cunego59 wrote:

Very, very happy to hear that you're continuing! I fully get how demanding it is to combine what you've been doing here with what's happening irl, and I think it's good to recognize when it's not working anymore. But I'm really glad that you chose to downsize instead of pulling back entirely. Obviously, what you're producing here and in the ranking updates will be missed, but having you as a manager is of course far more important.

And from a MG Swiss cycling standpoint, it would've indeed been a shame if the project were to abandon. Schmid still has so much left to win

Bushwackers wrote:

Indeed, one Swiss team isn't enough. Glad to see you're sticking around, it would be an incredible loss for the game if you left. You do a lot and we would still enjoy your work if you dialed it back enough to be sustainable.

SotD wrote:

Great read - As always! And with a happy ending. I would be extremely sad if you were to pull the plug as I see you as a very vital part of the game, and enjoy having you on the "Man-Game Team".

Now I just have to convince you to hand over a couple of those 78/79 TT guys so I can threaten your TTT setup

Imladrik wrote:

Really happy to read that you'll be staying in! And indeed, I hope you'll manage to find what solution works best for you, investing the limited MG time in what you like.
Thanks for all the work, and good luck for the end of the season!

Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:

Glad you are staying on. Good to keep the class of 19 strong. Love what you bring to the game and completely understand stepping back. Hopefully I can still bounce things off you during transfers.

redordead wrote:

You never know what happens in a race like TONE so a top 10 finish is probably still well within reach.

SotD wrote:

It was a very nice month indeed!

	Rider	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Mauro Schmid	72	76	79	68	71	78	73	69	70	79	78	74	66
	Edward Theuns	71	66	73	64	74	71	72	79	76	74	63	66	69
	Cees Bol	76	64	70	67	75	77	81	68	79	77	68	67	69
	Stefan Küng	73	70	73	77	74	72	73	72	63	71	73	78	78
	Alexys Brunel	75	67	71	78	72	78	73	66	61	65	69	66	78
	Szymon Rekita	72	58	63	79	70	73	73	62	69	70	63	73	78
	Tomas Paprstka	75	62	69	62	74	70	68	75	70	72	69	78	63
	Filippo Colombo	72	64	68	67	73	72	64	72	71	72	71	71	67

The ToNE is another pretty particular race in terms of route design. Three flat stages, OK. Two hilly ones, fine. But a cobbled ITT? And another cobbled stage? Really special!

Fortunately, we have one rider on board who can handle all of this pretty well - Stefan Küng, who even finished on the GC podium three years ago! OK, it was a completely different route, and he greatly benefitted from Generali's win in the cobbled TTT back then (yes, even that was a thing)!
But he just showed in Arenberg that cobbled TTs is nothing he needs to be afraid of, and he also has some good results on cobbles and in hilly stages. So he might be our leader - but that's not certain.

Because if the cobbles should have a bigger impact than expected, Eddie Theuns will be our man. Sure, he's not great in TTs, but it's just a short one, and he's not that bad in prologues actually. So if he can use the cobbles to his advantage, and then keep in touch with the best in the hills, he could be a factor.

However, we expect Mauro Schmid to put the hammer down in the final two stages - and he'll surely not be the only strong puncheur present. He's not great in TTs or on cobbles - but he can handle some of them, and in particular the hilly cobbles on stage 3 should suit him. And with his skillset, he could make a big difference on the final stage with quite a lot of climbing.

And if everything is easier than expected, well, we have Brunel, who's stronger than Küng in normal TTs, and not that different to last year's winner Cosnefroy. And just to ensure we might get a decent team standings result, there's also Rekita, just for the TT.

Do we have a sprinter? On paper, yes. The issue is just that Bol hasn't proven us this year that he actually is one. He hasn't even scored 100 points yet, this is his final chance to get some decent results.

Paprstka is there to help out on the cobbles, if needed. And Colombo is here to learn, taking his final development step to be a decent helper in this kind of race.

