"What a run we just had!" - that's what we wrote last year. And the run continued, as after winning CT and getting 2nd in PCT, we also were able to rather safely confirm our spot in the Pro Tour! Hence [PT] tag in front of our HQ name remains for at least one more year - and we're looking forward to see the big adventure going on!
The biggest races of the world await us once again, and we're hoping that last year's experience - with in particular the monuments being among our worst races of the season - will help us perform even better on the biggest stage!
But we also had some great wins, which we'll want to confirm this year - and whereas we don't know yet which riders will be on the team, we're very thankful that our long-term sponsors all are staying for the 2025 season, with this continuity helping us a lot moving forward!
And here are all of Jura GIANTS' 2025 sponsors:
Jura Elektroapparate AGMain sponsor
Freshly ground, not capsuled! - Jura's slogan surely is known by anyone by now. The Swiss coffee machine manufacturer is our main sponsor - and name giver - for the 5th year running. They are committed to a long-term engagement, and hence also went through the (not so low) CT lows three years ago. Our second PCT attempt with Jura was very successful as well, and so was our first year in PT - let's continue to write our great story!
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 6 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 pretty 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 7 years (and counting?) with us!
And unlike in our first 5 years, we do now have two Ticinese riders under contract - let's see if we can promote cycling even more in Switzerland's sunniest canton!
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! We'll use the same jersey as in 2024 - but hopefully merchandising numbers go up even more after the great season we had!
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, the bikes for the sprinters were pretty great - now we'll have to hope for a special edition for climbers, as that's where we've got the most room for improvement left!
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 so far it's been a guarantee for success!
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 transportation sponsor!
A jersey redesign still isn't on the table, so Stadler will still get great visibility on our team bus instead - and we hope that one day we can also build sprint trains that work as well as those made by Stadler!
Never change a winning setup - and given that our sponsor setup has been working so well since 2022, there still is no reason to fundamentally change that! After all, Stadler are happy to be on board as well, and so we're heading into year #7 with the same sponsors as last year!
But let's stop talking about last year - it's 2025 that's about to start, and we're getting things ready for the continuation of our journey - stay tuned!
Lots of building work going on at HQ But! I'm sure renewals went well and the Swiss outfit will be ready and set to keep the PT time rolling onwards!
Well, I won't reveal the goals yet, the calendar is still unknown, and there are no results - quite a lot of stuff to unveil in the future
Renewals went rather well, but comparing to other managers I think we could've been more aggressive on the big earners. Hoping to get ready by the time the season starts, but a lot of things can happen until then!
Renewals
Renewals are easiest after promotion, with a lot of additional cap space. So they were a little harder this year, but only a little. First of all, we didn't do any major trainings in the past offseason, so none of the previously maxed riders had a valuable reason to ask for a big raise.
Secondly, we had no "big" talents maxing; the two riders who did are definitely in the "domestiques" category. Then, we also had one of our leaders declining even further. And a young rider on "talent FA wage". And finally, one of our key riders got a huge FA wage last year, which by experience should go done a bit.
So we were expecting to be able to renew all of the riders we wanted to - and we mostly did, and we think we did negotiate rather well. Negotiations didn't go according to our expectations with one rider, ending up with the latter being released - which is pretty much the only thing we regret about our renewals.
Let's take a look at the overall table before going into some more details. 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
2024 Wage
2025 Wage
Difference
Mauro Schmid
€ 500,000
€ 420,000
- € 80,000
Kaden Groves
€ 670,000
€ 470,000
- € 200,000
Cees Bol
€ 165.000
€ 155,000
- € 10,000
Colin Stüssi
€ 175,000
€ 180,000
+ € 5,000
Xuban Errazkin
€ 160,000
€ 145,000
- € 15,000
Gergely Szarka
€ 115,000
€ 135,000
+ € 20,000
Valentin Darbellay
€ 130,000
€ 115,000
- € 15,000
Alexys Brunel
€ 130,000
€ 110,000
- € 20,000
Stefan Bissegger
€ 105,000
€ 105,000
€ 0
Teten Rohendi
€ 100,000
€ 90,000
- € 10,000
Stefan Kung
€ 140,000
€ 100,000
- € 40,000
Szymon Rekita
€ 90,000
€ 80,000
- € 10,000
Hugo Page
€ 70,000
€ 60,000
- € 10,000
Lorenzo Delco
€ 60,000
€ 60,000
€ 0
Filippo Colombo
€ 50,000
€ 50,000
€ 0
AOP Setiawa
€ 50,000
€ 55,000
+ € 5,000
Krzysztof Marchewka
€ 55,000
€ 50,000
- € 5,000
Christoph Janssen
€ 50,000
€ 50,000
€ 0
Felix Stehli
€ 55,000
€ 50,000
- € 5,000
Gabriel Chavanne
€ 70,000
€ 55,000
- € 15,000
Jan Sommer
€ 50,000
€ 50,000
€ 0
Fabio Christen
€ 250,000
€ 150,000
- € 100,000
Edward Theuns
€ 220,000
Released (R2)
- € 220,000
Tomas Paprstka
€ 65,000
Released (R1)
- € 65,000
There was one pattern we recognized throughout the renewals process: Last year, we came off an amazing run, finishing 2nd in PCT - and lots of riders then were asking for a raise.
