Looks like you're building an setting yourself up nicely for the future. Imagine the season where you decide to push, and sell/trade several of these valuable domestiques. Then sign a couple of FAs to fill out your team, and use the money on buying/trading one of those top, top leaders, or even use it as training money.
I feel like I trade several valuable riders every season. It's either not enough nor am I capable of smartly reinvesting the money/cap space.
At the very end we found just enough wage cap left to sign one more rider from free agency. We debated whether we should target a younger rider that can be developed without a loan, but given the size of our squad with many riders already loaned out. We decided to add a bit more help in the high mountains with a veteran rider.
With that said we welcome:
Abel Keyneres | Age: 32 | Lvl: 4.100 | Wage: 50k
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FT
DH
PR
66
76
73
69
58
75
75
73
53
52
69
65
66
56
Keyneres:While getting drafted by a CT team or riding for one of the newly formed development teams is cool, this is a much better option for me. I'm nearing the end of my career so I'm very happy to be able to ride in the biggest races.
Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Cedevita
Not nearly as busy a transfer season as in previous years, but at the end every rider that had a chance of moving ended up doing so on a permanent deal. That counts 8 riders in total. We did also loan out 6 riders on temporary deals which is a new team record.
Transferred
Logan Currie
Logan completed his development here in the last two years. We were willing to give him an opportunity elsewhere. We found a partner in Lotto-Caloi, in the deal we added a 250k fee to swap for Jiankun Liu.
Bachirou Nikiema
Bachirou leaves after signing as a free agent last year. He nicely filled the role of a hilly specialist on our squad, but since that is still a lower priority squad role he was available for a transfer. SEE Turtles found an interest in him so he is headed there for a bigger role and in hopes that he drives to promotion like many recent Cedevita expats have done. We received a 300k fee.
Pascal Ackermann
One of the best performers from last year Pascal moves on, but lands with another Pro Tour team, the newly promoted team Specialized. The hilly sprinter moves in a cash only deal worth 750k. We didn't find a replacement for him in the market, but we're still looking forward to seeing and chatting with him during the season.
Martin Papanov
Martin is another free agent signing that is moving one after just a season. With a few climbers finishing their development we felt our mountain depth was a bit better than last year so Martin was available. We found an interesting deal with Duvel-Tsingtao where we swapped Martin and fee of 225k for a talented young climber in Max Poole.
Jiankun Liu, Aleks Bechkov
Liu was acquired as a contingency, but after another deal fell through we started exploring the market for moving him. Trans Looney Tunes wanted to improve their sprint options so we found a deal where Liu and Bechkov were swapped for Jaka Primozic and a fee of 300k.
Michal Schlegel, Kristjan Hocevar
In a domino effect the addition of Primozic meant that Schlegel became more available than at the start of transfers. In a swap of climbers we packaged both Michal and Kristjan together in a deal with IESE Pro Cycling for Stephen Williams and fee of 650k.
Loaned Out
Mohammad Al Mutaiwei
Mohammad will spend his 2nd professional year on loan this time at IESE Pro Cycling. It's a team that's known for their focus on time-trials so we think this is a perfect fit for him.
Daniel Skerl
Daniel will also have another season on loan. We're sure he'll learn a lot about Hololive and other related things, but the most important thing is he will ride in lots of races for Bacharu Mamachari Faito! this upcoming season.
Emanuel Zangerle, Jesus David Pena, Awet Aman
All of the newly signed level 3 free agents will spend their first season on loan. They won't be short changed for Pro Tour experience though as all of them are joining Polar. It's not common for a single team to take three riders on loan so we very much appreciate manager beagle to allow us this opportunity.
Roman Ermakov
Roman follows in the footsteps of several of our young riders as he joins Trans Looney Tunes on loan. As always we are thankful to our friends in PCT for accommodating our rider.
Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Cedevita
Some cool new riders especially Ermakov. Behrens to my liking could be more of a time triallist, no?
