Tim Rex was one of my absolute favourite additions of this intake and i cant believe he was available so late in the process for min fee! If you ever want to get rid of him...
Why would you take Lovidius that way? I was hoping he would be available for the Dev Team draft as I was going to take him and make him 77hi, 79Sta, 77Acc as with +2 Hill training that would be a really strong PCT leader
sammyt: With this game engine, I don’t like the look of the hills v1 route, landing in low 60s for both FL and MO. Genuinly think he has more value this way, at least for my team in the future.
knockout: Must say I was surprised myself seeing him not picked up. Being a Belgian made it all the better! Maybe a case of many PT teams waiting for dev. team picks, and maybe considered just about not good enough by all PCT/CT teams, or just not big enough of a priority.
knockout: Must say I was surprised myself seeing him not picked up. Being a Belgian made it all the better! Maybe a case of many PT teams waiting for dev. team picks, and maybe considered just about not good enough by all PCT/CT teams, or just not big enough of a priority.
For me the one big reason was the need for a loan & 1to3 clause when i have only 20 riders in my roster making that really difficult to deal with. I didnt have much hope to get him but he was #1 on my dev team priority rider draftlist
knockout: Must say I was surprised myself seeing him not picked up. Being a Belgian made it all the better! Maybe a case of many PT teams waiting for dev. team picks, and maybe considered just about not good enough by all PCT/CT teams, or just not big enough of a priority.
For me the one big reason was the need for a loan & 1to3 clause when i have only 20 riders in my roster making that really difficult to deal with. I didnt have much hope to get him but he was #1 on my dev team priority rider draftlist
knockout: Must say I was surprised myself seeing him not picked up. Being a Belgian made it all the better! Maybe a case of many PT teams waiting for dev. team picks, and maybe considered just about not good enough by all PCT/CT teams, or just not big enough of a priority.
For me the one big reason was the need for a loan & 1to3 clause when i have only 20 riders in my roster making that really difficult to deal with. I didnt have much hope to get him but he was #1 on my dev team priority rider draftlist
As transfers went, it felt like an easy choice prioritizing money elsewhere than his potential 1 —> 3 loan Happy to have him maxed at 26 years of age with it!
Things got quite hectic in the final 48 hours of transfer season, meaning the team lines up with 3 loan ins this season, but also have 3 riders out on loan.
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
Age
Wage
Anders Foldager
71
65
66
67
65
68
72
66
59
68
72
71
70
67
25
65 000
Jefferson Alexander Cepeda
70
76
74
72
67
73
73
70
57
60
71
64
60
66
28
-
Alex Julajuj
67
72
72
71
73
72
72
70
55
60
68
65
69
73
28
-
Julajuj comes in at a loan from McCormick Pro Cycling. The not so young Guatemalan will max out in our colours, surely riding at least one Grand Tour in the process of just that. Julajuj is also likely to play quite a bigger part in the team compared to what we first thought when bringing him in. Being our 4th best TTer definitely counts for something, and we need him to understand our TTTs will be all about not dropping our leaders!
Anders Foldager is the second loan in we've got. His wage speaks for itself, this is a guy with a nose for breakaways. His 2025 was sensational in that regard. We don't believe nor expect any repeat of that, but he'll get race days to be sure to level up, making our friends at Grieg-Maersk happy when he returns back to them.
Our final loan in is arguably the most profilic. Cepeda wasn't a planned loan, but when finalizing the Stokbro deal, it became clear Gazelle had overseen a detail in their finances. Thus, Cepeda came our way, with Gazelle paying his wage, whereas we only pay them a very small fee. We must definitely say thank you to their manager DubbelDekker for the quick solution. Cepeda should feature in a lot of races for us, as his attributes should make him a key rider for any of our leaders in the mountains.
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
Age
Wage
Alexander Konychev
82
61
64
67
60
77
78
73
63
76
75
76
61
73
28
115 000
Christophe Laporte
70
59
65
70
59
67
69
69
72
69
68
64
61
62
34
50 000
Tim Rex
70
68
68
67
63
69
68
64
66
66
69
70
68
61
22
-
Among our loan outs, Tim Rex has already been covered. The two others, are bigger surprises. It's with great pride we can say Laporte gets the final year he deserves, riding for newly promoted Peugeot. He should be able to share his experience and get the other riders to understand what it actually takes to be a true professional in this sport.
