What a run we just had! After relegation from PCT to CT three years ago, we made it two promotions in a row - meaning that we're about to tackle our first ever season in the Pro Tour! It's real, we do have a [PT] tag in front of our HQ name!
While this obviously always was a long-term goal, we're a bit ahead of schedule, but we won't complain. Instead, we're looking forward to participate in the biggest and greatest races of the world! We already got a taste of a Monument and a Grand Tour last year - but now we'll be able to do ALL of them, which is fantastic!
What's great news as well is that all of our sponsors are back - obviously, none of them had any reason to pull off, given that they're going to be even more visible all around the world. We do have one additional sponsor, as those following us last year already know - the others will find out soon.
Here are all of Jura GIANTS' 2024 sponsors:
Jura Elektroapparate AGMain sponsor
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.
GIANTS SoftwareMinor sponsor
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"...
Ticino TurismoMinor sponsor
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?
Cuore of SwitzerlandJersey sponsor
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!
BMCBike sponsor
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?
Wander AGNutrition sponsor
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!
Stadler RailTransportation sponsor
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!
Last year, we said that you should never change a winning setup - nor a winning jersey. With the promotion to PT, we needed some more funds, hence a new sponsor has joined us - and now we're hopefully good again for many years to come! But what's coming now is the 2024 seasons, which we're getting ready for - stay tuned!
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!
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
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
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
Thanks for the congrats!
Could you please predict that we stay up then?
Not sure I'll be your main source of frustration - just look at my goals achievement last year But seems like some other folks could be after the same riders, so...
I guess the Pidcock renewal must have been pretty frustrating, whereas I fully expected Areruya to get 1M after his beasty season
But yeah, there were some demands I didn't expect, and I didn't expect some renewals to take several rounds. So maybe I could've saved some 100k in total, who knows ^^
In terms of off-season plans, I'd be glad to get some ideas - I don't have many yet
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 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.
Thanks, nice to hear that at least someone actually reads all this wall of text
Yeah, Theuns was very reasonable, expected negotiations to be tougher given his nice wins. But I guess he also had some less successful races, so his overall scoring wasn't fully unexpected, hence the reasonable demands.
For Schmid, I think that stamina should have been taken into account more after the latest version switch. It's his big weakness, and I think this could be a major part of the explanation why he scored 100 points less than Meurisse who 2023 Schmid was basically a copy of.
The other part probably is race luck - and Schmid definitely was lucky to take 2nd in San Sebastian, otherwise he'd be clearly below expectations. So imho he's yet to prove that he deserves that big fat paycheck (even last year's). I'd of course be happy if he did so, but his performances last year were pretty anonymous. I definitely hope that he'll live up to his wage - we actually need him to if we want to have a chance of surviving I guess.
Lots of increases, but that's often the price you pay for success. Schmid in particular offers a tough position because it is, as you say, too much because of his overall. But also—he's your guy. The guy. It's hard to see another solution than sticking with him. Perhaps the hope is that training may lead to smaller increases than with other riders and narrow that value gap. Hard to say.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Welcome to the Pro Tour and looking forward to seeing how your team shapes up! Probably means we'll clash a bit through transfers but that's all part of the fun
Lots of increases, but that's often the price you pay for success. Schmid in particular offers a tough position because it is, as you say, too much because of his overall. But also—he's your guy. The guy. It's hard to see another solution than sticking with him. Perhaps the hope is that training may lead to smaller increases than with other riders and narrow that value gap. Hard to say.
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.
Welcome to the Pro Tour and looking forward to seeing how your team shapes up! Probably means we'll clash a bit through transfers but that's all part of the fun
Thanks
It will definitely be an interesting challenge, and I hope I can be as successful as you were in your promotion year
Theuns's wage looks great after he had a good season and decline. Schmid's wage is what it was gonna be, you must have seen it coming. He should be a very good rider and obviously he's the best local product of the team
At least the MGUCI can`t be too biased in this case by having a very similar OVL boost as with Schmid.
Time will tell I guess. In especially the Higuita case. I can imagine, that later might be the better rider, in especially in PCT/CT while Schmid/Vansevenant are better performers in better fields such as in PT.