Expectations? Well, we do have a sponsor goal here. It's a podium goal. We know that everything needs to fall into place for us to get there - but honestly, if Cosnefroy can win this race, Küng can podium it (even more so given Van Baarle's 2nd place last year). Up to Stefan to prove it! And Schmid definitely could, too.
More realistically, we can expect a Top 10, though - we're looking forward to the race anyway!

	Rider	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Edward Theuns	71	66	73	64	74	71	72	79	76	74	63	66	69
	Cees Bol	76	64	70	67	75	77	81	68	79	77	68	67	69
	Tomas Paprstka	75	62	69	62	74	70	68	75	70	72	69	78	63
	Filippo Colombo	72	64	68	67	73	72	64	72	71	72	71	71	67
	Lorenzo Delco	73	72	73	70	75	74	75	67	64	72	68	77	71
	Hugo Page	69	65	67	61	71	69	65	63	73	76	68	69	66
	Felix Stehli	67	68	71	62	70	70	69	62	69	71	69	69	66
	Christoph Janssen	72	65	67	74	70	73	72	55	59	67	65	65	74

After some cobbles in a stage race, this is the final cobbled classic of the year. And very, very likely the final race of Eddie Theuns as our leader, and definitely his final one of the year! If he stays next season, he'll return as a domestique - but for now, he still a leader, and a pretty good one!

He took 5th place last year, in a reduced bunch sprint - and that was actually a tad disappointing. This year, we'd happily take 5th place, but any Top 10 should do. It's a rather easy cobbled race, with most of the cobbles downhill - and it often ends with a relatively big group sprinting for the win. And he can still sprint!

Some one else can also sprint - at least on paper - and that's why we bring Cees Bol again. It's his final race of the year, too - and he better gets some results this month if this shouldn't be his final race in our team...
While he isn't a cobbler by any means, the race history shows that even sprinters who can handle cobbles somewhat decently can do well here - not really last yearh, where the race was pretty selective, but definitely the years before. So why not try? In this race, we don't expect him to shine, so he's really got nothing to lose in his home race!

Otherwise, we obviously bring Paprstka one last time (that's pretty much sure), and Colombo is the final rider who's more or less competent on the cobblestones. Delco is here because he can always be useful, whereas the youngsters are here for experience reasons.

A Top 10 would be a great result for Eddie to round off his PT(HC) leader career, let's hope he can get a final one of these!

We said it before - we can actually relax already, as we're pretty sure that our 5,545 points should be enough to stay in PT. And we're even granted to score 80 more if everyone finishes ToNE and Lombardia next month.

However, ToNE still is a big goal for us. If we want our plans for the future to materialize, we'll need quite some money - and achieving the sponsor goal here would bring us a big step closer to getting some financial buffer! Let's hope the riders can do something exceptional once again!

Rheden could well be Eddie's farewell race for us - and whatever result he gets, he'll go down in team history as one of our greatest riders anyway! We're rather surprised to realize that he most likely won't take the all-time points lead, though - only a huge month of September could change that. We'll see the final outcome at the end of the year...

Given that we should have quite some time this month, we're planning to give an update in terms of rider scoring and expectations, but don't take it for granted yet. We'll see - stay tuned for the race reviews in any case!

AbhishekLFC wrote:

Nice to see results and motivation picking up again. August was a good month and the two September should keep some decent points flowing.

kandesbunzler26 wrote:



I can echo this one, though at least Bol is still doing his best to change that again.

Nemolito wrote:

Winning in Rheden would indeed be a fairy tale 'ending' for Theuns, but second is obviously still a welcome result. Doomed according to some after transfer season, yet the Jura boys fought hard with the entire team to achieve a great mid-table finish in PT. Congratulations on the superb season!

	Rider	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Mauro Schmid	72	76	79	68	71	78	73	69	70	79	78	74	66
	Xuban Errazkin	71	74	78	70	76	75	76	64	63	73	69	67	70
	Teten Rohendi	70	75	75	70	73	75	74	55	62	73	71	70	71
	AOP Setiawa	68	70	75	74	76	72	71	57	62	70	76	66	74
	Clement Berthet	65	75	74	60	70	74	66	60	62	73	72	75	60
	Lorenzo Delco	73	72	73	70	75	74	75	67	64	72	68	77	71
	Felix Stehli	67	68	71	62	70	70	69	62	69	71	69	69	66
	Hugo Page	69	65	67	61	71	69	65	63	73	76	68	69	66

Penultimate race of the year! And it could potentially be a pretty good one for us - just like San Sebastian, which is in the same block, the Japan Cup ends after a downhill. And here, the riders won't even have much time to sprint.

