Freshly ground, not capsuled! - Jura's slogan should be known to most established teams and managers by now. The Swiss coffee machine manufacturer is our main sponsor - and name giver - for the 4th year now. They are committed to a long-term engagement, and hence also went through the (not so low) CT lows two years ago. Our second PCT attempt with Jura was very successful as well - let's continue to write our great story even in PT!

By the way, rumours say that Saeco pulled out again after just one season because they didn't want to put their reputation at risk by mostly losing out against Jura on the road... Making Jura currently the only coffee machine manufacturer in the pro peloton, to our knowledge.

The software house based in Zurich has been a secondary sponsor since our 2nd year, back in 2020 - and hence are tackling year number 5 with us. They're still thinking that the cycling world is a great place to reach future players of their famous Farming Simulator - given that they have extended their contract as an important sponsor, that route must be rpetty successful for them!

And after all, it's just great to have GIANTS in the team name - just imagine us to have a sponsor named "dwarves"...

Being our main sponsor in the first two seasons, promoting the Centovalli region, the tourism organization of Switzerland's southernmost canton is still on board as an important supporter! Besides the jersey and bike suppliers, they're the only sponsor left from our inaugural season, and we'd like to thank them for launching the entire project with us, and for staying 6 years (and counting?) with us!

Unfortunately, we have yet to sign an active rider from Ticino (with former pro Rubens Bertogliati still being our Directeur Sportif) - maybe we can finally do so for our 6th anniversary?

We have been very satisfied so far with our jerseys Made in Switzerland - and so there's no reason to change! They can once again use the same design, with just one sponsor added - but we still hope that Cuore will have to increase fan shirt production even more in 2024!

Why change the bike brand if you can have the best Swiss bikes anyway? BMC have been our bike supplier right from the start, which has been reflected in our growing TT success. Last year, they also provided us with some great cobble bikes, as we were hoping for - what's up next? Ultra-light products for our mountain goats?

You need some good sports nutrition to be successful - and who else but Wander, manufacturer of Isostar, could be our choice? We will obviously never use the "Isostar" brand on our jerseys, given how legendary this (greatly missed) team was - but our riders obviously still drink it, and it did even more wonders last season!

Our latest sponsor addition is one of the world's Top 5 rolling stock manufacturers - and even though they don't operate any railway or tramway lines, it was pretty obvious to have them as our new (and first ever) transportation sponsor!

With a full jersey redesign not being an option, Stadler didn't get much room for their logo on our kit - but they will be highly visible on our team bus and team cars throughout the entire season! It's a perfect deal for them to start their sponsorship - which will hopefully last for a long time as well!

Renewals are easiest after promotion, with a lot of additional cap space - but in fact, they're also pretty tricky, as you should save as much cap as possible to get your roster ready for the new division. The fact that simply accepting every rider's initial demand would have seen us above cap space proves that it's still some hard work to get agreements that work well for the riders and the team.

Overall, we think we did rather well. We renewed 20 riders out of 21 - meaning that we do already satisfy the minimum rider restrictions. And we also do have some cap space to play with - we'll provide exact numbers later. For now, let's dive into the contract details, which you find in the table below. You can see the old and new wages, as well as the difference to last year's wage. For released riders, we also reveal how far we went in the negotiation process - whereas we don't reveal any details (i.e. round of acceptance) for renewed contracts.

