As seen above we have pretty much kept our team intact with only minor changes in wage.

Out goes our loanee Yecezhel and stagiaire Aasvold while Joni Kanerva and Awet Gebremedhin join our team. Also after three seasons as stagiaire Oskari Vainionpää have finally earned himself a full-time contract.

Now at this time of the year the big question is availability. To a wide extent everyone is available for the right deal, but a few names will get an extra mention here.

We don't expect to have a top-sprinter so our train would probably need a bit of slimming seeing it likely for Liepins and/or Vinther to leave.

Konig and Gautier are both quality riders that are important for the team, but they are also 32 years old and could be seen leaving the team in an effort to lower the age a bit and prepare for the future. Could be good options for teams in need of lowering wage costs as both are on relatively low wages.

knockout wrote:
Liepins available? hmmm.... Will have to see if i can fit one of my lost sons in my plans.

We are very happy to finally be able to announce our first new rider for the coming season.
Hannes Bergstrom Frisk have already gathered some experience outside the pro curcuit and can as such already be of some use in the stage races this season.

What is more interesting is his expected development, which sees him at 78 mountain, 75 TT/Prl and 78 recovery as the highlights. In other words a big talent for the stage races.

We were not the only ones having noticed his talent so we had to go up to 80.000 in order to secure his signature.

First we would like to introduce Jaako Hänninen. Jaako was highly contested, but in the end we managed to secure his signature making him our highest paid Finnish rider ever in the process.

He has the talent to become a real force in hilly stage races - even those with a TT. For now we only expect him to gather experience though.

Finbull of the Year 2018 after taking a stage win for the 2nd season in a row thus becoming the most winning active Finnish rider (not counting jersey wins and NC's).
Of course Kaislavuo was on our list of riders we wanted back after having been unable to sign him last year after relegating.

He is a good allrounder, who can do everything except TT'ing and really likes going into breakaways. Our hope is that we can find him a spot on a PT team this year to finish his development.

The first big signing for us was a former Tour of America runner-up by only a few seconds. A rider relatively similar to Konig except stronger on the hills and a little younger leaving us less vulnerable for next season.

Talansky will be one of the riders we expect to perform in order to avoid relegation, but we are confident that his experiences from the newly promoted Podium Ambition will help him do just that.

The final name of this batch joins us from EA Vesuvio and is among the worlds best time triallists.

Marcel will obviously lead us in races where TT's are important as well as we expect him to be in the mix for several stage wins over the season and being a real engine for our TTT setup.

Another key signign in our survival ambitions!