Mauro Schmid won the Clasica San Sebastian after an attack on the final climb - we would absolutely not be against getting the same scenario here in Japan. But given that it's the same block, the startlist will obviously be incredibly stacked again, so it'll come down to who has the best legs and strategy - hopefully Mauro will be among the better ones again!

Just like Eddie Theuns, Mauro had a pretty disappointing ToNE. Eddie just struck back with a fantastic 2nd place in Rheden. Can Mauro do the same? At least his support cast is pretty decent, with Errazkin being his main lieutenant as always - but our two Indonesians are pretty good on the hills, too. Berthet and Delco should also do a good job, whereas Stehli and Page are here to get some more experience.

Expecting a win in a really stacked field isn't realistic - even though it can happen - but another Top 10 would be nice.

	Rider	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
	Mauro Schmid	72	76	79	68	71	78	73	69	70	79	78	74	66
	Xuban Errazkin	71	74	78	70	76	75	76	64	63	73	69	67	70
	Teten Rohendi	70	75	75	70	73	75	74	55	62	73	71	70	71
	AOP Setiawa	68	70	75	74	76	72	71	57	62	70	76	66	74
	Clement Berthet	65	75	74	60	70	74	66	60	62	73	72	75	60
	Valentin Darbellay	69	78	71	75	73	75	77	64	67	65	70	67	76
	Felix Stehli	67	68	71	62	70	70	69	62	69	71	69	69	66
	Hugo Page	69	65	67	61	71	69	65	63	73	76	68	69	66

The 5th and final monument will round off our first ever PT season. And on paper, it should once again be a race that suits Mauro. Quite some climbing, but far enough from the finish line for him to (hopefully) keep up. And the finish line coming after a descent, suiting his good downhill and decent sprint skills.

However, monuments haven't been our strength this year. We're yet to claim even a single Top 10 spot! We better get one here, as that's a sponsor goal - and we haven't been very successful in achieving those, either...

Mauro gets pretty much the same support lineup as in Japan - with one exception: Darbellay replaces Delco, as we're hoping for him to help Mauro get over the biggest climbs. And we obviously expect him to make the cut, too, even though we don't expect anything from him in the finale.

As said before, a Top 10 is our goal, and we really want to get that one. Knowing that many of the world's best riders will be present, though...

Just 2 races to end the season - and it's two races for Mauro. He's had some highlights - San Sebastian obviously, but also Grand-Duché and maybe Amstel - but a lot more not so good races. To get things in balance, he better performs well in October!

Fortunately, we're basically safe already - Moser basically would need a 1-2 or so to overtake us - so we're rather relaxed. At least for Japan, as we still have that sponsor goal in Lombardy - and after the ToNE disaster, we better achieve that one!

AbhishekLFC wrote:

As always, good to see a good crop of Swiss and other talents come through the ranks for your team. The two sprinters are obviously the best of the group, but Sommer and Janssen will also be more than useful when maxed!

jt1109 wrote:

Fantastic first season Fab, really have a soft spot for this team as it's very much one of my favourites for the year. Schmid's refusal to race two races to the same level is half the reason as a fan you never know what youll get from him while i imagine your just pulling your hair out as his manager! Interesting to see what will come next transfer window and if there will be any training to maybe take him to the next level

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
31	26	€ 670´000	77.22	54	943	17.46	710

We're not even mentioning all of Kaden's Top 10 results (there are 25 of them, you find them in the results overview on the first page). This 2024 palmarès is impressive enough already!

