Shonak wrote:
Gratz on signing Roberto, too bad I had to let him go but I am sure he will be more competitive on CT than he was on WT level.
Thanks. Yeah, I think he should be pretty decent in CT, although with some big guns signing for CT team recently it starts feeling like WT anyway
I guess he was the best cobbler who somehow fit our focus - I wanted North American Miguel Bryon as well, but got outbid, so now it's a Spanish speaking European
valverde321 wrote:
Nice signings again Fabianski. I had been leading Godoy from the first day, but actually hoped someone else came in for him as my targets shifted to younger riders. at lower wages. Cruz was another rider I wanted (he would've been my best sprinter ) but I didnt pay enough I guess.
Well, I bid on Godoy from the start as well, but seeing that he wouldn't sign before day 2, I didn't increase after day 1. But apparently you're happy that I "stole" him, so everything's fine
The situation was a bit different for Cruz, as first I didn't have him on the radar (being NC and not SA). But I guess he still fits the team pretty well, and as I have two very similar riders with Cruz and Espinosa, I might just keep the one who develops better
CT cobbles at least wern't fairly selective, which usually didnt benefit stronger CBS riders. With Phinney and Senechal there, Romero Martinez may also get a better chance at a good result as the selection will be much fiercer in the race than in previous years. But lets see how it turns out.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
The transfer season was so far very quiet for the Polestar cycling teams. After re-signing most of the riders in the revewals season, the team was operating on a tight transfer budget and the team needed to fill the holes fast.
The first order of business was to sign enough riders that are eligible to enter under the Telenor Youth Team banner. The first rider to be officially signed was Jamie Hurst - 21 year old with an AVG of 69,1 for a wage of 100. Then the team managed to get its hands on James Smith - 22 years old with AVG of 71 and was signed for a wage of 150. While the price may seem steep, Smith's signing completing the Youth Team with Hurst and Smith joining the signed from the scouting/U21 championship window Kirill Makukhin (age 22, AVG 71,1), Jonatan Gyllensjö (age 22, AVG 67,6), Jakub Kaminski (age 19, AVG 65,4) and Raúl Jorín (age 20, AVG 63,2) as well as Elias Leinonen (age 23, AVG 69,6) and Martin Hiensch (age 22, AVG 69,9)
Considering the situation, the team had to not overspend too much on single rider, otherwise it would've compromised the entire roster building. With the money the team had on its disposal it managed to sign 26 y.o. Fridtjof Røinås (wage 320), 27 y.o. Stelios Ilias (wage 300) and 26 y.o. Marco Mathis (wage 275). While those signings may not set the world on fire, the team has taken a route of finding unsigned talent for a reasonable price with room for further development which facilite the need for U30 riders.
The team will announce further transfer/FA deals (if needed) when they're finalized. The team has also discussed potential calendar for the team, but no details will be given at this point
With the latest transfer update, Magnum - Madshus has signed his last rider of the 2020 season. Time for a quick overview of our most important riders.
Dominik Nerz was our biggest signing of the transfer season. In an alternate universe he is showing his skills in a team called Kraftwerk Man Machine, so riding in a red jersey (and a paycheck of 1200) might have been the biggest reason for the German to join our team. 79 mountain, 78 hill and 75 TT, we expect great things of you, Domi.
We won't only try to be competitive in the U23 races, but will also have a senior +35 squad. One of the riders in the senior squad will also join our first team however: Greg Van Avermaet. Some managers seems to have mistaken the C in CT for "cobbles", so the competition will definitely be hard with Senechal, Phinney and others. Nevertheless, we have a lot of faith in GVA to deliver us some nice results with his 77 cobbles and 75 hills. Danish riders Christopher Juul-Jensen (75 cob) and Jonas Michelsen (73 cob) will be his most important domestiques.
Speaking about Danish dynamite, we also signed the national TT champion Rasmus Quaade. He won't be the best TT'ist in the CT with his 78 TT and 76 prol, but he should also be able to score some points here and there and help the team in TTT's.
Another TT champion we were able to sign is Roman Kreuziger. His main strengths should still be the mountains (76) and the hills (77) though, where he could act both as a domestique and on some occasions the leader of our team. Another valuable domestique on many terrains is Rui Costa with 74 mtn, 77 hill and 75 TT. Frederique Robert is our best sprinter with 77 spr-acc, while we have two more national TT champions who should be able to help in the TTT's: Ari Hämäläinen (72) and Kristjn Johannesson (70). Also watch out for flat beast Jimmi Sørensen (76 flat)
The most important riders in our development team, Magnum - Madshus Youngsters, should be Jacob Brundby (71 mtn-72 hill) and Erkan Karlsson (71 cob).
All in all, I'm happy with how the transfer period went, and having 20/26 riders from our focus regions is satisfactory.
