macskako Kerekparverseny, but in other races throughout the year as well. When the team promoted back to PCT, he slid right into his old role as a superdomestique for a new leader, Matteo Trentin, and completed the task with just as much dignity.
Now 33 and starting to lose his step, he transfers to Caja Rural Cycling Team for 100k, where he hopes to continue to make an impact.
"Ramon Sinkeldam is one of those guys who you can kind of forget how perfect he is for your team. He's been there, earning around the same amount, playing his role, and having a great impact on the team bus, for four years now. We knew selling him made sense with riders graduating, but you really see his value when you look to replace him, and you find there just aren't many other options out there quite like him. Strong, dependable, versatile. He will be sorely missed.
Joel Suter - Fighter - 2020-2021
Suter joined Carlsberg as a stagiare in 2020 and was the only rider from his class to earn a full contract the next season, when he was a workhorse for the team across their calendar. Our reporters did not think he was on the block from rumors, but after the team took on unexpected wages in the Girmay loan, space needed to be cleared, and he was the victim. He gets an upgrade though, as he'll ride in PT for cycleYorkshire going forward.
"This is one that was tough, and I may live to regret, but he was a consequence of a deal we felt we had to make. Still, there's a hole for a young fighter on our team now, especially since we also sold Fred Wright specifically with the plans to keep Suter. But alas, now something we'll have to address in the future."
Olli Kulppi - Cobbles - 2021
Kulppi joined the team last year from free agency on a 50k deal, and he was a good value as a domestique for Trentin. He will forever be remembered as the team's first ever Finnish rider. However, the team decided that it made sense to swap him with someone a little more versatile for hills and much younger, so he will ride for Evonik this season. Hopefully he still has some friends there, having ridden for the team on loan in 2016.
"Kulppi wasn't a guy we were looking to sell, but we've focused a lot on having a younger core of domestiques the last couple of years, so when the opportunity presented itself, we decided to go for it. We wish him the best working for Jan Polanc at Evonik.
There were some losses this year, and they will certainly be missed. but you can only take by first giving in this market. Later, we'll cover the new arrivals.
Mr. Pickles
Sporting News
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
We are happy to have Larry. He fits in nicely with our other high transfer fee Americans.
Unfortunate that both Langkawi and Eritrea are gone from the calendar so he can't repeat his feat at those races but hopefully he can add a few different ones to his palmares - there is a nice stage race in his home country he might be targeting.
Skjelmose Jensen is an awesome pick up, and especially for a Danish team. Here's hoping he puts in some dominant performances in a handful of years. It's a shame that riders have to leave in order to fit new one ins, especially those who have played a prominent role in a team's story like Warbasse.
When riders leave, more riders come in. Otherwise, a team doesn't meet the rider minimum and disbands. Carlsberg won't be disbanding, so they did add some riders this year.
Please note, unmaxed talents will be included in the third part, as always. That means that this section will be fairly short, given the team's low turnover this offseason.
Kristian Haugaard Jensen - $270,000 - Puncheur
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Carlsberg went into last season without any puncheur at all, and it seemed like a foolproof enough plan on the surface. Unfortunately, management soon realized that hilly races are pretty unavoidable on the calendar, and a lot of race days were being wasted, both for the team and Alex Aranburu (more on that later).
The choice was obvious, and maybe the one that should have been made last offseason - hire the better, younger, Christopher Juul-Jensen clone. It took a hefty fee of 950,000, but they were able to buy Kristian Haugaard Jensen from Indosat to fill that role. Before his stint there, Jensen came up through the Swedbank/Spotify/Volvo system.
Jensen will lead in hilly classics and also hope to win some hilly stages in stage races (more on that later). With a lot of PCT puncheurs declining or promoting, the team hopes Jensen can improve on his season last year. And obviously, whenever a Danish team gets the chance to get a Danish leader on a free terrain, it's an obvious move.
"We've liked the look of KHJ for a long time, and honestly, I should have probably gone deeper for him when he was available in free agency last year. But he's here now, still a couple of years from decline, and we couldn't be more excited for him. His attacking style is exactly the type of stuff we love in our riders, especially puncheurs, so hopefully we'll see it play out this year."