Then there's the loan out of Konychev. Wow, how we come to regret that with 12 hours left of the transfer season... First seen as a great opportunity for Konychev to show the world what he's capable of racing for McCormick, as his 2025 was clearly very limited due to the presence of Kragh. Well, 12 hours before transfers was officially done, Kragh confirmed he was leaving our team in a shock move. This is the move we're the least happy with all transfer season, as loosing Kragh in such a way, wasn't a great bit of business, to put it mildly. Then to also have loaned out Konychev a good week before, made the misery complete!
Anyway, Konychev should be magnificent for McCormick, and we're very excited to see him race for them as the clear rouleur and leader for any flat classic! Anyone wondering how great he can be, can scroll through the tense report of last season's World Championship Elite road race.
Transfer season was about to end for Aker - AB InBev several days ago, when putting in a 95k wage offer for Ricardo Delgado Gonzales. He was supposed to be our last signing, before having fun picking a rider for a development team.
Then Isaac del Toro became available.
We decided we were prepared to let go of whatever it would take to make it happen, as del Toro being available felt like a once in a MG lifetime opportunity.
We then worked to make it happen, and it quickly appeared it was well within what we were prepared to sacrifice. As things got going, it looked to be Godoy, Carboni and several domestiques leaving, as we were looking good for rider numbers pre del Toro. We thus submitted our final offer to Banco Vaticano-Valkyrie close to the deadline set, and we were quickly told we held the winning offer. Great!
Then, the trouble came. We had all major deals landed when we gave the offer. In the early hours of that particular night, we learnt what we thought was an offer for Carboni wasn't going to hold. Seems like our management got a bit too excited and a misunderstanding/miscommunication left us in a pickle, when the final 24 hours of the transfer season came.
But in the end, we managed to bring in the funds, via a Kragh sale to Danish team Carlsberg. Thus, the following riders left as a consequence of del Toro joining, in addition to the planned +1 MM and HI training for Valter also obviously isn't happening anymore:
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
OVR
Age
Soren Kragh Andersen
81
63
64
65
70
77
78
72
65
76
74
72
71
83
75,3
32
Caio Godoy
68
81
79
76
67
75
76
77
54
59
75
71
68
67
77,86
31
Samuele Battistella
71
75
75
75
66
71
77
72
63
67
71
74
68
72
75,22
28
Andreas Stokbro
75
62
66
69
66
75
73
66
77
71
71
69
67
66
75,18
29
Magnus Cort Nielsen
71
77
75
73
71
75
74
72
59
53
70
64
63
71
74,95
33
Embret Svestad-Bardseng
71
72
72
71
67
73
69
72
60
66
70
70
69
67
72,28
24
Mark Donovan
72
76
74
71
65
74
77
69
62
63
71
72
74
67
73,85
27
Gone were the core we built for during transfer season. Was it worth it? Absolutely not, we're sure all analytics can explain why. But for us? Absolutely yes!
Bienvenido, Isaac del Toro
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
OVR
Age
Isaac Del Toro
68
73
72
70
70
72
71
74
63
60
72
65
69
69
72,21
23
Isaac Del Toro
71
83
81
74
74
79
77
80
63
62
77
68
72
71
79,5
26
Earlier described as a once in a MG lifetime opportunity, we went all in convincing del Toro this was the right move. We genuinly believe he's a true world class rider once finished his development. Our best comparison for all our time in the MG, is when Herklotz came flying through as a kid. No pressure!
Obviously the level at the very top of the world speaking of stage races and Grand Tours is extremely high, and there are several young riders at the top/very close to the top already, making it even more difficult for del Toro to establish himself as a world class rider in the future.
We can't wait to see him maxd out in 2029. It can't be quick enough!
Happy to have him maxed at 26 years of age with it!
