V2-v1-v2-v1 would be my way, and you've got yourself a perfect Chiarello. My speculation being that the sprint stat then bring in heaps of points as a bonus stat for a climber, similar to how Chiarello went on about it.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't really spot any notable resemblances to Chiarello, who had 63SPR, but instead had 75HI and 73TT.
Dockx will be -1MO, -5HI, -4TT +7SPR. Seems like a completely different rider to me.
The final signings for our team has been finalized, and we are happy to present.
Laurens De Plus
4.100
31yo
Puncheur
€200.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
72
77
78
79
65
74
73
71
57
61
72
68
66
65
After the quick departure of Errazkin, which was needed for training purposes, we immidiately found Laurens De Plus as a replacement, and in fact we believe that to be an upgrade. He is also a perfect GC attacker, and might even get to lead in a Grand Tour.
David Gaudu
4.100
30yo
Puncheur
€135.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
73
71
75
78
66
78
75
71
57
68
70
69
69
66
In order to give ourselves the best possible chances to perform a result here and there in the hilly races we have also decided to add David Gaudu to the team, thus making our depth very strong.
Jonathan Vervenne
2.89
23yo
TimeTriallist
€55.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
69
62
66
70
72
72
69
67
65
60
60
64
56
71
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
74
64
68
78
76
76
75
71
65
60
61
67
56
77
Vervenne is a very talented young timetriallist, who will be a valuable asset in any TTT setup in a couple of years. In order to achieve the best possibilities for development he will be loaned out for the season.
Renus Uhiriwe
4.100
25yo
TimeTriallist
€50.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
74
66
68
69
77
73
72
69
60
63
68
75
65
77
Uhiriwe joins on a one year loan deal, and is pretty similar to Vervenne. Uhiriwe is only 25 years old, and should have plenty of chances to fight for a good U25 result in our team.
Szymon Sajnok
4.100
29yo
TimeTriallist
€85.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
74
61
63
65
78
70
76
71
63
73
72
62
70
79
Sajnok is a slightly stronger timetriallist, also with a very handy prologue. He will also take part in the early lead out train from time to time.
Unfortunately the signings couldn't be made possible without a few riders also leaving the team. A couple of these hurt us, but we believe it was needed to give us the best short term chances of survival, as well as the possibilities to train a couple of riders!
Departures: Xuban Errazkin Jay Vine Alexys Brunel Ioannis Spanopoulos Andreas Miltiadis Marco Schrettl Kamiel Bonneu
The final roster of ELCO - ABEA is as below. 17 Riders from Greece and 4 riders from Cyprus makes it a team that could - theoretically stand alone! However, we don't feel it is realistic to survive without leaders like Altur, De Plus and Gaudu. With them, we believe it should be sufficient!
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
Age
Wage
CLIMBERS
Giannoutsos
68
81
77
72
72
76
78
75
57
65
68
75
67
77
29
225.000
Karatsivis
70
78
76
73
72
73
75
75
60
64
74
74
67
71
25
140.000
Christakos
69
77
75
72
70
69
74
72
58
61
70
74
70
73
27
75.000
Agrotis
72
75
73
71
74
76
72
75
63
65
68
71
70
75
28
60.000
PUNCHEURS
De Plus
72
77
78
79
65
74
73
71
57
61
72
68
66
65
31
200.000
Gaudu
73
71
75
78
66
78
75
71
57
68
70
69
69
66
30
135.000
Soulious
69
74
75
75
66
76
75
69
51
71
78
63
76
66
30
115.000
Vila
70
71
74
77
64
70
73
74
54
67
74
76
69
64
29
100.000
Theorpanous
71
71
72
73
70
70
72
73
67
69
75
74
70
69
24
50.000
COBBLERS
Altur
74
62
66
69
62
74
69
68
81
71
67
69
62
62
33
200.000
Kortsidakis
77
63
66
69
54
75
75
73
77
68
72
76
70
73
32
135.000
Boutopoulos
78
68
70
72
66
73
75
69
74
73
78
80
74
68
30
145.000
Mengoulas
76
