Gustavovskiy wrote:

Great job with renewals. Wouldn't mind bringing in some of your guys for the season. May have a word then.

Good luck in PT, should be a fun transfers for you!

We went into the off season with a ton of cap space to the fear of many. After initially not planning on picking up one of the big two Wirtgen looked like he was going to go for way under our valuation of 1,6. Even if Herklotz proved way cheaper we have a fantastic long term solution in a category where we have never been amazing. It will take a lot of adaptation to accomodate Wirtgen to best of our ability and most likely he won't be fully unleashed until 2027 granted that we get to stay in the Pro Tour.

More Transfer News soon

Where do we even start with this off season? We don't have a cobbles squad and we have the potentially greatest time traillist of all time as our main leader(????). It kind of goes against everything that we stand for. If we start on the departures we say goodbye to a ton of riders. Six riders left us permantently to provide even more space for the shift and PT preparations. The six are:
Dylan Kennett: The sprinter joined us last year for a fee around 300k from Glanbia and this year left us in a deal to go to SEE Turtles, where he will aim to dominate the CT sprint field in his final maxed year. We thank the Kiwi for his service after a great 2025 season for us!

Next up are Samuelle Battistella & Filippo Baroncini, who rode for us in their maxed states last year and provided us with great entertainment. Battistella mainly with his win in, the now cancelled, Tour of Eritrea became a name on a lot of lips. Both of them went to Aker - AbInbev in a trade deal for one of our main leader options, who will be presented shortly.

Ronnilan Quita leaves after a single season in our colours, the Phillipino puncheur had a stellar season for us in the PCT after joining from our friends over at King Power last year. After a bidding war we managed to churn a small profit on Quita who will be plying his trade for Deustche WindGuard after the newly founded CT team spent 650k for his services.

Tim Marsman was a late season FA option a few years ago, who was well on his way to becoming a valuable TTT piece, but being one year away from his max state we decided that when a trade offer came in from Rabobank that it felt mutually beneficial to have him ride for his home team instead of our international melting pot.

The last permanent departure is a big and unexpected one, but we decided to test the market for our Cobbles superstar Przemylaw Kasperkiewicz who will be riding for Hunter Valley Cycling this season after their manager hit us up with 950k and a fantastic rider in a trade. According to the insiders this trade sent shivers down the spine of the board, who felt very taken aback by now having a dedicated leader for the cobbles squad going into the team's debut season in the top flight.

Full signings list and squad to be announced at a future date.

** = Loaned out
* = Loaned in

A hefty and very busy off season ahead of our debut in the Pro Tour has left us with a very different outlook on what normally characterises a WJSM team but we recognised quite early on that we had to leave our affection at the door in the name survial.Two sprinters, Wirtgen and Romo headline our completely revamped leadership core for this year and beyond.

The first big one is Tom Wirtgen who was presented last week, the Luxembourgian time trial beast joins us out of free agency and will be our greatest hope in the name of survival and we hope that he can bring in 1500 points this year. Pascal Ackerman joins the team from Cedevita in a pure cash deal worth 750k, the German hilly sprinter had a fantastic year last year for Cedevita despite being caught behind Jasper Philipsen at a few key points in the season, he will be given the chance to replicate his incredible season and we do hope that he will score a comparable figure to last year's 590 points. Grosu joins us from free agency as a one year option and we believe that with solid planning that he will be a great value option, especially since we got his signature for just 220k in free agency. Last big leadership addition is Javier Romo. The Spaniard joins us in a very expensive deal where we paid 1,2 million and sent Battistella and Baroncini to Aker - AB InBev and we look forward to seeing him unleased from having to support Valtter whereever he goes. Inkelaar goes into the season as our primary GC leadership option despite his weak PCT season last year. Killian Frankiny will also provide a secondary climbing option for us and we aim to keep the two of them as seperate as possible. He joins us from Indosat Oredoo for a combined 550k together with Ben Zwiehoff who's wild card this year. Final scoring option added this year is Benoit Cosnefroy who joins us in the deal that sent Kasperkiewicz down under to Hunter Valley Cycling. The Frenchman has proven in the past that he is a very versatile scoring option at the PT level and we're excited to see him behind Wirtgen a lot this year!

One of our biggest targets in the off season was Michael Leonard and seeing him join our team this year is amazing for just 80k in wage! he is riding for Bianchi - Enel this year to gain valuable experience. Ramsay & Julien complete the Canadian delegation this year. Lund Andresen is loaned in as Grosu's primary leadout and will also get a few leadership opportunities. Skujins was a 50k punt in FA, maybe he does something useful and if not he's gonna be there to help out Romo! Goldstein fell down from the sky as an upgrade on Marsman from Rabobank and will become integral once we get a more established TTT core put together next year. Cemazar is just a chill 50k homie who can do a lot across multiple terrains. Magnus Sheffield is a rider we have adored ever since he he became eligible for a professional contract and when See Turtles came knocking for Kennett we didn't have to listen for very long when the possibility of adding in a very exciting cobbles prospect to our roster! He will be loaned out to Hunter Valley as Kasper support whilst getting his final developmental step. Wallinder & Holm Jorgensen are our final additions of the year as they join us on loan from IESE we're excited to help them gain their final steps of experience for the year!

We came into the offseason in more or less the worst position of all the promoting teams, we had very few assets of any real value and have managed to come out with a very coherent roster where we sadly have to sack off the cobbles for the year. I do believe we're in a strong position for survival if our planning can come together how it's supposed to! Even if we should relegate, it is going to be a very fun year and we will have some great assets to flip around to build a promotion candidate that can stabilise itself in PT on a second try!