I don't think maxing at 75 TT really moves the needle in any way. I guess he could also go down the Fabian route, but Ermakov seems a lot more suited to that.
At the end of the day this may just be a bad signing in general.
Opposed to last year the objective was to not overhaul the squad again. In previous years acquiring training funds was one of, if not the primary goal. If we go back to 2023 the tax bill totalled 872.6k. It was at 655k in 2024 and in 2025 it peaked at 950k. While the tax grew, the team grew weaker. Expensive training, while providing some results, ultimately didn't push the team any further up the table with finishes of 8th, 16th and 15th. Training cannot be reversed, that money is gone and the wage profile of the trained riders is largely set in stone. What's done is done, but a way forward is still required.
Per the directors instructions spending needed to be curbed and money used in a more prudent manner. As a result our tax bill plummeted down to only 250k. Looking at the squad, leadership positions were filled in mountain, sprint and cobbled races with Tadej Pogacar, Jasper Philipsen and Ivan Siric. We were primarily looking to improve our team with a puncheur leader for the hilly races, a terrain we haven't prominently featured in since 2022. Our attempts were unsuccessful and in the meantime some of our secondary targets also became unavailable.
With our plans almost completely foiled we reached out if one of the better Slovenians in Jaka Primozic could be acquired. He's a rider we've long admired and while he doesn't cover the gaps in our squad how we initially intended, he does still give us something we didn't have. With some added investment we hope he can contribute effectively as our 4th leader.
Afterwards we kept eyeing the market if a fitting rider would become available at an acceptable price, but that did not happen. So we concentrated our efforts on the free agents. Either one of Leo Vincent or Johannes Schinnagel would have proved excellent helpers if we acquired a puncheur. Now they'll have the role of being opportunistic scorers across the season.
When it came to unmaxed riders we went for quantity over quality. The reason for that was our limited cap space going into transfers. Our expectations were that we were going to be bargain shopping at the bottom end of the market. It turned out we moved every rider that was deemed plausibly available, opening more cap space than expected. With that occurring at a latter stage we were unable to change our approach of going for higher priced riders. That's something we need to improve on in the future.
Other notable additions include Stephen Williams who will be an important rider in the high mountains. Dusan Rajovic returns from loan and will take the spot of 2nd sprinter and occasional lead out rider. Yevgeniy Fedorov and Sergio Chumil are important depth scorers and we hope that Fred Wright continues to perform above what his stats points suggest.
From a regional point of view we did sell Papanov, Bechkov and Hocevar, but added a higher profile of rider in Primozic and a promising neo-pro in Roman Ermakov. Including riders on loan we have 15 that are from our narrow focus region. The last part here is the training outcome.
We have already mentioned the investment in Primozic. It just so happened that the amount spent was equal to what we projected to spend on one of our transfer targets. For Ivan Siric the situation was different. We only planned to train his climbing skills, but as we failed to secure our transfer targets and were too late to invest heavily into young talent there was money left over. Just enough to provide Ivan with more training on the cobbles. It's debatable whether this will help him take another step forward after an already excellent season. But if it makes sure he is a top 10 finisher in both cobbled monuments while remaining at a similar points output, then that's not too bad.
With that said I would now like to formally introduce Cedevita's 2026 rider squad.