Matija Mestric - $50,000 - Cobbles
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Mestric is the only other maxed rider to join Carlsberg this year, and he just got there, at only 25 years old. He joined Carlsberg in a swap with Evonik for Olli Kulppi after riding with Cedevita last season. Mestric isn't quite as strong as Kulppi for long, flat cobbled classics, and he certainly won't be riding for his own results as he hates getting out of the saddle. Nevertheless, his greater climbing versatility offers the chance to last deeper into a lot of hilly cobbled classics, and his age makes him an asset for many years to come.
Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:
We are happy to have Larry. He fits in nicely with our other high transfer fee Americans.
Unfortunate that both Langkawi and Eritrea are gone from the calendar so he can't repeat his feat at those races but hopefully he can add a few different ones to his palmares - there is a nice stage race in his home country he might be targeting.
Really happy he ended up with you guys, and I will be rooting for his success as hard as anyone. Shame Eritrea and Langkawi are gone indeed, but with his versatility he'll be a threat anywhere. Would be awesome for him to take California.
Croatia14 wrote:
Cool riders leaving I would've loved to get Suter, he's a tough loss. But I know you replaced them well, so that's fine
Suter was a tough one for us because we intended to keep him and really liked his versatility for a flat beast. Unfortunately he just happened to be the most expendable guy left with interest from buyers once it became clear we needed to sell someone to be cap compliant.
liefwarrior wrote:
Skjelmose Jensen is an awesome pick up, and especially for a Danish team. Here's hoping he puts in some dominant performances in a handful of years. It's a shame that riders have to leave in order to fit new one ins, especially those who have played a prominent role in a team's story like Warbasse.
Yeah, I'm a sentimental guy and have always had a very hard time parting ways with memorable riders as a manager. But Warbasse won't be forgotten, and it feels good to know he's still competing in a good home.
Croatia14 wrote:
Loving those signings (though pretty costly), they are good additions especially by wage.
Still kicking myself a bit for not going after Jensen harder last year when he was even cheaper in FA, but I quite like him at 270k with the right planning. And Mestric at 25 should be a good 50k domestique for a long time as well.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
This is Carlsberg - Danske Bank's 9th MG season, and they have never managed to sign a Danish or even Scandinavian talent poised to become a true leader. They participated in many sweepstakes, including Wurtz, Soren Kragh, and Mads Pederson, but when those guys emerged, Carlsberg was not in a position to go high enough in the bidding. There's AKA of course too, who with training has become a great sprinter for PCT. But there's never been anyone you could truly call "the guy."
Well, he's here now. Mattias Skjelmose Jensen signs with Carlsberg as one of the best stage racers in this year's crop. There were other bidders, but Carlsberg came in higher at 200k and got him to put pen to paper early. As far as team management is concerned, it may as well have been a 15 year contract.
We project Skjelmose as a very well rounded stage racer if developed as such. No major flaws besides a lack of explosiveness. It's still theoretically possible that team trainers could decide to maximize his punch instead at the expense of his TT ability, or hedge somewhere in the middle, but that seems unlikely. Skjelmose is clearly in line for many years of training, so it makes sense to give him the best base possible to compete in the largest stage races, and he'll need TT for that. See our scouting projection below:
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"I'm not really sure what to say at this point. We are so excited that Mattias chose us, and we are ready to build around him. We will figure out a way to invest everything into him we possibly can so he becomes the best Danish stage racer of all time. We believe he has that potential. And we will make sure it happens here.
Jacob Eriksson - $10,000 - Climber - Pot. 5
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The team's first stagiare is a Swedish climber/puncheur. He likes going uphill, and that's pretty much the only thing he likes to do, but he likes doing it no matter the length of the climb, and he should be good enough at his peak to be a helpful domestique for both climbers and puncheurs. He's already Lvl. 2.00 and 23 years old, so a bit more experienced than your average stagiare.
Samuel Lord - $10,000 - Sprinter - Pot. 4
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The team's second stagiare is also a Swede, this time a sprinter with a very cool name. Lord may not be any team's savior, but he should end up as a decent leadout man with a good kick who can get over mountains and hills better than many of his peers.