65
67
69
75
76
72
68
75
65
74
73
68
75
29
100.000
TIMETRIALLISTS
Kiriakidis
68
74
74
73
78
72
73
74
62
63
71
70
73
76
29
115.000
Ioannidis
66
74
73
72
77
74
72
71
56
57
68
71
66
75
33
110.000
Christapopoulos
73
62
68
73
78
72
72
66
62
62
69
75
66
77
31
80.000
Moutsios
75
61
63
64
78
74
73
69
65
68
73
71
67
78
25
65.000
Varotsos
78
62
65
67
75
73
72
68
63
71
70
72
68
75
24
50.000
Christodoulos
72
68
68
68
78
75
69
70
53
53
64
73
65
79
29
95.000
Sajnok
74
61
63
65
78
70
76
71
63
73
72
62
70
79
29
85.000
Cavagna
77
64
69
74
76
75
74
71
73
73
71
60
63
76
31
90.000
Uhiriwe
74
66
68
69
77
73
72
69
60
63
68
75
65
77
25
50.000
Broxham
69
71
71
71
73
70
70
70
60
67
68
68
65
73
26
55.000
SPRINTERS
Farantakis
74
59
63
66
72
75
72
79
66
82
80
61
63
79
31
500.000
Koumpetsos
74
67
70
73
56
76
73
82
58
76
76
74
71
56
31
90.000
Gibbons
75
59
62
65
67
73
72
73
60
78
78
65
68
72
32
110.000
LOANED OUT
Stavrakakis
76
61
65
68
75
74
70
66
78
64
68
70
62
77
28
100.000
Douzas
69
68
71
73
63
72
69
71
60
66
74
74
75
63
24
50.000
Ioannou
67
68
69
69
67
68
68
67
62
65
71
70
70
68
23
50.000
Dockx
68
70
70
69
69
67
69
67
68
70
75
68
68
70
22
200.000
Marti
70
66
67
68
65
68
71
67
67
66
71
69
71
66
22
65.000
Vervenne
69
62
66
70
72
72
69
67
65
60
60
64
56
71
23
55.000
As always - Feel free to comment!Edited by SotD on 03-08-2026 19:41
Farantakis is top class (a legend?) but most of your other leaders a step below the best. But with every terrain covered, an outstanding set of homegrown TTers and nice depth on most terrains I am sure you find ways to score.
As you say, we don’t really have a top rider anywhere, but hopefully we have enough subtop riders and depth to stay up. That is the main goal. We also needed to sign a couple of riders that could sell/swap relatively easy next season so Karatsivis can take the next steps.
The development of Greek riders continue, and this season we are seeing an improvement in two riders.
Miltiadis Giannoutsos
4.100
29yo
Climber
€225.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
68
80
76
72
72
76
78
75
57
64
68
75
67
77
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
↓↓↓
68
81
77
72
72
76
78
75
57
65
68
75
67
77
Giannoutsos is without a doubt the best ever greek climber, and he took further steps in his development during this off season. In order to get him a few more stage results we have also asked for him to work a bit on his sprint. Giannoutsos already have a 5th place in the Giro d'Italia from 2023, but we aim to get him slightly closer to actually becoming a solid top 10 GC rider.
Georgios Stavrakakis
4.100
28yo
Cobbler
€100.000
FL
MO
MM
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CO
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
76
61
65
68
75
74
70
66
77
64
68
70
62
77
↓↓↓
76
61
65
68
75
74
70
66
78
64
68
70
62
77
Stavrakakis will not ride for us this season, but we have still invested in his future with the team. Marcos Altur will ride his final season in the team, and as Kortsidakis is also slowly reaching decline, and Boutopoulos isn't possible to work on for several seasons it is the plan that Stavrakakis is going to take on the leaders role next season.
Nice that I don't need to worry about Stavrakakis this year, but I guess Altur is still quite a bit better now. He'll be an even bigger problem next year probably. Giannoutsos was and will continue being a troublesome opponent.
Looks like another top 10 finish is coming up with this team
Very impressive Greek core you got there by now. Great depth and I personally am not too happy seeing that TTT squad. I assume we'll clash there sometimes.
I wont even try to write most of your names, but once again a nice squad (though bigger than I'd like...) I like the hilly setup and I like the focus. Gibbons should continue placing Farantakis in good postions to have another great year.