Anyway, OVL calculation definitely on my list for the season.
Theuns's wage looks great after he had a good season and decline. Schmid's wage is what it was gonna be, you must have seen it coming. He should be a very good rider and obviously he's the best local product of the team
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.
At least the MGUCI can`t be too biased in this case by having a very similar OVL boost as with Schmid.
Time will tell I guess. In especially the Higuita case. I can imagine, that later might be the better rider, in especially in PCT/CT while Schmid/Vansevenant are better performers in better fields such as in PT.
Anyway, OVL calculation definitely on my list for the season.
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.
Eddie had the most successful season of a Jura rider so far - at least in terms of points - winning three classics in 2023, and scoring almost 700 points. His hill-cobbles-sprint combo is almost unmatched at PCT level - and despite declining for the first time, we fully expect him to still be competitive even at PT level.
Even our PTHC bands selection priorities were submitted having Eddie in mind. Still, whereas he'd be solid in PT, he could still be awesome in PCT and even more so in CT - at an affordable wage in any division! Given our race selection, Eddie would definitely just be available if we can get another strong cobbler - but he could be available.
After a high mountain training camp, Colin had a mostly awesome 2022 season, being one of the key parts to winning the division!
But even last year in PCT, he clearly was competitive, getting several GC Top 10s (even in Tour de Suisse), including a podium in the Tour de Romandie. He scored over 100 points more than Faglum Karlsson, a very similar rider, and 150 more than Monsalve - definitely a rock solid rider!
If he was a bit younger, he'd clearly not be available, given his nationality - but if we don't want to sell 7-8 riders next year, we might have to part ways this year already. He'd be a key rider for any CT team targetting promotion, or a very solid depth scorer in PCT. If he stays, he'll be targetting another GT Top 10 (he did so in the Giro last year), which would definitely be exciting for us as well!
Even though he's Italian, Fausto is our Swiss Army Knife. He can race everywhere where the roads go uphill, short, long, with or without TTs involved - Fausto is just an awesome rider.
Back in 2019, he was our "signature signing", and except for our first PCT year where we didn't know much about clever planning, he always overperformed with respect to his OVL value.
So, why would we ever let him go? Well, because some day we'll have to. But he won't be cheap - we've declined offers above 1M already (not because it wasn't enough, but because it wasn't the right moment, to be fair), and he's proven his great worth again last season. We're sure he could do a brilliant job in PT as well - but we also know that we'll need to find younger brilliant riders eventually...
The first out of three "five-dotters" is a sprinter. Not just any sprinter, but the fastest Swiss sprinter! After several years of trying, we finally managed to sign him last year - and for the first time in years, he even got his contract renewed.
Why are we still selling him? Because we have three similar sprinters, and he's the oldest of them. And the cheapest. In past years, it might have been hopeless trying to sell a 78/79 sprinter. But just take a look at the current FA market - there are just 20 78+ sprinters available, and many of them aren't as good as Dylan. So nowadays you might struggle to secure your sprinter for 100k - better go for a safe value, better go for Dylan!
By the way, his 2023 scoring doesn't quite reflect his potential, given that in about half of his races he just was selected to support Cees Bol - we believe that he can crack 100 points in PCT, and even be pretty dominant in CT this year!
Just like for Page, it took us several years to finally sign Küng. And to be honest, he's among the more unlikely riders to leave this year already, in particular given his great allround skillset. But we still want to give you the chance of going for him - with no guarantee that he'll actually leave. But he might.
And also just like Page, Stefan's scoring wasn't optimized. First of all because we didn't anticipate his transfer, and hence didn't sign up for the Benelux Challenge which he had won the year before. And outside Benelux, he actually scored more in 2023 than in 2022, despite the TT field being more competitive.
He'd definitely still be a safe bet for PCT - and even more so for CT. One of the stronger subtop TTers out there, confirmed by the fact that he finished inside the Top 100 in the PCT standings, even beating 80 TTer Gonzalez Salas as one example of many...
Manuel is our only first-year rider who was always been riding for us (Masnada having been loaned out once). It's sure that 2024 would be his final year - if he stays.