	Rider	2023 Wage	2024 Wage	Difference
	Mauro Schmid	€ 210,000	€ 500,000	+ € 290,000
	Edward Theuns	€ 380,000	€ 220,000	- € 160,000
	Colin Stüssi	€ 190,000	€ 175,000	- € 15,000
	Xuban Errazkin	€ 160,000	€ 160,000	€ 0
	Cees Bol	€ 145,000	€ 165,000	+ € 20,000
	Fausto Masnada	€ 150,000	€ 180,000	+ € 30,000
	Gergely Szarka	€ 50,000	€ 115,000	+ € 65,000
	Stefan Bissegger	€ 105,000	€ 105,000	€ 0
	Giorgi Tediashvili	€ 50,000	€ 100,000	+ € 50,000
	Dylan Page	€ 80,000	€ 100,000	+ € 20,000
	Alexys Brunel	€ 100,000	€ 130,000	+ € 30,000
	Valentin Darbellay	€ 100,000	€ 130,000	+ € 30,000
	Stefan Kung	€ 250,000	€ 140,000	- € 110,000
	Manuel Stocker	€ 50,000	€ 50,000	€ 0
	Szymon Rekita	€ 100,000	€ 90,000	- € 10,000
	Krzysztof Marchewka	€ 60,000	€ 55,000	- € 5,000
	Hugo Page	€ 100,000	€ 70,000	- € 30,000
	Felix Stehli	€ 50,000	€ 55,000	+ € 5,000
	Christoph Janssen	€ 50,000	€ 50,000	€ 0
	Jan Sommer	€ 75,000	€ 50,000	- € 25,000
	Nejc Kosic	€ 60,000	Released (R1)	- € 60,000

We were rather surprised by some riders' demands, and therefore probably weren't prepared well enough to negotiate some better wages (from our perspective, of course). But given that MGUCI announced that performance should have a bigger impact on wage than plain calculated overall strength, it didn't come completely unexpected as well.

What definitely didn't come unexpected was another shameless demand by Schmid. Let's be honest, Mauro Schmid's OVL is just ridiculous. It's higher than e.g. the one of Higuita, who is clearly stronger and should easily outscore Mauro. We have been and are still pretty unhappy about MGUCI's assessment of certain rider types - but given that there was no way we would let go of Mauro, it's unfortunately something we have to live for the moment.

Still, half a million Euros is an insane wage for a rider without any "red digits". You can easily get 80 climbers with lower OVL (and hence wage), with McNulty potentially the most underrated rider. Mauro is one of the most overrated ones - we're not at all happy with this, but it is what it is. Half a million. A raise of over 100%. Insane. So Mauro better has an insane season as well, or we'll have to rethink our plans with him...

Without too much surprise, Edward Theuns' wage goes in the other direction. Sure, he had an awesome season - but he has also declined. We were actually surprised that Eddie accepted this rather low offer, but it makes up for about half of Schmid's raise. So we'll happily take it - and at his new wage, Eddie should be a good option for us or any other team that would like to get him.

Colin Stüssi also agreed on a minor wage cut; while he did an awesome job once again, being among the top stage racers below 80Mo, he was - expectedly - slightly less successful than the year before. On the other hand, his stage-racer colleagues Fausto Masnada and Valentin Darbellay both managed to negotiate a 30k raise; the former was just great all around, even making the Top 30 of the individual standings, whereas the latter also scored above expectations given his skillset.

Whereas our second puncheur, Xuban Errzakin - who now definitely should be #2 and no longer share leadership with Schmid - was happy with his 2023 wage, the sprinters were another department with a massive raise overall. Both Cees Bol and Dylan Page got a 20k raise - deserved or not, up to you to decide - Gergely Szarka has finally reached his maximum level, meaning that his salary was more than doubled. According to MGUCI, he should be even more valuable than Page now - we'll find it out soon. Or not, given that having 3 pretty similarly speedy sprinters seems like a lot...

So, what's left? First, the TT department. And here, the good news is that Stefan Küng agreed on another massive pay cut. Having been signed for 400k two years ago by Crabbe, he's now down to a pretty reasonable 140k salary. But just to put into relation - even the cuts of Theuns and Küng combined aren't as much as Schmid's gains...

The other TTers were more or less happy with their wage - with [lag]FR[/flag] Alexys Brunel being the exception, asking for 30k more than last year. Stefan Bissegger couldn't be convinced of a wage cut even after a disappointing season, whereas the Polish duo of Szymon Rekita and Krzysztof Marchewka agreed on slightly less money.