Wow, that's a really nice team, congrats!
I guess you'll by far outscore my team - while I've got solid depth, you have the leaders.
And I fear the Germans will dominate the CT stage races this year
@Nemo - nice squad with some great value veterans to guide you to promotion contention. ICL Nerz is an upgrade from Man Game Nerz, he should do you proud.
The usually reticent Team Manager for Deutsche Bahn sat down for a chat about the ensuing Transfer Window and the team's progress this off-season.
Q: How has the off-season been for the team so far?
Ans: We were satisfied with the initial part of the off-season. The riders in the team progressed well in general, and we were able to complete the renewals by re-signing all riders we had intended to.
Q: You mention that the initial part of the off-season went well. Is it safe to say that Transfers have not gone as planned?
Ans: There's still a bit to go in transfers but it would be correct to say that we've had to play a game of watch and wait rather be able to splurge the cash on our top targets. Renewals did not leave us with a big purse, and there hasn't been a lot of interest in our riders put up for sale. So we've needed to be prudent.
Q: Any comments on the tight finances? The team improved last season compared to it's first year in the WT.
Ans: There isn't a link to that really. The management have provided a larger budget than last season. We had built a fairly stable World Tour team last season, so we did not wish to shake things up too much this time.
Q: Which areas were you looking to improve in the off-season and were you able to achieve the same?
Ans: We were especially looking to strengthen our Time Trial department. In addition, we wanted to get in a second leader to share the load with Dombrowski in the mountains. We used the initial discussions in Transfers to get in riders who would be of use in the mountains. The signing of Craddock is an especially important one. Brus is also an improvement and will become an integral part of the mountain squad this season. We failed so far in getting a second climbing leader, but there's still a few days to go in transfers and we are still keeping our eyes open.
Q: Philip Lavery was not placed on the transfer list initially but found himself on the way out. Did the rider force the move?
Ans: Not at all. We received an offer from Guinness Cycling in the early part of the transfer window. We felt their offer was a fair one and we were happy to let Philip go to his home team, so to say. We moved quickly to secure the services of Ghyselinck as a replacement and we're quite happy with that piece of business.
Q: Any comments on the sale of two German talents, Runge and Jansen?
Ans: We signed them both as youngsters after they had just made their transition to professional cycling. We have spent a good couple of years with them. We believed it was the right time for them to move on to another team, who could probably better utilize their skills.
Q: What are your expectations from the season?
And: To tell you the truth, we do not expect big things from the coming season, and forecast something similar to what we achieved in 2019. Once again, Simon and John will be carrying most of our hopes with Joe, Michael and Lawson providing the support. We will depend a lot on depth scoring once again. We are aware that a drop off from last year's standards can put us into relegation danger. However, we are always go into the season looking to improve, and that's how we are approaching the new season as well.
Reporter: Thank you for providing your time today. We hope to see more of you in the future. All the best from the future.
We, as management, perfectly know how difficult our first season in WT really was. Even though we had some really unexpecting results, our team performed pretty average in most races. Our budget got smaller and it was really difficult to improve our roster. Not going to lie, we were struggling. We got to know that our budget is the smallest from all WT teams. Because of that we decided to sell few of our riders for decent amount of money to maybe find someone in replacement. Our team agreed to sell:
AVG
FL
MO
HI
TT
PR
CB
SP
AC
DH
FT
ST
RS
RC
Juan Chamorro
76,6
71
78
75
71
69
61
64
71
71
76
72
67
73
Fabio Felline
75,9
76
71
74
69
69
74
76
74
71
76
76
70
73
Lawson Craddock
77,5
75
75
75
78
76
67
67
69
71
67
73
72
76
Because of those transfers we welcome in our team:
AVG
FL
MO
HI
TT
PR
CB
SP
AC
DH
FT
ST
RS
RC
Heiner Parra
75,2
74
75
74
72
71
62
63
73
69
70
73
69
75
Martin Jansen
73,6
65
74
72
62
61
57
62
71
73
75
71
67
71
As our free budget got a little higher, we decided to search the market to find good additions to our roster. There was one massive problem - money. We got in touch with four different top tier riders. Neither of those potential transfers were possible to sign by either financial inconveniences or disagreement with other team managements. Since ICL has a minimum riders needed in cycling rosters for both Continental and World Tour, our team is "proud" to announce new signings of:
AVG
FL
MO
HI
TT
PR
CB
SP
AC
DH
FT
ST
RS
RC
Emiel Vermeulen
73,3
73
61
69
64
65
74
70
70
67
68
73
70
68
Hernán Aguirre
72,2
67
73
70
63
62
58
64
70
70
70
70
67
71
José Galindo
72,6
68
73
71
66
65
59
66
70
71
74
71
67
70
Ronald Gómez
71,6
71
71
70
70
69
59
62
68
66
65
70
66
73
Mathieu Senechal
72,6
71
71
70
73
72
63
62
68
69
62
71
68
74
Andrea Manfredi
71,2
73
67
67
67
65
70
69
69
72
75
70
67
70
Juliano Reja
71,9
74
66
65
67
70
72
66
68
65
77
70
70
70
Andrea Zordan
72,6
72
65
71
65
65
68
73
73
72
71
72
66
70
Augusto Trischetti
72,0
68
59
64
74
73
61
60
59
64
58
68
67
71
Kamil Gradek
74,1
74
64
68
75
74
66
66
66
72
63
70
71
70
Marek Konwa
72,3
72
60
68
64
63
74
68
71
80
72
67
66
66
Łukasz Wiśniowski
71,7
73
66
67
68
67
70
72
71
73
75
71
67
68
At last, our team found one rider that decided to join us and we strongly hope he can find his best results in his career in upcoming year:
AVG
FL
MO
HI
TT
PR
CB
SP
AC
DH
FT
ST
RS
RC
Caleb Ewan
78,2
77
66
74
69
72
69
79
79
76
69
77
72
75
In the end, even tho it wasn't our best transfers period, CCC Sprandi Polkowice will try their best to perform well in all races they will participate in, hoping to improve and strenghten their position in World Tour world. Even though we are well prepared for relegation this year.
