Ladies, and gentlemen. We've obviously finished with transfers for quite some time but we'll have a quick rundown of anything not yet covered in the previous posts. Only one incoming rider hasn't been covered yet and it might be a kind of 'panic buy' as I wanted to be sure we had enough riders.

Guillaume Haldimann comes in as a stagiaire, he's not a bad rider but yeah. Spent our last wages on him and he probably wont ride for us.

Nat.	Name	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Guillaume Haldimann	70	54	59	72	65	66	69	51	59	61	67	65	72

I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time on this, is it sad to see some team legends going? For sure, but we have to look to the future. Can't promise when or whatever, but we will create some form of tribute to the legendary riders who have worn our shirts the last three years. In particular for guys like Reis, Afewerki, Quispe, and the unforgetable Lahcen Saber. But that's not why we're here today.

Rafael Reis, a name that will be recalled in the future whenever our early years in the ManGame are discussed. Big money flop in our first PCT year, dominating Underdog in our second. The man literally went home, only to go big the year after. His floppiness in 2023 might have almost relegated us, while his dominant performance in 2024 almost single handidly brought us to the promised lands. I would've loved to have kept him, even if it's just until a certain talent maxes out. But alas, Rafael is 33 by now and with the dwindling number of pointscorers that remain we needed a big hitter. Rafael leaves us for 600K bananas, and will don the iconic yellow and blue for the Minions. We wish him all the best, may he come second behind Eastman, god bless.

While Reis may have almost tanked us in 2023, Afewerki definitely kept us up. The man was an overperforming machine. Never a big hitter but always consistently finishing in that edge of top 5-top 10 area to score big points over the season. But let's be honest, I blame us missing promotion last year on him. He was decent don't get me wrong, but where he overpeformed in some races he also flopped in others where we definitely expected something. Also 33, we no longer believe his stats would get us a worthy amount of points so ciao Elias. He crosses the big blue ocean and leaves us for 150K to Spark NZ.

Alain Quispe. That's it, no further explanation. The man is a living, breathing legend. Scored points always and everywhere even if it was only a handful. Won a stage in the Arab Tour back in our 2022 CT season. We needed the wage, cash was never really the issue for us as we never spent 'actual' money on any incoming riders. He leaves us for the minimum fee to Ekoi, I wish him many more legendary races.

Moiruri and Marigny-Lagasse were pretty anonymous riders for us so, bye bitches. The only other rider we should mention is Juan Ayuso. Last season our intention was honestly just all out onto promotion so we had the big bucks to sign Isaac Del Toro. We pulled out of that idea, mainly because some conversations all lead to the same conclusion. Why waste our chances on one of the best stage racing talents of the year to wait for a certain Mexican that might not be of the same caliber. Well, Del Toro had a stellar season working up to this pre season and is definitely of the same caliber. So Adios Juan, was nice knowing you but Torito is my one and only love.

Technically we made some profit on Juan, as in the assets we recieved for him have a higher total value than we had spent in loan fees so whatever. We got our big points scorer in Eastman, and got a handful of other riders to sell off again and recieve the cash needed/wanted to train some riders.

All in all, transfers was a bit too calm for my liking. But yeah that's what you get for spending half of your budget on one talent. It'll be worth it in the long run for sure. I wanted to cover our training in the same post but it seems I have run out of time once again. So, along with our first training post we will also announce our full squad for the season tomorrow! See you later lads, cheers.

For the first time in the history of Colombini, we've managed to get the funds together to train two(!) of our lads! Why stress about bidding for an absolute star when you can create one? Neilson Powless was already a very good rider, don't get me wrong, but he really lacked that extra punch to be considered a points scorer. So, I spent a big amount of cash to get him that extra punch. Let me show you what we've done.

	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	OVL
2024	72	78	72	78	76	74	76	59	65	71	64	65	78	76.5
				↓↓↓
2025	72	78	72	80	76	74	76	59	65	71	64	65	78	?

No clue what his current OVL is but he becomes our highest OVL rider on the team.
With the infamous Eddie Dunbar stuck in PT, we figured a TT artist who felt comfortable at altitude was missing in the division. Ofcourse he isn't as punchy as Dunbar, but he does become one of the best timetrialing climbers around and should pay back in a decent amount of points!

Now, let me present to you all our team for the 2025 season! We're capped out in every way so it's finito! Meet the Colombini Kometa riders.

Nat.	Name	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Ryan Eastman	69	81	70	76	75	74	74	55	61	68	72	65	72
	Neilson Powless	72	78	72	80	76	74	76	59	65	71	64	65	78
	Houcaine El Sabbahi	77	64	69	64	72	76	77	64	78	77	68	68	72
	Jan Xandri	68	76	73	73	68	74	72	60	60	69	75	74	71
	Federico Olei	69	66	74	62	73	71	72	51	75	75	62	62	69
	Felix Sprenger	73	70	71	68	75	71	70	65	67	79	75	78	70
	Kwanele Jele	66	77	64	52	74	75	71	55	54	70	78	83	54
	Andrea Aquilani	74	64	67	69	70	72	75	64	75	74	68	67	73
	Youssef Bdadou	71	63	72	70	70	69	65	70	72	74	73	69	70
	Daniel Bonello	72	66	69	69	72	71	70	72	66	67	65	70	70
	Casper Van Uden	68	64	63	66	70	73	69	52	74	74	63	72	65
	Oscar Onley	67	71	71	61	71	72	64	64	63	69	66	70	60
	Isaac Del Toro	68	71	69	68	71	70	72	63	60	72	65	69	67
	Stan Martino	68	73	66	64	73	72	72	67	65	68	71	72	64
	Luke Borg	68	69	69	61	65	67	64	63	68	74	71	68	62
	Matteo Milan	67	55	63	61	69	68	65	63	73	73	62	59	63
	Andrea Alfio Bruno	68	62	70	60	69	70	63	62	66	68	69	68	59
	Awet Aman	63	68	69	60	65	68	66	58	62	65	62	66	59
	Guillaume Haldimann	70	54	59	72	65	66	69	51	59	61	67	65	72
	Finlay Pickering	66	69	67	63	70	68	71	55	57	66	63	70	62
	Davide Ruvalcaba Reyes	66	71	63	62	68	70	68	55	60	65	59	76	65

The team looks quite shit, I won't lie. But realistically only Eastman, Powless, El Sabbahi, Xandri, and Olei are maxed. Everyone else is still training so yeah, a very future centered team at the moment. Felix Sprenger, Kwanele Jele, Youssef Bdadou, Daniel Bonello, and Stan Martino will be maxing out this season so the top half should look more stacked coming into 2026!

Thanks for reading lads, cheers.

Hello all, trying to be more involved with the HQ and all throughout the season which I hope y'all appreciate so here I am again to announce the goals for the season. After our achievement of succeeding in 4 out of 5 goals in 2022 we never have gotten a single one again, something we hope to change this year!

PTHC	Criterium du Dauphine Libere	Win
PCT	Individual Standings	Win
HC	Tour d'Andorra	Win
HC	Tour du Maroc	Win
HC	Tour de Romandie	Win

As you can all see, we've gone full week-long stage race mode this year. Our plan was to get a big leader to replace Reis, and with two of our favorite stage races being upgraded to HC we just couldn't resist. It definitely won't be a walk in the park to achieve either of the HC goals and especially the Dauphine, but its far more realistic than what we've done in past years. Ofcourse PCT win is just for that extra bit of cash.