Carlsberg also welcome a single loanee this season, and a very big name at that: Biniam Girmay. He joins the team from Zwift Pro Cycling, conditioned on the fact that Girmay progresses two levels this season.
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Carlsberg should be very excited to have him on board, and not just because they received over a 1 million euro fee for his loan clause and an 85k wage commitment. Girmay is just 22, but he's already a great cobbles domestiques with fantastic versatility. He'll be a cog in the cobbles team while also helping out on the hills and in sprints where applicable.
So, all of Carlsberg's new riders have been revealed. And yet, our sources say that not all of Carlsberg's changes from over the offseason are yet public. Stay tuned for our final overview tomorrow, where the details will be released.
Mr. Pickles
Sporting News
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Congrats again for signing Skjelmose! I guess I had a similar feeling when I was able to sign Schmid last year - although he never will become a stage racer. MSJ will definitely be a top training target, and should be able to carry you for years once maxed. Huge signing, well done!
Haugaard is hopefully good for you! He should add valuable points. Really like how you've built your team for this season, definitely having several riders to build further on for the future
Think I already said what others have all said about what a lovely signing Skjelmose is, and on such a wage too. Like Haugard Jensen for you as well
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
Fabianski wrote:
Congrats again for signing Skjelmose! I guess I had a similar feeling when I was able to sign Schmid last year - although he never will become a stage racer. MSJ will definitely be a top training target, and should be able to carry you for years once maxed. Huge signing, well done!
Yeah, it feels awesome to have that regional guy to build around. Mader will be a beast as well - glad they won't be competing much.
ember wrote:
Haugaard is hopefully good for you! He should add valuable points. Really like how you've built your team for this season, definitely having several riders to build further on for the future
Yeah, adding a Danish leader always feels good for us because too often we have had Danish depth and random foreign leaders. And we needed a puncheur, so it all fit into place. Haugaard also just fits our team identity of attacking riders very well, so we're quite happy to have him on board!
jandal7 wrote:
Think I already said what others have all said about what a lovely signing Skjelmose is, and on such a wage too. Like Haugard Jensen for you as well
Honestly didn't expect to get him on that wage. It was a Hail Mary that I hoped would stick, and I was lucky enough that it did. Kind of altered my whole plans for the rest of the transfer season and took promotion out of the conversation, but I know it's 100% worth it. I've wanted a guy like this for a very long time, and he doesn't dramatically alter our ability to construct a stable team for the next few years.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Normally, this is the part of our coverage where we announce the full roster and go over each terrain - but we're not quite there yet. We've received some pretty interesting reports from Carlsberg's offseason training camps regarding Alex Aranburu. Rumors floated around last year that Aranburu was quite unhappy with his calendar last season, having been forced to ride all the hilly classics on the team' schedule despite it not fitting his strengths perfectly. This seemed like cause for discord and a possible sale.
Since he's such a team player, Aranburu didn't sulk or complain. Instead, he asked the team for a small caravan of trainers and the best equipment they had, and he headed to the Ardennes for several weeks of rigorous training over the sharp hills. He just came back from that camp, and word on the street is that he has made a very significant improvement on the terrain. Check out our projections below.
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↓↓↓
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While this training obviously makes Aranburu a better rider, it also spawns an onslaught of further questions.
For one, why hill training? Aranburu's rider makeup isn't exactly perfect to become a top puncheur. He has a big engine, but he doesn't have a huge kick. He also tends to dislike very long classics and doesn't like the flats much. For these reasons, many scouts around the MG scene though Aranburu would be better off training as a climber, where his engine could be better utilized.
There's also the matter of Kristian Haugaard Jensen, who Carlsberg just signed to be their puncheur leader this season. Is he now already on the out as far as their team hierarchy? How will the two of them work together after seeing similar experiments go awry at Evonik a couple of years back? They're certainly not particularly similar riders, but they seem like they would target the same races.
Of course, we asked baseballlover312 for comment on these decisions. He was surprisingly forthcoming:
"First, we want to preface this with the fact that this is what Alex wanted. He sees himself becoming a better puncheur, and we wanted to help him achieve that goal. Rider training is never entirely predictable. There's no guarantee he goes to the Alps instead and comes back a much better climber. This was on his mind, and we had the resources to help thanks to some very fortunate financial arrangements involved in the Girmay loan. So we went with his wishes.