Today manager Laurens147 presented the full roster of both his main team and his development team. The presentation took place in Jelgava, Latvia. The main sponsors are Latvijas Balzams and Olainfarm. Thanks to graphic designer Scatmaster111 they will be racing in the typical Bianchi colour.
Ofcourse the team has focused on Latvian riders. Armands Becis and Ivars Prokofjevs will be the leaders in the hilly races. They will be supported by experienced riders like Toms Skujins and Gatis Smukulis. The goal is to sign more home-based riders in the coming years.
We also see six Belgian riders, as manager Laurens147 was born in Belgium. Kris Boeckmans, Gaetan Bille, Yannick Eijssen and Arnaud Geronboux will be the leaders in sprint and mountain races. French-speaking Tony Gallopin is a great signing who can be brought in at any kind of race.
Jonathan Monsalve, another leading climber, has brought along two riders from South America: João Marcelo Gaspar from Brazil and Dayer Quintana from Colombia.
The development team consists of eight riders. The team only found two riders from Latvia. Another objective is to scout more young Latvian riders. Ervin Rubins and Maris Visknis will race alongside climbers Aras Butkus (Lithuania) and Toomas Tohver (Estonia). The main sprinters are Otto Pichlmann (Austria) and Kieran Chuma (Zimbabwe).
Now that the roster has been fully completed, manager Laurens147 will turn his attention to the race calendar. More news about that later on!
After having won the Vuelta 2018 and having come second last year, Jesus Herrada has said in a recent interview that he hopes to race Il Giro and Le Tour this season. The big goal would be to finally win the Tour for Liberty Seguros, something that the team has been trying to achieve first with Contador for 4 years and then with Herrada for two seasons.
Herrada redeeming his Tour 2019 and winning stage 20 in a spectacular solo raid
Speaking with ICL Weekly, Herrada confirmed that the Tour de France is still heavy on his mind. He crashed multiple times and has had to struggle for two weeks. The team having supported him well in the early parts of the race, was still able to snatch two stage wins prior to Herrada redeeming himself on the last mountain stage. Afterwards, the Spaniard went on to ride the Vuelta in a strong fashion, trying to defend his Vuelta triumph against Nibali. Ultimately, Herrada had to concede the loss in the final time tria whilst wearing Red - ironically in the same fashion he had won it last year.
"The time trial of Nibali was out of this world, and I gave it all. After the Tour, this race was a strong comeback and showed to me that 2018 was not a fluke", commented Herrada the race in retrospective.
Looking at this year Grand Tour profiles, Liberty Seguros management has pushed for Herrada to remain close to its homegrounds and at least ride the Vuelta. Undoubtley the team would like to continue its impressive streak. In the last 6 years, the team has won the race three times with three different riders, and managed in the other 3 years to finish runner-up on the 2nd spot each. "But maybe it is time to finally break a bit with tradition and go new roads", smiled Herrada.
"The team's history is great in this race but I feel like I am ready to challenge myself in new ways. Doing the double of Giro and Tour would be a great target for this upcoming season and motivate me to train hard", revealed Herrada. "Especially because the two GTs feature more time trials than in previous years, it is a good chance for me." Ultimately, however, Herrada confirms that the situation is still open and he will follow the recommendations of the staff and team and ultimately, the wishes of the sponsor.