Best of luck to and with Renus Uhiriwe Hope he can do what you hope for and get a couple of good results on his own, in addition to any TTT support. I think you're set up decently well for another solid season, and to continue to grow those Greeks
whitejersey
Pretty solid TTT setup yes, but didn't quite work the way I wanted. I would have liked a couple of 79-80 TT guys, but those became available too late for me to make an actual move to sign then. Agree though, that it should be possible to sell enough next season to get some cash for training. It's expensive trainings though with 79-80MO for Karatsivis probably and 79COB for Stavrakakis. Could be a struggle to find that much.
redordead
Indeed, looking at the PT composition I think Altur will do almost equally good as last season. I'm surprised we hardly got an offer for him. But I guess people just don't want to spend a lot of money on riders already on decline. Stavrakakis will probably need +2COB to actually lift the job, as he isn't as strong in hills and sprint as Altur, but maybe 79 is sufficient to do regular top 10s with a bit of luck.
For Giannoutsos I hope this will catapult him into being a certain top 10 GC rider regardless of where he rides. He had a bit of a strange either/if position before, where he sometimes was doing great and other times doing nothing. I don't think it's likely that he will be trained one last time next season though. Well maybe another +1SPR if I have a bit of cash left.
I hope you are right in terms of PT top 10. I think we are slightly worse than last season, so it could be around 10th +/- a couple of spots.
Bikex
Thanks mate. Can only double in on that. I thought we had the best TTT setup for most of the off season, but you made some moves towards the end to make it sure that you are indeed the strongest. Those Krul+Hayter deals tipped things definately in your favor as they match the best we have. I think you will win every TTT this season, maybe bar the combination of Vuelta/Slovenia mix (I assume you have Slovenia aswell).
Heine
Yeah the team size is also bigger than I like personally. It's a bit difficult to find the perfect size when I want as many Greek/Cypriots possible, but they can't really stand on their own. If I could survive without foreigners I would have likely had 24-25 riders in total with some bigger/better talents and 1 star rider outside of my regional focus. But as Greece doesn't have a top GC rider, Top TT rider, Top Cobbler og Top Puncheur it's impossible to build a surviving PT setup. 11 foreigners (including loans) is too much though - I do agree.
It's interesting, because I feel my hilly setup is the weakness of the team. Atleast in terms of the hilly classics. De Plus and Gaudu as a combo might work OK for races like Tirreno, Nederland and Scandinavia, but doesn't really have a good PTHC calender for them, so it is going to be interesting how they fare in mountains and attacking roles in GC races.
I think Gibbons is the best possible leadout solution for Farantakis. There was a couple of other possibilities, but I don't really think anyone was better suited. So really happy I got him.
Hehe yes I know that the sample size of TTT's isn't 9 I do however have some riders that aren't really leading us anywhere that can or cannot be used like Cavagna, Mengoulas and Varotsos. The lower level TT riders will make it possible for me to set up 2 solid TTT teams in both Vuelta and Slovenia at the same time, which will be fun.
cunego59
Thanks a lot mate! I feel pretty comfortable that he will snatch some U25 points here and there. I was looking for small exploits in the PT, and the U25 TT department seemed like a decent spot. There are 13 U25 riders with a TT stat between 75-78. And I have 3 of those. And 3-4 of the others are also more GC riders than TT riders, so we might not face them too often.
jaxika
I hope so yes. There wasn't any obvious weaknesses in the division that I could exploit. Sprints seem somewhat similar to last season (before training) so I think are still going to need a sprint train for Farantakis. We still can't win TT's outright, so we need to score through numbers. The best possible exploit we could find was actually in the cobbles where I think Altur is still a top 10 rider. Something I wasn't so sure about going into the transfers. In the top area not much is possible to change through training. Riders like Siric was similar or better already last season. So we are basically looking at Vermeersch getting stronger and skewing things slightly, but not enough can happen to really tilt things.
There was a couple of options in the PRL department that I would have like to explore, but they came available too late for me to make a move.
