McCormick and Ulriksen Sports are pleased to announce the return of Baltimore-based McCormick & Company as the primary sponsor of McCormick Pro Cycling. McCormick Pro Cycling is a long-term project to build a significant American cycling team.
Team manager Ulrich Ulriksen welcomed the news, "This is our 8th season with McCormick and I think all of us believe it is time to make the next step. Last season's 9th place finish was our best ever and we will be looking to tweak the squad to get into the promotion places this time around".
McCormick also announced that most of last year's squad will return. The most notable departure was Zeke Mostov. Ulriksen said, "Zeke was one of our original 5 young signees and is the second one to depart. We just couldn't get to common ground with Zeke on salary and wish him good luck with his next steps".
The team also announced that Cole Kessler was offered a full-time contract after riding as a stagiaire last year. Ulriksen celebrated the signing, "bring Cole on full-time continues our commitment to young US talent."
The team also announced that Jingbiao Zhao and Justin Wolf will not return nor will stagiares Emry Faingezicht and Anderseon David Palma.
McCormick looks forward to the rest of the offseason and a successful 2026 season.
Renewals - I give myself a C, no disasters but Sosa probably didn't need another 50k to screw things up and Yates is still expensive at 220k. Would have liked Macias to go down more and Hecht had better not flop too badly to justify that wage.
Country
Rider
Age
2025 Wage
2026 Wage
Change
Ivan Sosa
29
365,000
415,000
50,000
Quinn Simmons
25
150,000
345,000
195,000
Adam Yates
34
385,000
220,000
-165,000
Aliaksandr Riabushenko
31
200,000
165,000
-35,000
Jhonatan Narvaez
29
145,000
135,000
-10,000
Gage Hecht
28
65,000
110,000
45,000
Dorian Godon
30
100,000
105,000
5,000
Nicolas Alejandro Cabrera
29
80,000
95,000
15,000
Juan Osorio
31
85,000
95,000
10,000
Sepp Kuss
32
90,000
85,000
-5,000
Nils Eekhoff
28
55,000
80,000
25,000
Gregory Daniel
32
75,000
75,000
0
Pierre Barbier
29
50,000
75,000
25,000
Cesar Macias
23
115,000
70,000
-45,000
Brandon Rodriguez
25
50,000
60,000
10,000
Thomas Revard
29
50,000
50,000
0
Fikri Azka Mohammad
30
50,000
50,000
0
Alex Hoehn
29
50,000
50,000
0
Noah Granigan
30
50,000
50,000
0
Alex Julajuj
28
50,000
50,000
0
Cole Kessler
23
10,000
50,000
40,000
Zeke Mostov
30
50,000
0
-50,000
Justin Wolf
34
50,000
0
-50,000
Jingbiao Zhao
31
110,000
0
-110,000
Emry Faingezicht
23
10,000
0
-10,000
Anderson David Palma
23
10,000
0
-10,000
--------------
--------------
--------------
Total
2,500,000
2,430,000
-70,000
We could probably do nothing in transfers except resign that greedy bastard Mostov and go into next year with an outside shot at promotion, but what fun would that be.
All the non-regional focus riders will be available, as always. And probably Macias as well, not committed to him.
Edited by Ulrich Ulriksen on 09-07-2026 04:49
Solid but not particularly spectacular renewals for you it seems. Sosa is a great rider and should hopefully achieve some decent results this season to match his wage, even with the increase. Super solid team, looking forward to seeing what direction you decide to go in transfers
I for one can certainly believe Jingbiao Zhao was a greedy boy again in renewals. The man is obsessed with money, but yet people still keep paying him in free agency.
On a side note, I'm very much not lot looking forward to a newly maxed Quinn Simmons in the PCT, just as Ardila has left.
I think Yates might have a tough time justifying that salary, but could well do it still. Hecht also a bit on the more expensive side I guess. Other than that, looks like a solid round of renewals Simmons par for the course for a rider of his caliber, I think.
Curious to see what your moves will be to get some more room to work with during transfers!