Jersey taken from the Shirt DB, created by haasje33
A new team here in ICL, VIP Mobile. Primarily a Serbian team based in Belgrade, it will focus on the Balkan nations minus Croatia with a little bit of help from our Russian comrades. As a fairly late addition to ICL, I don't have a great story or concept behind this team. Anyone from the MG game might recognise my sponsor as it was used for my amateur team last year.
As far as the squad goes it's a bit of mishmash sum of parts that I managed to put together in my first transfer season. Senechal is the big name that has come via free agency and will be my obvious leader. I hope I have sufficient support for him in the likes of Bryon, Serry and Boothroyd. All of them also make up the "foreign" contingent of my squad.
The rest is made up of regional riders. Novikov is a rider who might be able to contribute some GC results here or there, but I feel we are mostly going to be hunting stages and KOM points via breakaways. Despite not opting for a development team, I have brought on some younger regional riders. I guess I'll see if they develop into anything decent.
2020 Squad
Rider
Wage
AVG
FL
MO
HI
TT
PR
CB
SP
AC
DH
FT
ST
RS
RC
Florian Senechal
1855
79,9
78
64
72
70
71
81
75
75
73
72
79
74
73
Nikita Novikov
340
75,9
72
76
74
72
70
61
66
74
72
74
74
70
74
Tim Mikelj
230
74,7
74
67
73
69
68
69
75
75
72
77
73
69
73
Sergey Belykh
230
74,6
72
75
74
68
66
59
66
72
72
73
71
69
73
Aleksey Rybalkin
220
74,5
69
75
73
66
67
59
67
71
68
77
72
68
72
Miguel Bryon
290
74,3
74
62
69
67
67
75
70
71
69
71
74
69
69
Vito Pogacar
180
73,8
72
73
72
73
73
65
66
69
72
68
72
71
74
Florent Serry
170
73,7
72
63
72
66
66
75
68
69
70
72
72
67
68
Michael Boothroyd
200
73,6
74
63
69
67
67
74
71
71
73
72
74
70
71
Ziga Marolt
140
73,1
72
64
69
66
68
66
74
74
72
65
73
67
71
Dmitry Gavrilov
140
73,1
65
74
72
62
65
60
63
70
70
68
72
67
68
Aleksandar Mihajlovski
130
72,8
67
73
72
71
70
55
58
67
70
66
70
69
72
Dimitar Maric
100
71,4
69
58
61
58
66
61
73
72
67
58
69
69
69
Damjan Stankovic
100
70,9
68
71
70
64
62
57
66
69
68
71
70
66
68
Dimitris Nikos
100
70,1
73
62
66
68
66
70
69
69
72
71
70
68
69
Aleksa Begic
100
69,8
65
65
69
56
57
60
61
68
67
66
70
66
66
Jovan Stojanović
100
69,3
64
67
70
65
65
58
61
66
69
69
67
66
71
Tomislav Vuksanovic
100
67,5
68
56
58
60
60
56
68
68
67
58
64
63
62
That's pretty much it from me. I wish everyone involved a successful season.
But I'll scout Britain fully again next season and hope for an upgrade or two.
) but I didnt pay enough I guess. 
Jamie Hurst - 21 year old with an AVG of 69,1 for a wage of 100. Then the team managed to get its hands on 
James Smith - 22 years old with AVG of 71 and was signed for a wage of 150. While the price may seem steep, Smith's signing completing the Youth Team with Hurst and Smith joining the signed from the scouting/U21 championship window 
Kirill Makukhin (age 22, AVG 71,1), 
Jonatan Gyllensjö (age 22, AVG 67,6), 
Jakub Kaminski (age 19, AVG 65,4) and 
Raúl Jorín (age 20, AVG 63,2) as well as 
Elias Leinonen (age 23, AVG 69,6) and 
Martin Hiensch (age 22, AVG 69,9)
Fridtjof Røinås (wage 320), 27 y.o. 
Stelios Ilias (wage 300) and 26 y.o. 
Marco Mathis (wage 275). While those signings may not set the world on fire, the team has taken a route of finding unsigned talent for a reasonable price with room for further development which facilite the need for U30 riders.
Greg Van Avermaet. Some managers seems to have mistaken the C in CT for "cobbles", so the competition will definitely be hard with Senechal, Phinney and others. Nevertheless, we have a lot of faith in GVA to deliver us some nice results with his 77 cobbles and 75 hills. Danish riders 
Christopher Juul-Jensen (75 cob) and 
Roman Kreuziger. His main strengths should still be the mountains (76) and the hills (77) though, where he could act both as a domestique and on some occasions the leader of our team. Another valuable domestique on many terrains is 
Rui Costa with 74 mtn, 77 hill and 75 TT. 
Kristjn Johannesson (70). Also watch out for flat beast 
Ceramica Panaria - Autogrill - Cipollini 
Latvijas Balzams - Olainfarm
Michael Boothroyd
Aleksandar Mihajlovski
Dimitar Maric