I think you should be safe from relegation again given the depth you still have on top of your leaders. And I really like the path you chose for Vervenne, who's one of the riders who might bring you the training funds next season
baseballlover312
I hope so. Last season my team performed pretty well with Kinoshita, atleast in the one day races, but we were slightly below par on the hilly GC races. Hopefully the duo can atleast replicate the points scored from Kinoshita. I do think that should be possible indeed.
Caspi
I think De Plus, Gaudu, Cavagna, Sajnok, Broxham, Dockx, Marti, Vervenne and Altur (despite being a low level cobbled leader) should be possible to sell/swap for a decent fee. Whether or not it will be enough i always a big question
kandesbunzler26
Thanks - I hope you are right. I think we will be ~500 points lower this season than last season, but that still might be OK too. It would be wild if Farantakis somehow were to replicate last season. Can't really see that happen. Vervenne is a cool rider indeed. He could be decent as a sale next season yeah. Might need 2 years though. Same as Dockx - If I want to maximize the fee atleast.
Welcome to the 2026 expectation analysis. As always we like to break things up into brackets, to see where we have strengths and weaknesses, as it makes planning for the upcoming seasons more reflected and nuanced.
So let's dive into it, with a quick list of expectations based on the categories...
RACING CATEGORIES
Cat
Expected
GT
1150
Mon
750
PT
2580
PTHC
1320
SUM
5800
Last season we expected a total of 5500 points, but scored a massive 6725 points. We don't expect to be anyway near that total this season, but we are a bit more optimistic than we were at the start of last season. Back then we scored more points than expected in 3 out of the 4 categories, with only the Grand Tours being slightly underwhelming.
We have kept the expected 1150 points in Grand Tours from last season, but have opted for higher quality in the races! Last season Giannoutsos was the leader in 2 Grand Tours, this time only in 1 - which could indicate a lower level of interest, but when analyzing things we do infact increase our amount of "high-level" race days, as we enter Farantakis in 1 Grand Tour, Karatsivis in 2 and De Plus in 1, meaning that we have a realistic shot at decent stage and GC results in all (top 15).
We expect 750 points from the monuments, where we expected 675 and scored 864 last season, so a good middle ground. We don't have Kinoshita anymore, who scored 273 of those, and Altur who scored 236 of them is also not quite as strong anymore. We do however believe that our depth is better, and that Altur is still going to score well in the cobbled races, while Milano - San Remo could be another good race for us.
We have slightly increased our expectations in the PTHC from 1300 to 1320. We scored 1743 there last season, but it is always difficult to estimate exactly as race planning tends to be more fluent there. In the PT we expect 2580 points, where we expected 2375 last season and scored 3079. A lot of those actual scored points came from Stylianos Farantakis, and we have to adjust for his overperformance, thus ending on a lower level.
Let's take a look at the rider brackets, divided into the following categories:
- CLIMBERS
- PUNCHEURS
- COBBLERS
- TIMETRIALLISTS
- SPRINTERS
Overall we can see that all categories are pretty evenly matched, despite some areas being clearly stronger than others, but this can be reduced to versatility and amount of riders within each bracket. We have tried to get a good balance, where no department of our team is more than 25% stronger than the worst. And as seen below with 975 vs. 1350 points we haven't quite managed to do that with our current setting, but if we move Cavagna from timetriallist to cobbler we are very close (30%).
This could indicate that we have too many timetriallists on our hand compared to the level of puncheurs that we have at our disposal. And I do believe that is a fair assessment to make. Ideally we would have loaned out Broxham and replaced him with a puncheur domestique that could score around 100-200 points. We tried to do that early on, but failed to sign the preferred options.
CLIMBERS
First Name
Surname
Exp.
Miltiadis
Giannoutsos
675
Panagiotis
Karatsivis
350
Alexandros
Agrotis
125
Dimitrios
Christakos
75
SUM
1.225
Despite having lost Jay Vine, this is a category in which we have moved up significantly. Giannoutsos with his training and Karatsivis being maxed out. Last season the mentioned riders scored 968, and we believe it is realistic to find another 257 points from those two. We have decreased the expectations towards Christakos compared to last season to match around what he scored (60 points).
We get a fair share of the domestique climbing duties from elsewhere in our brackets.
PUNCHEURS
First Name
Surname
Exp.