Manuel is an awesome leadout rider. Guillén and Reinhardt, our sprinters in 2019 and 2020, scored lots of points - and many of them came down to Manuel just tearing the peloton apart.
Sadly, once we got to PCT, our sprinters weren't considered top-notch anymore, and they didn't get a leadout. Hence, Manuel didn't have a "real" job anymore. And that's what we would love to provide him in his final maxed year! Given that we don't have a top sprinter, he'd be a much better fit for a team having one. If you want to boost your sprinter's scoring, why not try adding Manuel to your sprint train?
Szymon is yet another rider who's transfer listed this year. Being only 30 years old, he still has 3 maxed years (including one potential training year) ahead. Last year, he got close to Sütterlin (80 TT) scoring-wise, and even beating the likes of PPP or Ranaweera, riders with far higher OVL values.
However, we're going to PT now. Which means that Szymon likely won't be strong enough as a leader anymore. He's proven last year that he can do well in PCT (as the division's top 79 TTer) - and he's even awesome in CT. With a ridiculous 90k wage, any team could afford him pretty easily.
There's one caveat, though - we need to secure a stronger TTer in order to make Szymon available. If we do so, he can leave - otherwise, we can't afford to trade him. But with TTers being among our main targets, we're pretty positive that we'll find a solution, so get your wallets out for Szymon (and his TT NC shirt, of course)!
Yes, indeed, it might be that our Polish duo might leave this year. Krzysztof will almost certainly be sold. After having Bissegger and Brunel maxed, plus Küng arriving, he only was our #5 TTer last year. Which still was important, given that there were many, many TTTs where he could make a major impact.
This year in PT, we'll only have four measly TTTs, sadly, and that doesn't really justify (in our eyes) having TTers just for that. At least not in our first PT year, where we need some top-level quality. So, Marchewka will most likely be on the move this year.
Let's just mention that his best suited division probably is CT. Two years ago (yeah, it's really just two years, crazy!), he scored 175 points, which was Top 30 in CT! Last year in PCT, he scored 100 points less - some clearly due to him not being among our main "planning subjects" anymore, but also due to the division probably being too competitive for him. But in CT, he should have two more great years in him!
Other Riders
As said before, almost anyone can be available if the right offer comes in. Offers for the four 4+ dot riders have good chances of being accepted, if they're decent enough. Of the four 3-dot riders, we think that 1 or 2 could end up being traded, too - but we'll see.
Concerning the other riders, we would say that the further a rider's country is away from Switzerland, the higher (or the less low) chances are to get an offer accepted. For Schmid and Hugo Page, you'd rather not waste your time, though - unless you come up with something truly sensational.
Looking for...
We've told you who we might be selling - now let's briefly talk about what kind of rider we're looking for.
It's actually rather easy: red digits. We don't have any 80+ main stat rider after Theuns' decline, and we do think that some of them are a must if we want to have a shot at surviving in PT.
In the best case, they're under 30, but we're obviously willing to accept older riders if they can score really well.
Otherwise, we'll be looking for versatile riders, e.g. at least two "green" numbers in main stats - one of the reasons why Marchewka and Rekita are "more available" than Küng. Just hit us up if you think you've got an interesting proposition for us!
Loaning strategy
We've always been thankful for PT teams providing our talents the possibility to complete their development process. Now, we're on the other side of things - and for us it's absolutely clear that we're open for some loan-ins.
While we do have some precise targets in mind already (which others probably do, too), don't hesitate to ask for a loan even if we don't hit you up.
We also want to reserve a part of our wage cap for loan-ins, i.e. if you have a rider that really fits our roster, we're willing to pay his wage. Sounds good, right?
And now, the only thing that's left to do is closely watching other availability announcements, and just waiting for the transfer window to open! Let's get the madness started!
Jura GIANTS 
Tour of Qatar
Volta a Portugal
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
Classique du Grand-Duché
Tour of Ukraine
Franceville Classique
GP Liechtenstein
Rund um Koln
GP Moscow
Tour of Slovenia
Japan Cup
)! 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 
But seems like some other folks could be after the same riders, so...
