As most of you already know, since I have talked about it plenty of times before, Colombini is no longer about 'just' San Marino. Our regional focus was never really regional, more an ideal or a project. Quite early in the life of our team we had already decided to focus on other Micro Nations in the area. San Marino was the main nation in that focus, resulting in three riders permanently joining the team. Federico Olei, Andrea Aquilani, and Stan Martino. Luigi Giulietti would join us on loan to take our Marino tally to 4. Daniel Bonello, and Felix Sprenger would push the Micro counter to 6. Which all things considered, a focus of 6 out of 20 riders isn't bad for us. But of course, we want to build on that.

That is where the new project comes in to play. With our promotion, we have a bigger budget, and that allows us to broaden out the focus. Instead of the three countries we chose to focus on before, we will now focus on micro nations across the world. But not just those with the correct land mass or population. Countries that are considered dwarves in the cycling world need some help too after all.

That's also where our African focus comes from. This huge continent is rich in diverse people who are capable of great things, as seen with Saber winning the individual rankings in CT last season. Although our focus is 75% Micro nations and 25% Africa we wont follow it to the letter. Instead building a 'regional' team that is capable of winning. How much we love the nations and regions we will be focusing on, We love winning more. We will not sacrifice succes for regional riders, as that would be against my own nature. So from this season, we will invest in the best of the best riders who apply to the criteria of our focus, intending to win promotion once more, to the PT. Only then we can efficiently use the biggest budget available to train and develop new talent.

And that's the new project so to speak. I intend to build a team comprising of 75% riders who apply to the focus region, and the remaining 25% are not at all bound to those terms. Some of you can already imagine we will be knocking on your door come transfer season.

Thank you for reading my gibberish, I had promised a better explanation some time ago so yeah. Theres a possibility we might change our name and primary nation, but I'm not set on it yet.

See you later.
Adler

I think we can all agree this round of renewals was pretty succesful for us. We could've chipped away more from Saber's wage perhaps but oh well, wasn't worth the risk of losing him without a transfer fee! Even without counting the release of cult hero Gilanipoor we managed to gain some wage cap from our remaining riders.

Although we kept all but 3 of our riders, we will be cutting the bulk of the team. New division means new standards alas. Gilanipoor and Laizer are old men by now, and this ain't no country for old men. Personal favorite Oskari (I wonder why) isn't up to par yet compared to the possible replacements we are eyeing up. If our market goes tits up we will be sure to reconnect with the happy Fin, untill then good luck!

Saber as discussed before has chosen to stay behind in CT with one of the (new) teams there. And long story short, all the others branded as 'Yes' except for Ben Turner are just too old now. Had we stayed in CT they might've remained with us. But for now we are looking to sell them on for a pretty penny. Mr. Turner hasn't developed as we wished and we will look for a new forever home for him.

As for the others, National Champions and the youth of our target regions! Ofcourse they will stay. It will be another wild market for us, but I like it that way. I hope to have many talks with all of you, and see you August 11th!