We're back! After a great year in CT, we're ready to tackle our 5th season overall - and our 2nd in PCT. We hope to not just be back, but also more ready than when we first tried two years ago!
Following the motto "Never change a winning setup" - or so - we head into the 2023 season with the exact same sponsors as last year. So without further ado, let's look at all those companies that are behind Jura GIANTS:
Jura Elektroapparate AGMain sponsor
Freshly ground, not capsuled! - Jura's slogan should be known at least to every CT team by now. The Swiss coffee machine manufacturer is our main sponsor - and name giver - for the 3rd year now. They are committed to a long-term engagement, and hence also went through the (not so low) CT lows last season. We hope that our second PCT year with Jura will be a more successful one than our first attempt!
They also took note of one of their competitors (re-)entering cycling business, and are looking forward to show Saeco which coffee machine team is the better one in the modern era!
GIANTS SoftwareMinor sponsor
The software house based in Zurich has been a secondary sponsor since our 2nd year, back in 2020 - and hence are tackling year number 4 with us. They're still thinking that the cycling world is a great place to reach future players of their famous Farming Simulator - given that they have extended their contract as an important sponsor, that route must be rpetty successful for them!
And after all, it's just great to have GIANTS in the team name - just imagine us to have a sponsor named "dwarves"...
Ticino TurismoMinor sponsor
Being our main sponsor in the first two seasons, promoting the Centovalli region, the tourism organization of Switzerland's southernmost canton is still on board as an important supporter! Besides the jersey and bike suppliers, they're the only sponsor left from our inaugural season, and we'd like to thank them for launching the entire project with us, and for staying 5 years (and counting?) with us!
Unfortunately, we have yet to sign an active rider from Ticino (with former pro Rubens Bertogliati still being our Directeur Sportif) - maybe we can finally do so for our 5th anniversary?
Cuore of SwitzerlandJersey sponsor
We have been very satisfied so far with our jerseys Made in Switzerland - and so there's no reason to change! And given that not a single sponsor has changed this year, the jersey remains the same as well - although we hope that Cuore will have to increase fan shirt production in 2023!
BMCBike sponsor
Why change the bike brand if you can have the best Swiss bikes anyway? BMC have been our bike supplier right from the start - and with our cooperation getting ever closer, we have made some massive progress in the TT domain over the years! Let's see if they can manufacture some great cobbles bikes as well, maybe?
Wander AGNutrition sponsor
You need some good sports nutrition to be successful - and who else but Wander, manufacturer of Isostar, could be our choice? The name "Isostar" unfortunately won't be present in the peloton anymore, but at least we'll get some of it in our bottles! Will that do the same magic as it did to the PT dominators of the last three years?
So, never change a winning setup - nor a winning jersey. These are the sponsors who allow us to compete every day, and hopefully will continue to do so for many more years! But for now, we're getting ready for the 2023 season, and we hope you'll be following us - stay tuned!
* After his passing in June 2023, Gino Mäder was withdrawn from ManGame, with Valentin Darbellay taking over his skillset and roster spot.Edited by Fabianski on 05-09-2023 14:44
Awesome to be racing with you at long last I think redordead could have just made a great early call for the season, but promotion or not you're one of the most exciting (and indeed scary) teams going into transfers for me and looking forward to seeing what you do
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." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
SotD Thanks I do like it as well - although I'm a little sceptical after many of last year's C1/HC performances. I'm looking forward as well to see how I can enhance my roster a bit
red Thanks for some additional pressure
jandal I guess everyone is being more optimistic about my chances than I am As I said, my riders were quite often ignored in C1/HC races, guess +1 Mo for Stüssi and +1 Hi for Moscon could make quite a difference there... But I guess I won't be in the training business a lot this year, too many other ways to spend money
Mac Let's hope both of us are able to stay up, indeed
Congrats on the promotion again and your second shot at the PCT. We've had our battles in the past and I'm sure it's going to happen again. Think this is one the best squads that I've ever seen promote from CT, so I can't see too much of a struggle settling in to PCT! Look forward to how you shape it up for the season
“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
A. Roy
So it's the PCT again for you (no surprise at all from the beginning of last season), I'm curious how you'll do in your second stint. Your roster seems strong (though you're not so confident about that yourself), so at least relegation shouldn't be an issue. But I got third to last in CT last season, so what do I know about such things ...
Congratulations on your well-deserved promotion to the PCT! You have been steadily building a formidable team, and it has paid off in a big way, as you're immediately ready to do well in PCT as well (with the right FA's/transfers of course). Your approach to team building has been truly commendable. By focusing on regional talent and investing in regional riders, you're definitely a team I look up to. I'm looking forward to racing against Jura - GIANTS again, and as mentioned I'm sure this PCT stint will be better than the previous one.
Abhi Thanks
I guess we did have a pretty good squad, indeed. The numbers confirm this, as we won the division with the highest gap to 2nd in CT history, despite the RD reduction.
Whether we're ready or not for PCT will be seen; we mostly weren't last year, but I do hope we can use the cap space and budget wisely to get a competitive roster for PTHC/HC races
Imladrik Not quite, but it could have been - given that Ticino Turismo is one of our sponsors, why not another canton?