What a year it was - and we can still argue whether the Ronde van Nederland GC win - defending his 2023 title - or winning the Maillot Vert was his biggest achievement! It probably has to be the latter, but both of them go down in team history as the first of their kind (first PT stage race win, first GT jersey win)!

Those 670k in wages were a massive investment in Kaden, even having a potential wage reduction for 2025 in mind, and even given his age. But he fully paid back our confidence with these two standout results!

Results elsewhere weren't as great, and in particular the classics were horrible, with no single Top 10 in the books. It might take some more training to get him to world-class level, but he's definitely not far away - and with Grosu starting to decline, he could become the #1 sprinter in slightly hilly races in the future!

The goal for now will be to negotiate a contract that's acceptable for both sides, and then for Kaden to somewhat confirm these results. We can't expect the same huge amount of points, given that a lot went his way in the most important races - but he'll be a crucial rider for the team's near future for sure!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
35	25	€ 500´000	78.88	42	851	20.26	588

Well, what to say about Mauro's season... There were quite some good races. First of all, he got us the first win of the year in Portugal, which was also our first ever PTHC stage win.

Later in the year, he added our first ever PTHC classic win on top of that. And he did well in Grand-Duché and Amstel, against most of the world's best puncheurs.

But otherwise, there were many bad results, and lots of wasted race days. Due to various reasons - a TT in Ukraine, failed shared leadership with Groves in San Remo and Netherlands, a failed experiment in Macskako.

However, other results really are just due to bad racing and/or bad legs, like Flèche Wallonne, LBL, Scandinavia, ToNE and Japan Cup. In particular ToNE was a big opportunity for him to get a great stage race result, but it might have ended up being his biggest failure of the year.

And then came Lombardia. The final monument of the year. Having failed to get a Top 10 in all other monuments - which was partly Mauro's fault in San Remo and fully his responsibility in LBL - he delivered a pretty smart finale, sprinting to 5th place.

So, his overall score is satisfying - after all, he was our best PpRD rider, and getting almost 2 points per € 1,000 of wage is a decent return. Now, we're just wondering whether a little boost of his punch could bridge the gap between occasional and consistent good results. We'll hopefully find out, as training Mauro is one of our targets for the offseason - if we can renew him and get the funds...

One thing that still saddens us, though, is that Mauro didn't win a single U25 jersey while being eligible. You'd think a rider of his format could get some of them - but having to compete against the likes of Pidcock, Vansevenant and Ardila, sometimes even all three of them, was just a bit too much. It's kind of sad - but we'll happily take GC wins instead in the more distant future!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
47	33	€ 220´000	76.58	58	716	12.34	307

Given the combo of declining and promoting to PT, it was clear that we couldn't expect the same kind of results from Eddie as he did last year in PCT.

But still, he was our 3rd best scorer - and our 2nd "cheapest" rider, costing us just about € 300 per point!

It's undeniable that his decline left to a lack of consistency this year. Whereas he'd definitely have been a regular Top 10 rider at his prime - he also showed that in our PT wildcard races last year - the Top 10s were pretty scarce this year.

But he still got some highlights. Two in the "main" cobbles season, in spring, taking a great 3rd place in Hungary and a very solid Top 5 in one of his home races, E3 Prijs.

The monuments then were underwhelming. Whereas he podiumed in Vlaanderen last year, he couldn't even get a Top 10 this time. Roubaix wasn't any better. Nor was East Midlands, or the stage races where we sent him as a hilly sprinter.

But at the very end, in his final race of the season - and potentially his final appearance for us - he had those great legs one more time. Only Pedersen could follow his move and outsprint him in the end - but this 2nd place in Rheden was just fantastic! More than 700 points scored by Eddie in the end, we definitely couldn't expect that.

However, Eddie will sadly not get any younger, and he'll lose some more of his formerly great skillset. He'll definitely not be able to be a PT cobbles leader anymore - so the question is: will he agree on a domestique role (and wage) or not? If yes, we're happy to keep him one more year (or sell him to a lower division). If no, well... We'll soon find out, fingers crossed we'll get some good and fair negotiations!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
60	31	€ 175´000	76.49	59	620	10.51	282

Hello, Mr. Consistent! Just look at these numbers - and at this amount of Top 10 spots! Sure, Colin got more 10th places than anything else, but for a 79 Mo climber, even a 10th place is a good result in PT!

Colin did race both the Giro and the Vuelta - and finished inside the Top 10 in both! In particular his 7th place in the Giro is an outstanding result! With last year's Giro, where we participated with a wildcard, that's three GT Top 10s in a row - that's almost Chiarello level!

He didn't get the outstanding stage results, with the two Top 5s in the Giro being his best individual outcomes. With the team, he got his only stage podium in the Giro TTT, and also a 4th place in Paris - Nice.

Speaking of, he also finished P-N just inside the Top 10 - and he did the same in his home Tour, the Tour de Suisse, getting a 6th place as his highest GC result of the year.

His only non-stage race appearance was in the Scandinavian TTT classic - where he got a Top 10 as well. Which means that he finished every single race in 2024 in the Top 10! Mr. Consistent, I told you!

He turns 32 now, and the initial plan was to sell him or to swap him for a younger stage racer. But can we really afford to sell our "cheapest" - meaning lowest cost per point! - rider? We'll see how renewals go, and then we'll take a close look at transfer announcements and the FA market - but it's not unlikely that Colin will spend his final maxed year with us, too!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
113	31	€ 140´000	75.19	68	313	4.60	447

At first, it looks like a huge step down from our 4th best to the 5th best rider, with Stefan scoring basically half of Colin's points. But we still think that Küng had a good season overall!

The big highlight has to be stage 20 of the Giro, where he narrowly missed out on the win from the breakaway group. He obviously also was part of the S3 TTT, adding another 2nd place to his palmarès.

TT-wise, the 5th place in the Tirreno TT (or epilogue) was his best outcome. 7th places in the revamped Chrono d'Arenberg and in the pretty similar ToNE ITT were decent, but we were dreaming of even slightly better results.

Speaking of ToNE, this was the big disappointment GC-wise. Whereas Stefan got some decent points in Tasmania, ToNE really was a failure. We were hoping for him to be in podium contention, combining good skills on the cobbles, in the TT and the hills, but sadly he was far away from his best performances in this race. To be fair, the hills and cobbles were pretty tough this year...

Just like Colin, Stefan is now turning 32 and has one final maxed season ahead. And like Colin, selling him will definitely be an option - after all, he still could be a great contender e.g. in PCT's Benelux Challenge. But he's one of our most efficient riders as well, so it will all depend on the market situation as well. Anything seems to be possible in his case...

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
130	27	€ 130´000	75.68	64	259	4.05	502

Looking at the list of Top 10 results - with only one single individual result appearing there - kind of confirms why we weren't quite happy with Valentin's season. On the other hand, he's still our 6th best scorer, so it isn't all that awful.

One of Val's main issues is his weakness on the hills. But given that the "true" mountain stage races were for Colin - with Val as his domestique - there were pretty much just these hybrid hilly-TT stage races left for him.

The one exception was Portugal - and this also was the biggest disappointment by him. Looking at the results, he could easily have taken a Top 5 in the GC, but he even dropped out of the Top 10 in the final mountain stage. Because he was dropped far too early - seemingly riding for Schmid instead. Sending both of them there is a mistake we won't do again!

The other big letdown was the Tour de France. Given his skillset, he should have been able to get a Top 15 GC result - he finished outside the Top 20. We knew we'd miss out on our sponsor goal there - but being completely anonymous definitely was disappointing.

We're also disappointed because we had quite some hopes in him after his winter training. But either it just wasn't enough, or he's lacking something else, like physical strength for example. So the question for him is whether to train him again - trying to bring him to Stüssi level. Definitely an option, given that he still has 5 years at his prime. Or we could just use him as a domestique. Or sell him to CT, where he'd definitely be a good rider.

Lots of options, but let's first see what renewals bring, then we'll check the other options.

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
131	28	€ 160´000	76.46	59	258	4.37	620

It was clear before the season started already: Xuban would no longer be our #1 in the hills. And even if he had been, the competition in PT is just so strong that he wouldn't have taken many more Top 10s.