Giorgi Tediashvili is our 3rd rider reaching his maximum power during the offseason, hence rightfully getting a raise - even more so after a strong 2023 season. He now earns twice as much as before. The third cobbler we had last year, Nejc Kosic, is the only rider we didn't renew - given his age, we think it just didn't make sense to keep him in our PT roster. We still would like to thank Nejc for being with us last year, and for providing strong support for Eddie Theuns!

So, it's just the domestiques and talents left. Manuel Stocker and Christoph Janssen signed for the same wage as the years before. Felix Stehli asked for a small bonus for his Deutschland Tour KoM jersey, which we could agree on.

Jan Sommer lost his FA signing bonus and is down to the minimum wage, with Hugo Page still slightly above. Nothing big, though, and some minor savings overall.


Across the band, we're paying € 125,000 more than last year. In PCT, we would be 140k above the wage cap, with a fine that would be no issue. In PT, there's obviously no fine at all - and € 860,000 of free wage cap to play with.

As said earlier, we do actually have a roster that satisfies the minimum rider requirements, so we do have quite some room for wheeling and dealing! A preliminary availability post will follow later, but you could surely read between the lines that we're open for various scenarios.

Furthermore, even though we only have one declining rider for now, and only one more will decline next offseason, we have a total of 8 riders aged 30 or more - and we will definitely try to somewhat rejuvenate our roster! Which means that our strategy will not be to stay in PT at all costs, but to plan ahead and set up our team for the future. If we can hold the division, that would obviously be great (and still has to be the goal), but we want to be in a position where even relegation wouldn't threaten the team's future.

We'll see how it goes - we know that we've got quite some work to do, and we're looking forward to enter transfers at yet another level!

jandal7 wrote:

Congrats again on the storming season and the back-to-back (which I totally predicted after your CT promotion, just gotta get some more credit for that )! Auch a strong core of depth that will do very well at PT level with all that cap space and potential selling to find the leaders. Sure we might get frustrated by each other in transfers

Seems like you did well under the circumstances as you say in renewals, sure we both had some issues with tough demands. Interested to see what's up next for your off-season plans

cunego59 wrote:

I didn't fully got through reading the stats posts in the previous HQ before this one opened, so I'll just leave my admiration here, just a very enjoyable read all the way through

Looks like Theuns was similarly reasonable to Stallaert with his demands. I'm sure he'll be of great value in PT even after the decline, no need at all to sell him, especially to PCT ...

Even in addition to Stallaert/Theuns, I see many similarities between our teams. Already at or around the rider minimum, lots of small-ish increases across the board, a puncheur maxing to a big increase - just everything at a bit bigger scale at your end, of course

I would push back just a little bit against the assessment of Schmid's demands, though. It's a lot, don't get me wrong, but I would pick him over the vast majority of 80-climbers for instance, even some 81-climbers, given both his stat distribution and the fact that hills are just a bit less crowded at the top, at least imo. And the ones I'd consider are quite similar in wages (McNulty maybe indeed an outlier).

And I understand the Higuita comparison, but even then I'm not as convinced as you are that he will outscore Schmid, at least not easily. +2 Mo and +5 Sta are of course significant, but +4 Spr/Acc in favor of Schmid could be quite big, too. Even +3 Flat/TT might have an influence here or there depending on schedule. If you look at what Valter was able to do with a very similar skillset to Schmid in terms of stat distribution, for instance, Valter's wage feels appropriate. The question is, how far below him skill-wise is Schmid and if that merits the wage cap in its current form, but only time will tell, of course With Vansevenant and Gesbert also in the division, this will be very interesting to see how the hilly races turn out.