However, Jura's name actually comes from the mountain chain, not from the canton (which itself obviously got its name from the mountains as well).
I think I'm not in the worst possible position for the "Swiss battle", having surely the most free cap space among the Swiss teams heading into transfers - but the other have the advantage of being well established. Will be a fun season, with at least one Swiss team going up I hope
kandesbunzler Agree, it's not a surprise - I guess with that roster only really horrible planning could have resulted in non-promotion (don't want to sound arrogant, but I guess predictions also show promotion was just expected).
I'm indeed wondering why others are so confident given how bad (close to inexistent) we were in several C1/HC races - and just one or two stronger leaders probably won't fundamentally change that... What could play in our favor is the ongoing DB deflation, as we have no declining riders besides our sprinters. We'll see, but given my first PCT experience, I guess our chances are pretty good to stay up this time
Nemo Thanks for all those kind words! I guess the build-up wasn't that steady in year 2, when getting a full-fledged CT leader in Moscon instead of continuing to develop Gamper and Fedeli - and I'd say we paid for premature promotion in year 3. I think you're right that we should be ready to tackle PCT this time, if we can get some good PCT-level leaders and if our existing ones step up a bit in C1/HC races.
I'm pretty happy with the regional team building approach as well - our leaders are mostly from Switzerland or neighboring countries (with Italy playing a big role despite not being a secondary focus nation anymore). We'll see if I can keep that focus in the upcoming year(s)
I've been burned by high expectations from other people myself, so I won't add my voice to the choir just yet (even if they are all perfectly reasonable, of course ) and just leave my congratulations for promotion. Very well deserved with what you've done over the past few seasons and I got my fingers crossed that you continue on this upwards trajectory!
After some really tough decisions to take last year, where we ended up releasing 11 riders to comply with CT roster requirements, this year's job was much easier - on paper. We could just have accepted every rider's demand and renew all 18 of them - but we tried to play it as smart as possible to adapt to the upcoming PCT challenge.
Therefore, we didn't end up with the full 18 riders - but only 14 of them. Most of them weren't offered a new contract, and one wouldn't even accept a significant raise. Let's dive into the details, which you find in the table below. You can see the old and new wages, as well as the difference to last year's wage. For released riders, we also reveal how far we went in the negotiation process - whereas we don't reveal any details (i.e. round of acceptance) for renewed contracts.
Rider
2022 Wage
2023 Wage
Difference
Mauro Schmid
€ 90,000
€ 210,000
+ € 120,000
Colin Stüssi
€ 110,000
€ 190,000
+ € 80,000
Gianni Moscon
€ 190,000
€ 180,000
- € 10,000
Fausto Masnada
€ 140,000
€ 150,000
+ € 10,000
Stefan Bissegger
€ 50,000
€ 105,000
+ € 55,000
Alexys Brunel
€ 50,000
€ 100,000
+ € 50,000
Gino Mäder
€ 100,000
€ 100,000
€ 0
Szymon Rekita
€ 70,000
€ 100,000
+ € 30,000
Gabriel Chavanne
€ 50,000
€ 60,000
+ € 10,000
Krzysztof Marchewka
€ 75,000
€ 60,000
- € 15,000
Manuel Stocker
€ 50,000
€ 50,000
€ 0
Gergely Szarka
€ 50,000
€ 50,000
€ 0
Leonardo Basso
€ 50,000
€ 50,000
€ 0
Christoph Janssen
€ 50,000
€ 50,000
€ 0
Marcel Aregger
€ 55,000
No Agreement (R3)
- € 55,000
Grzegorz Stepniak
€ 50,000
Released (R1)
- € 50,000
Noam Cohen
€ 0
Released (R1)
€ 0
Erick Rowsell
€ 0
Released (R1)
€ 0
There were some surprises for us during these negotiations. First and foremost, Mauro Schmid was told by some MGUCI assessor that he actually is our strongest rider after his latest improvements - which we don't agree with, but it led to him come up with some pretty horrendous demands. Releasing him was obviously not an option, and so we had to - reluctantly - offer him a raise of over 100%. With a wage of € 210,000, he's now our best paid rider - which means that we'll be expecting far more from him that just some low two-digit points! We're currently targetting to max him in-house, but if we get a great loan deal, he might very well ride for a PT team this year - despite being our (on paper) strongest rider.
Colin Stüssi getting a significant raise isn't surprising at all, after finishing 2nd in the CT standings, and especially after last year's training camp. Compared to riders with similar overall strength, his new wage of € 190,000 might be slightly too high, but he surely deserves that little extra after lots of great races in 2022.
Stefan Bissegger and Alexys Brunel have both completed their development - thanks to Puma - SAP again for having them gain some valuable experience - and therefore both get a significant raise as well. They will have to prove their worth in the TTs of the 2023 season - where they're still U25 eligible and will hopefully pick up some valuable white jersey points.
When talking about time trialling, we can't look past Szymon Rekita, who's the final rider getting a rather big raise. After 4 wins last year (2 stages, 1 classic, 1 GC), we considered his demands to be justified, and he's now back at the same wage as he had when we signed him from Free Agency two years back.