But we also think this makes sense for us. Did we have reservations about Alex's lack of acceleration and stamina? Yes. Definitely. But looking at the landscape of the PCT division this year and the MG peloton in general going forward, we felt this was the right move for us. In PCT this season, climbers and stage racers are extremely plentiful. We didn't see mountain training making any significant scoring difference there, while the hills, after dominating last year, are much more open to competition. He may have a significant niche to exploit there.
But of course, this was a long term decision. Alex is 27 and has a long future ahead. We've seen hybrid puncheurs have a lot of success recently, and we think Alex is part of the next wave. Climbers seem like they will be more abundant for the foreseeable future, and with Alex's TT ability, he was never going to be a stage racer. Plus, we already have a top stage racing prospect and several other young climbers and stage racers on board. In our minds, this training solidifies Aranburu as a competent leader on the hills for us for the next 5+ years. We're not sure the same skillset on mountains does that for him.
As far as planning, we think we've budgeted enough race days on the hills now to make sure Kristian and Alex each get plenty of their own chances. In fact, we'll now get to cover hilly race days that most teams do not, which should hopefully help us in the standings. They'll probably race together a few times, but not often. After all, Alex is still a hybrid. His leadership partner will more often be Guldhammer for those hybrid stage races, where we think dual leaders make more sense for race strategy and maximal scoring. Having both a climber and puncheur who can handle the other terrain should cover us well to handle all the eventualities of such races.
But of course, we know there will be some criticism of our decision, and we're open to those discussions. All we can say is we have full faith in our rider to make our investment worth it."
While Alex was the biggest news in rider training, we should also note that Asbjorn Kragh Andersen has also been working this offseason. After a stellar year last year, the team had him focus on his climbing ability, which has improved from 53 -> 54. The team hopes this will help him finish more stage races and recover better from mountain days.
Our usual overview will be our next and final addition to our transfer coverage. Thanks for sticking with us!
I've seen this story before! Potentially good Spaniard, pops in one or two good results. Get's themselves a leadership position. Gets training. Goes on to be one of the all time flops.
You have my most sincere hope Arranburu is not Altur 2.0
quadsas wrote:
That is curious training choice, but I have to assume he will be trained further at which point his stamina and acc won't matter as much.
I think more training is likely, though probably not a ton of it. I want him to get to the point where I think he can be a sufficient PCT leader as inflation wanes. Past that, I'm focusing more on Kamna and then Skjelmose.
TheManxMissile wrote:
I've seen this story before! Potentially good Spaniard, pops in one or two good results. Get's themselves a leadership position. Gets training. Goes on to be one of the all time flops.
You have my most sincere hope Arranburu is not Altur 2.0
I'm still flabbergasted that Altur was so bad last year. I just have no idea what it was. Unfortunately for you, I think he may be a prime bounceback candidate now.
It would be tough if Aranburu flops, but I have to be thankful either way. I'm basically playing with house money given that the Girmay loan was such a huge source of funds at essentially no cost. If it fails, I didn't sacrifice much except opportunity cost. And the opportunity cost wasn't too great. I had no one else who was really a training candidate, and all my other inquiries to use the money fizzled out. So he was my best option - just a matter of whether this type of training was optimal.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Lawrence Warbasse - Stage Racer - 2019-2021
Ramon Sinkeldam - Classics - 2018-2021
Joel Suter - Fighter - 2020-2021
Olli Kulppi - Cobbles - 2021
I would've loved to get Suter, he's a tough loss. But I know you replaced them well, so that's fine 
Kristian Haugaard Jensen - $270,000 - Puncheur
Matija Mestric - $50,000 - Cobbles 
Jacob Eriksson - $10,000 - Climber - Pot. 5 
Biniam Girmay. He joins the team from Zwift Pro Cycling, conditioned on the fact that Girmay progresses two levels this season.
Alex Aranburu. Rumors floated around last year that Aranburu was quite unhappy with his calendar last season, having been forced to ride all the hilly classics on the team' schedule despite it not fitting his strengths perfectly. This seemed like cause for discord and a possible sale.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