I think most of the increases are indeed justified. Szarka and Tediashvili just maxed, so a raise was inevitable. Both have pretty high OVL values given their main stat, but yeah, I like versatility even though it doesn't necessarily pay off (in particular with sprint randomness). Page had his FA price tag last year and got the "sprinter overpay" now as well (although with deflation going on it might now be +/- appropriate).
Masnada, Brunel and Darbellay just did pretty well given their skillset - TTTs definitely are a main reason for their raise (plus a manager who wasn't prepared for points-based demands).
Bol's raise isn't really justified - it would be including the Giro in the equation, but he got zero points there, so...
And then it's obviously Schmid with the big fat paycheck. And yeah, I do hope I'll find a training path that won't bloat his OVL even more - and as you say, there's no way I'll let him go, unless I completely mess up transfers and have to.


Thanks
It will definitely be an interesting challenge, and I hope I can be as successful as you were in your promotion year

Thanks. Yeah, I'm mostly satisfied with renewals, just the 30k raises of Darbellay and Brunel bother me a bit. But as I wrote, I just wasn't well prepared for the talks with them, not anticipating their performance to have a rather big impact.
Schmid's demands were the reason why I played around with all different development paths - hesitating between maxing his climbing skills, as I did, or going for more versatility that might have been useless at the first glance, but would have led to a considerably lower wage. But if I want to have a potential world beater, then there wasn't really a choice in terms of base for training.


Yep, Vansevenant is even "worse" - but should also score better. I mean, Valter did an awesome job for Vesuvio this year, and Vansevenant could score similarly well. Not sure about Schmid, but if he does a couple of San Sebastian performances, I'd definitely be happy

After renewals come transfers - and traditionally the transfer availabilities are listed prior to the start of the craziest ten days of the year.

Also traditionally, our list has been pretty unattractive, often having 3/5 as the highest availability of any rider. Those of you used to our availability list may however be rather surprised this year!

Why? Well, mostly because our age structure hasn't evolved in the best possible way lately. We have a total of 8 riders aged 30 or more. The good news is, only one of them is already declining, and only one more will do so for the first time next offseason. Still, we feel that it's time to give a younger touch to our roster. It's very unlikely that we'll sell (or trade) all 8 of them, but the target definitely is to reduce the number of 30+ riders.

So, enough explanations for now, let's get to the overview - followed by more details on the riders, for those who are interested:

	Rider	2024 Wage	Availability
	Mauro Schmid	€ 500,000	•
	Edward Theuns	€ 220,000	•••
	Colin Stüssi	€ 175,000	•••
	Xuban Errazkin	€ 160,000	••
	Cees Bol	€ 165,000	••
	Fausto Masnada	€ 180,000	•••
	Gergely Szarka	€ 115,000	••
	Stefan Bissegger	€ 105,000	••
	Giorgi Tediashvili	€ 100,000	••
	Dylan Page	€ 100,000	•••••
	Alexys Brunel	€ 130,000	••
	Valentin Darbellay	€ 130,000	••
	Stefan Küng	€ 140,000	•••
	Manuel Stocker	€ 50,000	•••••
	Szymon Rekita	€ 90,000	••••
	Krzysztof Marchewka	€ 55,000	•••••
	Hugo Page	€ 70,000	•
	Felix Stehli	€ 55,000	••
	Christoph Janssen	€ 50,000	••
	Jan Sommer	€ 50,000	••
•	Unavailable
••	Unlikely to leave
•••	Maybe, maybe not
••••	Likely to leave
•••••	Available

You'll notice a pattern; all 30+ riders have at least three "dots", so a priori we're happy to discuss about all of them. As mentioned before, it's unlikely that all of them will leave, so availabilities can obviously change during the course of transfers.

The riders below 30 years, on the other hand, all have at most two "dots". So it's not excluded that any of them could leave, but it's not our primary focus, and it would take a really good offer to get one of them! Still, don't hesitate to inquire on them - or to propose them as a part of a multi-rider deal (which we always love by the way).

Only two riders are currently declared to be unavailable. Obviously, Mauro Schmid is one of them. Despite his horrendous wage, there's no way we'd let him go. Well, never say never, but it's definitely unlikely. The same holds for Hugo Page, our sprinter talent, who we definitely intend to be one of our future centerpieces.

Now, some details on the 3+ dot riders: