Evgeny comes to us from the free agency and should prove to be a very handy helper as he can perform over many different terrains. He'll spend the majority of his season riding with a certain team leader and will make his debut for us at the Gisborne Classic.

Keough comes into the team to add depth to our extremely shallow sprinting department. We don't expect big results from him, however we're hopeful that he can surprise us.

Claerebout is one of our final riders to join us from the FA. The Luxembourgian is another rider that'll spend the majority of his season glued to the sides of our leaders and probably won't really achieve any results himself. But of course that's not why we signed him!

Richardson is the newest member of our TT squad. His purpose is to assist the team in TTT's throughout the season. It's an area we're not particularly strong in, so his abilities will be very much relied on.

Navarro is an accomplished climber who joins our ranks from the FA market after his former team, Bacardi, folded during the offseason. We're hoping he'll be living at altitude, because that's where he'll be spending the majority of his race days this season.

Signorini Jr. has been brought into the team to provide some much needed mountain depth. We don't expect him to achieve any decent results this season, but hope he proves his worth through assisting our leaders.

Cassidy was signed as a breakaway specialist in the hope that he can cause a few surprises throughout the season. If not, it looks like he might go alright as a Downhill MTB rider

Anuar Aziz is another rider that comes to our team as a result of the disbandment of the Quickstep PT team. He's a terrific puncheur who will serve as the team's classics leader this season. He's fairly happy with his move to PCT level, where he hopes to be more competitive.
He's a rider that had been on our shortlist a long while before transfers and we're happy to get him for his affordable price tag.

The Italian puncheur will hopefully prove his worth this season as a super-domestique to Anuar Aziz. He'll also get his own opportunities, but our goal is to maximise points we score in every race. We don't have huuuge expectations for his scoring potential, but are sure that he'll prove us wrong.

Our outright team leader, Intxausti joins us from RBC for a fairly hefty fee of 1.7m, just slightly more than what he went for last season. He's a terrific rider that's suited to PCT level and is looking to make amends after a somewhat anonymous season last year. He was signed before hearing of Denfil, Amador and Dekker coming to/remaining in the division. If we can manage to play to his strenghts during our race planning, we have no doubt that he'll have an oustanding season and that he'll be floating around the top-20 in the PCT standings come season's end.

Mendes is another rider that'll help add depth to our classics squad. He'll be riding for us this season after having a fairly quiet season last year with Severstal. With a fair amount of race days, we'll be looking for Mendes to support both Anuar Aziz and Zaini as well as look for his own opportunities.

Gregory Brenes is a fantastic climber who we think will be very suited to the PCT division. He'll provide invaluable support to our leaders and will likely be given the opportunity to ride for himself in a few races throughout the season. He was one of our original targets before we heard of the disbandment of PT team Quickstep, and luckily we managed to get him for the same wage minus the fee! We are very happy to have attained the service of Brenes and hope he can have a standout season with the team.

We started transfers with 3 main targetrs in mind, and managed to get two of them - this we're pleased with. Intxausti was our plan B who we were lucky to sign as what we ended up paying for him was our absolute maximum. Only problem for us at the time was that his fee prevented us from transferring other riders from other teams. The team eventually realised that we'd reluctanlty have to sell our leaders in order to bring in another leader who would hopefully help us avoid relegation. This was done through the selling of Atapuma to Aeropostal, and Kruopis to Spotify (a sale we hoped that would not have to be made).

Other regrets we hold after this year's transfers is the narrow minded approach that the team went into transfers with. Our riders (with the exception of a couple of domestiques) were not to be sold. This eventuated with the majority of high profile transfers going through in the first few days before we realised that our current leaders were probably not going to be cut it at PCT level and we needed to bring other riders in. At this stage most of the riders we were interested in had been sold, but luckily we had a lifeline in Zaini.

We also missed out on the craziness of the first 3-4 days of the FA market as a result of this, and ultimately missed out on strengthening the team's depth. We managed to pick up a couple of riders towards the end of transfers however.

Regardless, we're happy with how things have turned out and think that our Top-15 goal for the PCT is definitely achievable if our riders turn up. If not, we're hopeful that we'll at least avoid relegation. We're happy with our leaders, and kind of 50/50 with the depth of the team - it could definitely be better.

After another transfer season goes by, we've enjoyed it but are also happy for it to be over. The next step will be organising the rider's schedules which could include a surprise or two.

To put it a little more euphemistically, season 16' wasn't quite what the management expected from the team (22nd in the division). Nonetheless, it was our first season in the big leagues and we survived so hooray! We were drinking celebratory champagne from casks for many weeks after hearing the final result of the PCT division (There was quite a lot missing however, maybe this explains why Intxausti couldn't stay on his bike half the time?).

Here's a (very brief) rundown of results from a couple of our riders this season. Full report to come at a later date, of course.

Robin Manulang wins Indonesian RR and ITT national titles!

Manulang never looked in doubt over the entirety of the course, even overtaking his minute man to take a second dominant victory.