After operating for 2-years as the 'World Cycling Centre' with substantial private sponsorship keeping the team on the road, Scorchio Cycling Management (SCM) are transitioning their organisation to a more traditional sponsor-led team for the 2019 season. A potential long-term partnership has been put in place with two named sponsor organsiations; in 2019 the team you previously knew as World Cycling Centre will operate as:
When connecting one point to another in a sustainable manner, ISA are improving the quality of life of more than 350 million people in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, and Central America, through the operation of 43 affiliates and subsidiaries.
ISA continue evolving after recently celebrating their 51st anniversary. ISA's way of working, communicating, and relating expresses our commitment to the future.
The legal nature of Interconexion Electrica S.A. E.S.P. –ISA– corresponds to a mixed public utility company, formed as a limited liability company, of commercial nature, national, and bonded to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, governed by Laws 142 and 143 of 1994 and headquartered in Medellin (Colombia). The Company has state and private investors. Its stocks and bonds are traded in the Colombia Stock Exchange.
Spoiler
In the interests of reporter sanity, we will not be using the full company title, instead adopting the 'iSA' branding
Secondary named sponsor Hexacta has previous history with SCM having been a minor sponsor of Grupo Nutresa in the 2015 season. Hexacta are a nearshore and offshore software development company that service a global client base from their HQ in Argentina. Leaders in IT consulting, offshore software development, testing and user interface design, Hexacta continues to expand with offices throughout Latin America and recent expansion into the US.
Existing equipment sponsorship and logistics partnership arrangements with Scott Bicyles, Campagnolo, Skoda and Pearl Izumi continue uninterrupted.
The final most recent addition to our sponsorship portfolio is Banque Populaire du Maroc. Previously imvolved in a personal sponsorship relationship with Salah Eddine Mraouni, Banque Populaire now comes onboard to support our continued good works supporting professional riders and cycling development schemes in the African north and western regions.
ISA - Hexacta are pleased to announce that our race applications to PTHC Bands 1 + 2, and all the HC bands with the exception of Band 5 have been accepted.
C1/C2 race invites have yet to be processed, so the full calendar remains to be confirmed.
Previous rosters are provided in the team history section above. Entering the transfer window (post-renewals), the ISA - Hexacta roster was as follows:
Following the transfer season, ISA - Hexacta enter the 2019 racing season with the following roster:
New signings are highlighted in red. Further (minor) training not shown is discussed in a post below!
Sorry, can't work out how to re-scale - click on image for big layout in link.
Edited by Scorchio on 18-10-2019 12:55
ISA - Hexacta management are pleased with how renewals progressed as we enter the 2019 season. Four riders were not renewed either due to age decline (Jaime Albero Castañeda and Jay Thomson), or no longer considered best fit going forward (Issiaka Cisse and Daniel Juarez). Releasing these 4 riders obviously benefits the wage bill, but this is in a large way off-set by the return of 5 riders to our organisation who spent the 2018 season out on loan.
We are pleased that in the main riders who have been recruited via Free Agency are seeing a solid reduction in wages reflecting the need to overpay to first secure signatures. The obvious biggest financial impact here is seen with team leader Berhane, who retains a hefty wage packet, but we believe is starting to come a little more in balance with his standing in the MG universe (with further room for cuts in future seasons!). Small increases are noted where we managed to sign a rider at cut price last season (Redecker), and to returning loan riders whose capabilities have now increased, hence wages need to reflect. The one slightly sour note for team management is that we had planned to offer Salah Eddine Mroauni minimum wage, but his agent was able to vociferously argue that he had such a succesful season on loan in the PT that his intrinsic value was higher than we were initially considering. This is a conversation that will be re-visited next season, where we would be only too pleased to be facing a similar argument reflecting a stand-out 2019 campaign!
As a general note, riders have only been retained if we saw a future with them in our own organisation. That does not mean that there isn't potential for movement during the transfer season under the correct circumstances, and in particular we have a number of riders that will be looking to benefit from a season out on loan for development purposes. More clarity on rider transfer availability will follow before the window opens.