However, we still have to be a bit disappointed by his season - and in particular by his Giro. We sent him there knowing it would be perfect terrain for him, with lots of medium length hills. But sadly, he only showed his great potential once, when he took a 5th place. We clearly expected more, even more so given that the puncheur lineup wasn't that strong. We also wanted him to join breakaways - he didn't.

Sure, he was of great help for Mauro, staying with him late in quite some races, and getting the occasional Top 20 or - more often - Top 30 finish. No big points, but points still.

But Xuban is one of those riders who might be a tad too weak to really make a difference in PT, and a bit too strong to "just" be used as domestiques. He worked really well in PCT and would be pretty awesome in CT - or, if we end up with other plans for Mauro - he could even be trained and be a good PT puncheur. It's the least likely way, but we'll see what direction we'll end up taking!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
151	26	€ 115´000	75.51	36	221	6.14	520

It's not hard to guess who was our sprinter in the Giro, right? Being able to send a sprinter to each GT actually was the main reason for keeping Gergely last offseason - and he paid back that faith big time!

He got a full set of podium finishes in Italy - starting with 3rd place on day 4 (not counting the S3 TTT where he didn't contribute much to be fair), then taking 2nd place on day 7 - and starting week 2 with his first career win!

Gergely didn't reach the same heights later in the race, but he still ended up in 6th place in the points standings, definitely a good performance.

Otherwise, he didn't get to race much; we did by far not use up all his RDs. He was sent as a leadout for Groves to our four flat classics, which sadly didn't work out at all. He went to Grand-Duché, because we needed every rider to fill all the races of the triple header.

And he participated in Slovenia, where we were hoping for him to get a great result on day 1 - which didn't really work out, either.

So, we still don't quite know his full potential. But we think he deserves another chance next year. Given his great skills on the flat, maybe we'll even send him as our lead sprinter to flat classics, as he could also be able to launch or follow late attacks. But renewals are first, and it looks like the MGUCI are giving him a pretty nasty OVL bump (+ 0.5), so we'll see how that turns out...

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
169	30	€ 90´000	73.75	78	189	2.42	476

Just like Errazkin, Rekita is another rider clearly suffering from the jump up from PCT to CT. Whereas he still easily was a Top 10 contender in PCT, not even a Top 20 was guaranteed for him in PT. It's really another level, in particular for TTers who need plain speed and not much else.

But one thing that mustn't be underestimated is his great contribution to our TTT unit! 2nd in the Giro, 4th in Paris - Nice, enabling Colin Stüssi to get a Top 10 GC result in both of them - a lot of this is also thanks to his great efforts in the team time trials!

Individually, though, it's definitely a slightly disappointing season for him. We sent him to the Giro and to Portugal (the latter instead of the TTT classic) hoping for a stage podium, which sadly didn't materialize. He was solid in Praha, and unlucky in Germany, getting one good result out of the two plain TT stage races, which is OK-ish.

All in all, in particular looking at the low amount of TTTs in the PT schedule, we're wondering whether we'd not rather exchange our TT depth for one big TT rider - if one becomes available, that is. It's not against Szymon, who we're not at all against keeping, but we believe that he can shine more in the lower divisions, instead of carrying the pressure of getting a somewhat decent result in PT.

So we'll definitely try to agree on a new contract with him - but what happens during transfers is completely open, even more so given that trading him was already an option last year...

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
177	28	€ 100´000	75.13	68	181	2.66	552

Teten is the first rider in the internal rankings who didn't have a leader role in any of the races he participated in. So in that respect, he's actually our most valuable domestique!

And indeed, he did a decent job, be it in classics - hilly or mountainous - "normal" stage races or GTs. But we'll leave it with "decent", as, to be fair, we were hoping for quite a lot more from him.

We actually thought that he should be a pretty perfect breakaway rider, in particular for the earlier GT stages. Well, in the Vuelta, he didn't really do anything, and in the Tour he only started trying when it was too late, when the stronger climbers were already allowed in attacks as well.