Laurens
De Plus
400
David
Gaudu
250
Zisis
Soulious
175
Aimiliano
Vila
75
Stavros
Theorpanous
75
SUM
975
After losing Kinoshita, and the very underwhelming Sergies as well as domestique Bonneu, this is going to be the most difficult aspect to analyze for us. De Plus and Gaudu scored a combined 654 points last season, and we are trying to replicate that this season. Soulious scored 205 points last season so we are trying to give him a bit more pressure, and hope to see him sometimes ending up in finals where he can use his sprinting qualities to his advantage. Vila and Theorpanous are planned as domestiques and we don't expect neither to score more than minimum this season.
COBBLERS
First Name
Surname
Exp.
Marcos
Altur
450
Georgios
Boutopoulos
250
Michail
Kortsidakis
175
Alex
Mengoulas
100
SUM
975
Altur is not as strong as last season, where he scored 747 points, but we don't think he will lose more than 300 points despite him declining. We are now comparing him to riders like Johan Jacobs, Jonas Rutsch and Mike Teunissen of last season, and even decreased his assessment a bit further. He could be 500+ points still. Boutopoulos and Kortsidakis scored a combined 494 points last season. We have decreased that to 425 points as they are not likely to be as close to the front to help Altur as they were last season. Mengoulas is estimated at a level of slightly below what Stavrakakis did last season as a cobbles domestique.
TIMETRIALLISTS
First Name
Surname
Exp.
Ioannidis
Kiriakidis
250
Nikolaos
Ioannidis
200
Remi
Cavagna
200
Pangiotis
Christapopoulos
125
Michael
Christodoulos
125
Martinos
Moutsios
125
Szymon
Sajnok
125
Renus
Uhiriwe
75
Ioannis
Varotsos
75
Ricardo
Broxham
50
SUM
1.350
The timetrial department is likely the single most interesting part of the season for us. We don't have any top riders, but we have an overwhelming quantity that will hopefully come to aid us every now and again. Ioannidis has started his decline so we have moved him from 346 to 200 points. Kiriakidis scored 280, we have him at 250, and the rest are basically just randomized. We aknowledge that some will probably score 200 points, and others 80 or so, but to even things out we have decided to give all 78TT riders the same expected level, with the versatile riders a slight buff. We have opted to find the most possible TTT's this season to see if our depth is ready for a long term investment there. If it is, we are likely going to build on that for future seasons with a higher top level perspective and reduce the lower level riders to aid elsewhere - f.e. puncheurs.
SPRINTERS
First Name
Surname
Exp.
Stylianos
Farantakis
1100
Ryan
Gibbons
100
Anastasios
Koumpetsos
75
SUM
1.275
Farantakis and Zingle had a wonderful last season scoring a combined 1.920 points. Despite having the same level this season we are fully aware that this was a massive overperformance, that we cannot even try to replicate. Also we have opted to see if Farantakis can have some fun in a Grand Tour so we have invested massively in building a train for him in the Tour de France this season. This will reduce his overall points. We have decided to go for 1100 points which is similar to our pre-season expectations last year. We believe that other managers have looked us over the shoulder and should have tweaked their setups to interrupt our chances of succes significantly. Koumpetsos and Gibbons are expected to score a few points, but any stage top 10 result this season would be a welcome surprise.
CONCLUSION
We expect to score around 5.800 points this season, which would normally place us around 14-15th place in the final PT division. We do however believe that we are going to see a harder divider this season with more teams not crossing the 5.000 points barrier, and the top 5-10 teams scoring a higher average than would normally be the case, and this we believe a realistic evaluation of our expected position is between 8-12th. We feel relatively comfortable that we can survive, but we also aknowledge that we don't have 3 secure pointscorers like we did last season, and that this is a transition season before hopefully being able to fight for better things in 2-3 years.
Xuban Errazkin
Jay Vine
Ioannis Spanopoulos
Andreas Miltiadis
Marco Schrettl
I do however have some riders that aren't really leading us anywhere that can or cannot be used like Cavagna, Mengoulas and Varotsos. The lower level TT riders will make it possible for me to set up 2 solid TTT teams in both Vuelta and Slovenia at the same time, which will be fun.