This year, whereas the same riders still did a good job, we "only" finished 13th in PT, so far less spectacular - and as a consequence, most of our riders accepted a slight reduction!
In total, 14 riders accepted a lower wage, 5 riders accepted their 2024 wages - and only 3 riders got a raise! And two riders ended up being release - one planned, the other rather unplanned, which makes us basically lose our cobbles department. More on that in a moment.
The expected big reductions concern Groves and Christen. The former's wage was clearly too high compared to his actual skills - he's a great rider, but not a world beater. But we had to go really high in FA to sign him, and we don't regret. Kaden will earn € 200,000 less next year - and whereas his new wage is still rather high, we believe he deserves it. Well, maybe... looking at how other managers negotiated, we still think we could have done a better job, but we'll take it.
Christen on the other hand was on a "talent" wage, which we had to pay due to some unexpected late competing bid on him, and as pretty much every talent he also knew that he wouldn't get the same wage again - not yet, at least. With his € 100,00 reduction, that's 300k saved on just these two riders.
For Mauro, we also were rather positive that we would be able to agree on a slightly lower wage, given that the MGUCI revised his rating that was a bit too high. Also, his total score was at the lower end of what can be expected from a rider with this wage, so he agreed that a somewhat lower wage was justified for next year. Minus € 80k for him.
Most of the other reductions were between 5k and 20k, which is the effect we already mentioned before. The exception to this is Stefan Küng, but this is still due to Crabbe massively overpaying him 3 years ago, and he's now down to a normal wage for his final maxed season.
The only notable raise in this renewals period was for Szarka, who gets 20k more in 2025. This is mostly due to MGUCI boosting his OVL value, but of course also due to his fantastic Giro performance. Let's hope that his slightly higher wage won't stop him from doing great things!
Stüssi definitely deserves his 5k raise heading into his final maxed season! He was just awesome last year, ending up in the Top 10 in every single one of his races - and let's just recall that he was our most efficient rider in terms of points per wage! Setiawa on the other hand did a really good job for a min wage rider, so a slight raise is also justified.
Which leaves us with just the released riders. Of these, Paprstka already knew he wouldn't get a new contract. In particular with Colombo maxing and Sommer making progress as well, we already have two Swiss riders with similar skills after Tomas' decline, and so we decided to part ways. We would still like to thank him a lot for the great job he did last year supporting Theuns, and getting some nice results on his own!
And then, there's Eddie himself. Despite his 2nd decline bringing him down from a leader role to a solid domestique, he was asking for a raise. We obviously weren't going to offer him that; instead, we offered him what we think of a fair domestique contract. But Eddie told us it was going to be his proposal or no contract, then left slamming the door.
Well, you all know how much we value him, and we're incredibly thankful for the awesome job he did in the last two seasons. Remember him winning 3 races in our PCT season, and still getting two podiums in PT after his decline in 2024. Awesome, and more that we could ever have expected on the cobbles.
But we were obviously not going to accept. One year earlier, we would have offered him this wage, probably. But not with his current skillset, after another decline. Sorry, Eddie.
So what is left is wishing Eddie all the best for the final years of his career, and we're convinced that he'll still find a great home in 2025! And who knows - if no-one offers him what he expects, maybe he'll still return?
So, what's the conclusion then? In total, we're paying € 790,000 less than last year! With total wages of € 2,735,000, we're just 210k higher going into transfers than last year. The main difference is that we have Groves instead of Theuns now, and some additional depth.
We will definitely need to sign a decent cobbler, otherwise we'll give away far too many points. And we're still in need of a younger stage racer; potentially one who could fight for more than lower Top 10s. Plus, we have 7 riders of age 30 and more, so we'll definitely have a busy transfer season.
But the good news is that we should have quite some options with our remaining wage cap - let's see what kind of moves we can pull off!
Loved your season last year, was great squadbuilding (as always) and seeing that team translate to that renewals outcome... wow, even more big things to come! Very interesting stuff, looking forward to riding with you guys once again and hopefully staying out of each other's way in transfers
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." [PT] Xero Racing
Well done on Groves in particular! Was curious to see how his wage would develop from his brilliant last season, but very nice to see you were able to bring him down to the area where similar riders also are.
That's also a lot of wage cap to go chase that leader, leaders or something completely different. Excited to see how you develop your team this transfer season!
Renewals seem to have gone rather well for you (especially with Schmid excelling at the WC only afterwards), so you have the foundation to build a squad for some more years in PT. Unfortunately I fear those riders most interesting to me won't be available once again ...
Will be interesting to see what you do with the wage cap. I feel you have a team that while strong just lacks the big star to take the next step!
Fully agree, the big star is (still) lacking. Although it seems like we have a vice world champion on our roster since a couple of hours
But yeah, getting a big name will be a priority - or two semi-big names, which might be more likely given the expected competition for the top shots...