Overall not bnd renewals, though I think Yates might be a bit hard to move on that salary. Always tough with declining riders. He's still a good stage hunter but has fallen out of leader territory, and his wage doesn't fully represent that.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Pumped for what Simmons can bring for you this year! Depending on how you're feeling, I could see us being active communicators this transfer season and I'm excited to see what is next for McCormick!
Simmons time! He's coming up, and Yates is going down, which I can only celebrate as the Yates brothers' favourite runner-up over their careers
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
McCormick Pro Cycling announced that the sponsor has decided this will be their last in the mangame peloton and the team will seek new sponsorship for 2027.
Said team manager Ulrich Ulriksen, “We got the news right before transfers, they had done a strategic review and decided this was to be their last season. They wanted to give us time to prepare. Obviously, it was a shock for those us who have been with the team since the beginning. Dan [Holloway] wrecked the men’s room with a baseball bat and Rathie is so upset he’s been wearing his old kit to bed. I won’t deny it caused an ‘end of day’s’ feeling in the transfer room. We may have loosened our principles and started buying old guys and random frenchies but hopefully we put together a team capable of a serious push at promotion, while centered around leaders from our focus regions.”
Arrivals, Part 1: The Big Gun
We decided to use our loan cap this year on adding points, with Los Pollos in transition they told us Orluis Aular would be available on loan. We couldn’t miss a chance to bring in a regional rider of his quality. We think, along with Ivan Sosa, he will make us competitive in every climbing race.
Arrivals, Part 2: The Roulers
Since the days of Dan Holloway McCormick has liked riders strong on the flats. When conversation got started with Aker – In Bev one rider was always our target – Alexander Konychev - and we were able to secure him, also on loan. Said Ulriksen, “Let’s face it, except for some wheel sucking by Boutopoulous this man would be world champion, he is quality. We figured if we didn’t have the budget to join the top sprint teams, maybe we could beat them.” The team also signed Marildo Yzeiraj in free agency, to support Konychev in the flat classics.
Arrivals, Part 3: The French Riders
Said Ulricksen, “We were thrilled with the contributions of Dorian Godon last year and our crack analytical team attributed that to his Frenchness, so we had to move on it.” The team welcomed veteran French riders Cyril Barthe, purchased from Polar, Nans Peters in a swap with Gazelle and Sandy Dujardin in a swap with King Power.
Arrivals, Part 4: Friends for Quinn
“With Quinn Simmons returning to the team as our leader in the hills we wanted to make sure we had adequate support for him.” noted Ulricksen, “along with Cyril and Nans, Felix [Gall] and Christian [Rodriguez] fit that bill.” The team acquired Felix Gall from Riders of Rohan in a rider swap while Christian Rodriguez was part of the deal with Aker – In Bev that saw Konychev join the team.
Departures
The team lost two long time key riders this offseason offseason with multi-time Ecuadorian champion Jhonatan Narvaez and Tour of Norway specialist Greg Daniel departing. Ulrisken praised Narvaez and Daniel, “Jhonatan has been an absolute stalwart for us for 3 years, we just felt with Quinn taking the lead puncheur role his leadership opportunities would be limited and Riders of Rohan felt they could give him that role. With Greg we moved away from our TTT team a little and felt like now was the time to let him move on, we are thrilled to see him join new US-focused team Brandt Cycling”.
As part of the Aker – In Bev deal Alex Julajuj joined Aker – in Bev on loan where he will complete his development.
In addition to those departures Fikri Azka Mohammad, Cesar Macias, Nils Eekhoff, Pierre Barbier, and Juan Osorio left the team. McCormick thanks them for their efforts. The team also thanked all the teams and managers we worked with this offseason for the mutually beneficial negotiations.
That's amazing depth for the mountains! Feels like you're definitely pushing for promotion, and hopefully Konychev can secure you just that, "covering" you in flat classics. Suspect he'll be key for your promotion push, as seeing elsewhere than the mountains, it's difficult to see the major points income.
For all the uphill stats i expected better DH ratings, but I guess this team really loves to do one thing only (apart from being a promotion contender)