2026 Squad
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FT
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
Pogacar
70
83
80
76
76
79
80
80
51
63
72
69
66
75
Max
28
670k
Siric
78
64
68
71
65
77
80
69
81
77
71
60
75
65
Max
28
385k
Philipsen
74
58
64
69
67
74
70
80
73
81
80
63
62
67
Max
28
350k
Primozic
69
77
76
74
68
79
77
79
61
66
73
72
67
69
Max
28
125k
Williams
68
78
76
74
66
72
76
76
63
65
74
75
72
66
Max
30
130k
Rajovic
72
58
61
64
59
70
76
70
55
78
82
57
57
62
Max
29
110k
Fedorov
76
64
68
72
75
74
72
67
76
70
71
68
69
73
Max
26
100k
Vincent
70
71
74
77
68
79
72
70
65
67
71
69
70
69
Max
31
100k
Groselj
78
58
62
66
77
74
78
71
67
73
72
69
70
79
Max
30
73k
Chumil
67
76
74
72
73
75
73
74
55
62
67
67
68
73
Max
26
90k
Wright
76
70
71
72
70
73
74
71
70
72
73
78
68
70
Max
27
90k
Schinnagel
68
75
75
74
65
77
72
71
57
65
73
69
74
65
Max
30
80k
Poljanec
77
67
68
69
63
70
68
67
73
71
71
69
73
63
Max
31
50k
Selimovic
71
75
73
70
60
75
79
74
62
65
77
76
76
66
Max
25
60k
Duric
72
60
66
72
60
74
73
70
75
64
70
69
71
59
Max
26
50k
Penko
71
68
70
71
76
73
74
71
58
65
70
62
71
76
Max
30
50k
Stojnic
74
68
69
70
75
74
78
73
56
67
70
74
65
77
Max
27
50k
Zumer
69
75
73
70
56
73
78
64
56
65
78
75
85
57
Max
29
50k
Kajamini
73
55
62
69
64
74
71
61
75
69
69
66
60
57
3.01
23
290k
Jarc
73
63
65
67
63
72
72
70
73
71
70
73
68
63
4.62
27
50k
Kenyeres
66
76
73
69
58
75
75
73
53
52
69
65
66
56
Max
32
50k
Skerl*
72
57
62
66
57
71
70
73
67
75
75
63
65
61
3.24
23
65k
Pena*
66
72
72
71
62
68
69
68
57
64
73
71
70
59
3.25
26
55k
Poole
67
73
71
69
64
72
71
71
55
61
68
74
70
63
3.04
23
190k
A.Mutaiwei*
72
61
61
61
74
71
70
70
57
65
64
68
67
73
3.45
23
55k
Aman*
63
72
71
70
60
68
71
68
58
62
67
64
69
59
3.46
23
55k
Zangerle*
73
64
65
64
61
73
70
65
68
66
70
73
72
64
3.30
26
50k
Ermakov*
72
68
68
68
70
71
68
71
68
68
64
72
68
67
1.00
22
110k
Behrens
69
56
63
69
68
70
69
64
65
69
70
70
64
69
2.00
23
115k
*
Loaned out
**
Loaned in
Spoiler
Rider Training
Ivan Siric | Age: 28 | Lvl: 4.100 | Wage: 385k
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FT
DH
PR
2025
78
63
67
71
65
77
80
69
80
77
71
60
75
65
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
2026
78
64
68
71
65
77
80
69
81
77
71
60
75
65
Jaka Primozic | Age: 28 | Lvl: 4.100 | Wage: 125k
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FT
DH
PR
2025
69
76
75
74
68
79
77
79
61
66
73
72
67
69
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
2026
69
77
76
74
68
79
77
79
61
66
73
72
67
69
Bostjan Mervar,
team representative and general manager of Cedevita
Personally, I think training a young, well rounded cobbles leader is one of the better training investments you can make. This solidifies him as one of the top 5 cobblers in the sport and gives him an opportunity for even more as the older guys decline. The wage difference should be proportionate, and you don't get a meaningful RD loss like you would on other terrains since you're not sacrificing cobbled race days anyway. I also think the Mtn training was a good idea in the last MM bump year.
Now, I still wish you didn't do it, but...
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Logan Currie
Jiankun Liu.
Bachirou Nikiema
Pascal Ackermann
Martin Papanov
Max Poole.
Jaka Primozic and a fee of 300k.
Michal Schlegel, 
Mohammad Al Mutaiwei
Emanuel Zangerle, 
Jesus David Pena, 
Awet Aman