Loved your season last year, was great squadbuilding (as always) and seeing that team translate to that renewals outcome... wow, even more big things to come! Very interesting stuff, looking forward to riding with you guys once again and hopefully staying out of each other's way in transfers
Thanks for the compliments Yeah, I think for a non-PT-ready team, we did pretty well...
Staying out of each other's way during transfers might be hard, as shown by the Ganna case last year But should definitely be an interesting transfer season, in particular given that we'll have to rebuild some of our core over the next two transfer seasons...
Well done on Groves in particular! Was curious to see how his wage would develop from his brilliant last season, but very nice to see you were able to bring him down to the area where similar riders also are.
That's also a lot of wage cap to go chase that leader, leaders or something completely different. Excited to see how you develop your team this transfer season!
Thanks! Yeah, Groves' wage getting down was good to see, but if I look at some other renewals I still regret not having been more aggressive
I don't think the wage cap will be sufficient for a big time leader, at least not from FA. And I don't really see any useful (for me) subtop leaders in Free Agency this year, which is kind of disappointing - so it might take some more reshuffling than usual to get something useful out of the transfer season
Renewals seem to have gone rather well for you (especially with Schmid excelling at the WC only afterwards), so you have the foundation to build a squad for some more years in PT. Unfortunately I fear those riders most interesting to me won't be available once again ...
I agree that Schmid/Groves should be a solid foundation, but as others mentioned, the reliable big scorer is still missing... Might think about selling one or two riders I'd usually prefer to stay to get some more room to play around, so don't give up hope quite yet - our specialists are still working on the availability list
Looks like you've done quite a good job with your renewals Schmid and Groves taking cuts is some solid work, especially with Groves having such a good season. It can be difficult talking a rider off the ledge after a good year regardless of their wage, so good to see you talked him down
With 7 riders over 30, maybe some smart wheeling and dealing can allow for you to invest a chunk of $$$ into Mauro?
Will be interesting to see how you continue to build the side after a safe midtable finish, especially as you've got a lot of younger Swiss riders forming your future core already tied down
Amazing renewals. Even i OVL's and FA deals inflated them a bit, having enormous reductions for two very high performers in Schmid and Groves is huge. That's extra room to work with that doesn't come with any loss to scoring, and it goes all the way down thanks to your great work. I think last year was supposed to be the tough year, and you overcame it easily. Now you're really well set up to succeed.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Who needs a big star when you crack the game with some no names?
Very nice starting cap space point. Quite better than some orange team down the rankings
I'm pretty sure you'll find ways to replace Theuns' points and improve the team. Maybe even some nice training for the WC runner-up?
I guess I would've felt more comfortable with a big star instead of some of the depth But yeah, the team really worked well - and if I don't have a big star, maybe it's at least a rising star then
Replacing Theuns' points won't be trivial - at least not in the cobbles department, with the available FAs and unavailable signed leaders
Looks like you've done quite a good job with your renewals Schmid and Groves taking cuts is some solid work, especially with Groves having such a good season. It can be difficult talking a rider off the ledge after a good year regardless of their wage, so good to see you talked him down
With 7 riders over 30, maybe some smart wheeling and dealing can allow for you to invest a chunk of $$$ into Mauro?
Exactly my thoughts on the 30+ riders. Will definitely to sell some of them this year, but still trying to figure out a strategy that wouldn't lead to losing too many points. Investing into Mauro definitely looks increasingly likely, even though he already had some awesome races this year.
Will be interesting to see how you continue to build the side after a safe midtable finish, especially as you've got a lot of younger Swiss riders forming your future core already tied down
Well, most of the important Swiss riders are not that young anymore Gabby has already declined, Stüssi and Küng will after this season. Schmid is cool, Christen should be fun in some years as well - but Darbellay and Bissegger just might be one stat point too low to make training viable. But we'll see, a lot could be possible during these transfers
Amazing renewals. Even i OVL's and FA deals inflated them a bit, having enormous reductions for two very high performers in Schmid and Groves is huge. That's extra room to work with that doesn't come with any loss to scoring, and it goes all the way down thanks to your great work. I think last year was supposed to be the tough year, and you overcame it easily. Now you're really well set up to succeed.
Thanks for the compliments! I don't think it was an easy year, a lot of things just fell into place. Groves going back-to-back in the Netherlands, plus getting the Maillot Vert, Schmid having quite some nice races - and Stüssi being incredibly consistent. Plus lots of depth points. So there's definitely some need to further strengthen the roster, we'll see what is possible this offseason
Might think about selling one or two riders I'd usually prefer to stay to get some more room to play around, so don't give up hope quite yet - our specialists are still working on the availability list
Jura GIANTS 
Tour of Qatar
Paris - Nice
Classique du Grand-Duché
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
Ronde van Nederland
Tour of Ukraine
E3 Prijs
Franceville Classique
GP Liechtenstein
Balkans International
GP Moscow
Tour of Lithuania
GP Kigali
Riga - Jurmala GP
Japan Cup
Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha
But! I'm sure renewals went well and the Swiss outfit will be ready and set to keep the PT time rolling onwards!
Yeah, I think for a non-PT-ready team, we did pretty well...