There are two more minor raises in the list. One is for Fausto Masnada, who definitely deserves this with a stage race win and a Top 10 finish in the individual CT rankings. He's always hovering around the same numbers - one year he gets a bit more, the next a bit less. We'll see if his new wage can motivate him enough to shine in PCT as well.
The other rider to get a 10k increase is Gabriel Chavanne. Despite not getting the GC results we were hoping for, two stage wins in 7 attempts are a good outcome, so a little bonus should be justified.
After a really successful year, it's not really a surprise that only very few riders agreed on a paycut. But the arguments were clearly on our side when negotiating with Gianni Moscon, who had to admit he was below his usual level in most races. A wage reduction of 10k actually was kind, but we still need him for our next PCT adventure and didn't want to disgruntle him too much.
Krzysztof Marchewka's case is clearly different, as he showed a very strong season overall. Nonetheless, his 2022 wage was too high compared with other riders having a similar skillset, and was due to some FA competition. His successful 2022 campaign is still rewarded by a wage that's higher than the minimum, which he's happy with.
And then there are those whose salary hasn't changed at all. Of them, Gino Mäder is the only one not getting the minimum wage. After a pretty disappointing season, one might even have expected his remuneration to go down, but for now he convinced us to give him a second chance. With U25 points gone in 2023, it will however be quite a challenge for him to even just repeat his 2022 scoring - maybe some training could help him to get there?
Manuel Stocker and Leonardo Basso have been reliable helpers since our first year, mostly on minimum wage - and both continue on these terms for another year. Gergely Szarka and Christoph Janssen, on the other hand, are both still in their respective development programs and are getting the minimum wage as well - which is very likely to change for the former by the end of 2023.
And yeah, then there are those who had to leave the team - or chose to do so.
Given the higher overall level in PCT, and the skills lost in the offseason by Grzegorz Stepniak, Noam Cohen and Erick Rowsell, we felt like they just wouldn't be competitive enough in the higher division. We'd like to thank them for their valuable contribution in 2022 - especially Grzegorz with two stage wins and lots of other great sprint results - and wish them all the best for their future! We're certain that some of them might find a new home in CT, where they still should be competitive!
Last but not least, there's the most disappointing outcome of this renewals period. Marcel Aregger joined us last year from Free Agency on a € 55,000 wage - which admittedly was cheap - but after his first decline wouldn't even accept a pretty significantly higher offer. He'd have taken a leadout role - or maybe a lead sprinter role in some C1 stage races - but the wage we'd have had to pay him wouldn't have been justified by this role. And selling him wouldn't have been an option anymore, either, given that similarly skilled riders are probably going to sign for the minimum wage during transfers. So it's with a sad heart that we have to bid goodbye to one of last year's greatest performers, finishing in the CT Top 20. We want to thank Marcel for his valuable contribution, and wish him all the best for the remainder of his career!
So, what do we end up with? We currently have 14 riders on board - which means that we'll have to fill at least 6 more roster spots. The current wages sum up to € 1,455,000, which means that we do have more than a million Euros left to get those six riders - or more. We believe this should be enough to sign some additional quality riders, so that we could have a shot at staying in PCT this time!
It's also absolutely possible that one or several of the current riders will leave the team - especially the non-Swiss riders might be available. We'll talk about Transfer Availabilities in more detail during the week before transfers - make sure to follow our main HQ and our Transfers HQ closely to not miss out on the hottest news!
Post Renewals Squad
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Mauro Schmid
72
74
77
68
71
77
72
69
70
77
76
74
66
4.05
24
Gianni Moscon
71
73
79
66
76
77
75
53
59
73
71
69
70
4.100
29
Colin Stüssi
71
79
73
75
77
73
78
55
63
66
65
69
69
4.100
30
Fausto Masnada
71
77
76
73
76
75
73
60
63
73
69
71
70
4.100
30
Stefan Bissegger
74
68
69
78
73
77
72
60
72
73
64
71
77
4.100
25
Alexys Brunel
75
67
71
78
72
78
73
66
61
65
69
66
78
4.100
25
Gino Mäder
69
77
71
75
73
75
77
64
67
64
70
67
76
4.100
26
Manuel Stocker
75
60
65
69
71
73
76
59
76
77
65
65
71
4.100
31
Szymon Rekita
72
58
63
79
70
73
73
62
69
70
63
73
78
4.100
29
Gergely Szarka
75
62
67
61
72
72
75
60
76
76
64
66
70
4.92
25
Gabriel Chavanne
75
58
64
65
71
76
74
57
76
76
53
67
82
4.100
31
Leonardo Basso
73
67
72
72
78
73
73
73
71
69
62
69
72
4.100
30
Krzysztof Marchewka
65
64
60
77
73
75
74
50
52
64
62
65
77
4.100
30
Christoph Janssen
71
63
65
72
68
71
70
55
59
66
64
65
72
3.20
23
cunego Thanks for the congrats
For the time being - and looking at post-renewals squads and cap spaces - I guess I'll be happy if I can stay in PCT for the time being, but continuing the overall upwards trajectory would obviously be great
Jura GIANTS 
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