The first new rider of the transfer season has completed his deal! In all fairness he wasn't the first rider we thought we had signed, but a clerical error has delayed another signing. But you know what they say: one man's clerical error is another man's bread.

Kazushige Kuboki



The lucky one is Kazushige Kuboki, a thirty-three year-old Japanese veteran. For a wage of 50,000 delicious bananas he joins our team. He is very all-round, being able to perform on any non-climbing and asphalted race. His signature move however is his high skills in the prologue, combined with being a decent time trialist for a sprinter. He might sneak a surprise result in multi-disciplined races, and is otherwise a value helper in the sprint train and team time trials.

Some riders demand a lot, and not everyone of those is worth it. Our next signing is though. He is a star time trialist and is not too bad uphill, making him dangerous in plenty of races. From the land Down Under, we present:

Rohan Dennis



To sign Rohan Dennis, we headed out in our fried-out combi to find him. Instead we found a strange lady who pointed us in his direction, but first she gave us a delicious banana breakfast. We then headed to Brussels to meet him and his agent, six foot four and full of muscles. It turns out he did not speak-a our language, insisting on being paid in Vegemite sandwiches instead of bananas. We then all ended up in a den in Bombay, where we tried to tempt him with 500,000 bananas, because we come from the island of plenty. This was enough to convince him to join the team. Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder? You better run, you better take cover. Tu du du du du du du.

@knockout - Maybe...
@valverde321 - <3



Someone in our administrative department made a huge error by omitting Subwoolfer on the paperwork in signing a rider, which almost made the deal fall through. Luckily another manager was nice enough to notify us and other teams did not jump at the opportunity to sign him in the extended time period. If we had lost him we would have fed the Minion responsible to the wolves, but now we just forced him to listen to Shalalie Shalala on repeat for an hour. A harsher punishment if you'd ask me, but alas.

Nathan Brown



Yes we signed an American, even though their government has been hunting after us after that little incident. But thirty-one year-old Nathan Brown is someone we know, because he raced for us before! He made his debut in our debut season, all the way in 2014, and was one of the few riders in that team who could do something. Unfortunately we couldn't keep him and he left for RBC, where he grew into a competent stage racer. We've been chasing him ever since the disband of that team, but he first spent three years at Generali. Now we've finally returned him to where it all began for 125,000 bananas!

We're not a team known for talents, but we thought we'll snatch up at least one this year. We might not expect this youngster to become a Grand Tour winner, but perhaps he'll find something he's good at.

Didier Merchan



Didier Merchan is a twenty-three year old Colombian who joins or the minimum wage of 50,000 bananas. As with almost every Colombian, he can climb. Now we just have to teach him everything else. He also has only 47 followers on Twitter, so we might need to work on his social media profile as well.

Sometimes you have to take risks and pull out your wallet. That's exactly what we did for the next rider

Mattia Cattaneo



The Minions are keen on having a star stage racer, and we needed a new one to fill the shoes of Uran. We destroyed our transfer record by paying Zwift 1.3 million bananas for Mattia Cattaneo, who will also top our wage leaderboard at 550,000 bananas. Some Minions might be jealous. For these numbers he'll have to do a hell of a job and we have no doubts he will get us many points. At thirty-two years of age he has plenty of experience and is still in his prime abilities.

@Nemolito - Pira was on my shortlist, so we've split the future Colombian Sebokas between us



We've acquired another superstar with a huge name. A name recognizable in the climbing world. One who makes any opponent shiver.

Dayer Quintana



Dayer Quintana is thirty years old, rode for Mapei last season and will earn 65,000 bananas which is a huge bargain. This guy finished twenty-first in last year's individual PCT rankings... no wait that is his brother Nairo. Who did we sign then? The younger, inferior brother. He seems to be able to climb well enough though, so that runs in the genes. Perhaps we should do a secret identity swap. No one will notice.

Yesterday was quiet day for the Minions on the outside, but on the inside there was quite a big party going on. We celebrated the day our glorious leader came down from heaven to guide us to the ProTour title. Thus we have some catching up to do on new signings.

Jan Stöckli



When Jan Stöckli arrived at our HQ just before the party started he saw the whole place decorated, thinking we were throwing this entire party for him Some awkward minutes later we told him what was going on, but since he is now on our payroll he joined the party and drank until he passed out. The mandatory stuff: born in year 2000 in Switzerland, earning 50,000 bananas and has a nice future potential in the mountains.