Edited by Scorchio on 20-09-2019 12:54
As stated in the renewals comments, if we have to carry through to 2019 season with our existing roster now that some deadwood has been released, we would have no complaints. However, that would make transfers no fun at all, so we are open to discussions and potential new directions!
1 star really does mean 'NO' in those specific cases though, we do want to maintain a 'spine' or core of riders due to ability/affinity/nationality considerations. Continuing our WCC philosophy, we are not one of those bare bones operations, striving for minimum rider numbers on our books, although we do have a number of riders that we would like to arrange loan deals for, in particular this seasons lvl 4 crew of Sanogo (handy cobbles domestique) and Restrepo (similar for hilly terrain) - both have pretty solid back-up/secondary stats. Also continuing our previous philosophy, we are striving to reduce our reliance on riders from the cycling heartlands of Europe over time, and instead support professional cyclists from the Americas, Africa and Asia. Our new sponsors do indicate that maintaining a solid South American contingent is aligned with their interests. This is in part reflected in our availability indicators above, meaning that manager favourites like Sam Harrison are for the first time potentially on the market.
As last season, you should note that I am open to comms throughout the transfer season via both PM and Skype. I'm about to spend my one week a year as a professional MG player, so should be available through 90% of the European day and evening .
Edited by Scorchio on 20-09-2019 14:23
Management at ISA - Hexacta would like to again extend our thanks to our rider loan partners as WCC in 2018.
Contreras and Venturini spent the year at Desigual, thank you Mresuperstar.
Salah Eddine Mraouni spent the season on the books of EA Vesuvio, thank you SN.
Sanogo and Restrepo popped up consistently at many of the same races as his parent team, spending the season in the colours of Carrefour - ESPN, thanks to maxime86
OK, looks like we'll enter transfers without the general introduction post in place , but I've caught up elsewhere on the important renewals/availability data in the posts above (no longer a long trawl of RES # holding posts!). So feel free to comment now if relevant.
Good luck all for the imminent transfer madness. Remember in the times of frustration that this is a game, hence supposed to be fun. Try and keep in mind that putting your fist through your computer monitor only ends up costing money and pain in the long run, even if it may be satisfying for a blink of an eye in the heat of the moment
ISA - Hexacta are proud to present our team-kit for the 2019 season designed by the_hoyle and manufactured by our partners at Pearl Izumi Without further ado, here it is!:
As always, huge appreciation towards the_hoyle for helping us out with the kit design.
NOTE: The 1st 'Introduction' post to the ISA - Hexacta team has now been updated for those who are interested in the details of our new sponsor links and their respective business activities. Our final 2019 roster (announcement and analysis imminent!) reflects the varying interests of our sponsorship portfolio
Robert Bush
David Boily
Michael Rodriguez Galindo
Natnael Berhane
Sven Vandousselaere
Jianhua Ji
Sam Harrison
Heiko Redecker
Jay Thomson
Saulo Lay
Illa Koshevoy
Issiaka Cisse
Flavio De Luna
Murilo Affonso
Daniel Juarez
Evgeny Russo
Chun Kai Feng
Ahmad Arrisol
Getachew Sendeku
Clément Venturini
Salah Eddine Mraouni
Giovanni Visconti
Andriy Vasylyuk
Kasper Asgreen [Loan]
Brenton Jones
Goodnews Clifford
Thanawut Sanikwathi [Stagiare]
Georgios Bouglas
Muhammet Eyüp Karagobek
Dominique Mayho
Domenik Klemme
Sergio Ortega
Ronan Van Zandbeek
Cesar Andre Fonte
Aleksandr Kolobnev
Armands Becis [Stagiare]
Michal Golas
Ruben Ibanez 
Roniel Campos [Loan]
Nariyuki Masuda
.
, but I've caught up elsewhere on the important renewals/availability data in the posts above (no longer a long trawl of RES # holding posts!). So feel free to comment now if relevant.