Still, he got what must be one of his career highlights, a stage podium in the Tour de France. He also got a Top 5 some days earlier - so our assumption that he would be great for breakaways definitely wasn't wrong, he just didn't try often enough.

We think that with "a little bit more" in climbing, hills or TTing he could actually be great, but even in his current shape he's a great rider to have, a very reliable helper on many terrains and a good attacker! Hence, a new contract must be the goal - and he should stay on the team as well, as there aren't that many similarly well-rounded domestiques available out there!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
180	26	€ 105´000	75.39	67	178	2.66	590

We've seen it with Rekita already, and it's even clearer with Stefan: our TTers are just some among a lot of others, and clearly aren't candidates for Top 10 spots at least as they were in PCT.

Still, Stefan also was an important contributor to most of our strong TTT outcomes (he wasn't in Italy, though). The TTT was the stage that helped Stüssi claim the final Top 10 spot in Paris - Nice, and Copenhagen - Malmö was a sponsor goal, so we definitely can't say that Bissegger was worthless, on the contrary!

And his best result of the season - 13th in Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha - is actually a very strong result, where he managed to beat several stronger TTers! It's just not Top 10 level - not yet?

We've always dreamt of training Stefan to become a world-class TTer - maybe not one of the best, but a good Top 10 rider. But our rather surprising promotion to PT last year meant we had to focus on other projects, so we didn't end up having enough funds for a substantial training camp.

And now, with Mauro Schmid become training eligible, it's an open question whether we'll get enough money for Stefan as well - but we'd definitely love to do so! First up are renewals, though, and we'll see what we can agree on...

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
185	26	€ 130´000	75.24	68	173	2.54	751

Bissegger's "twin" Brunel ends up just 5 points behind, so this year both of them really had very similar performances. Alexys was one of just two riders being part of every single TTT lineup this year, so obviously an important contributor to this 2nd place in the Giro TTT as well.

Individually, a highlight was his 8th place in the partly cobbled ToNE ITT - sadly he couldn't keep up in the other decisive stages, though.

He also finished 13th in Deutschland Tour, and 20th in Praha - as with Bissegger, decent results, but nothing outstanding.

We'll definitely try to agree on another contract year with him - but unlike Bissegger, we don't have any training plans for him, which is purely due to our sponsors' nationality focus. So his fate might depend on whether we want to continue to focus on TTTs or not - which we will decide in due time, but definitely not before the calendar is out. But first, we're looking forward to another session of contract negotiation with him!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
192	32	€ 70´000	73.46	60	159	2.65	440

We're staying in the TT domain, but shorten the distance - which leads us to the one and only Gabby! Definitely Switzerland's best prologue rider of the present - and this will still be true next year, even after a decline.

This year was a mixed bag of results. Sadly, he couldn't get us a win, which had to be kind of expected given that he was now facing the "King of Prologues" in PT. And sadly, that was true in every single race with a short TT, even in PTHC.

In the end, it's a stage podium in 3/6 races - with the weakest performance sadly coming at the most important race of the year, the Tour de France. Instead of fighting for yellow, it wasn't even a Top 5 for Gabby, who really didn't have the legs on that day.

In Qatar, his 4th place in the epilogue was enough for 15th place in GC, making this his best scoring race of the year. With a little more luck, he could even have reached 200 points this year, but we're happy with his performance overall - even though the TdF fail still stings.

As said before, his prime is over now, but even next season he should be among the stronger riders in short ITTs. So the chance absolutely exists to renew his contract and ride another year at top level - we'll soon find out!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
209	29	€ 60´000	73.62	78	147	1.88	408

Yes, we had to look through the results of the season to find Lorenzo's most valuable one. Individually speaking, that's a 22nd place in Macskako, which summarizes his skills pretty well: a good allrounder, without any remarkable strengths on a terrain.

Whereas this obviously means that he'll never be a great scorer in terms of absolute numbers, we can just send him to basically every race, and he does a decent job. He's a regular Top 50 rider both in PT and PTHC events, getting often a bit more than minimum points - which is exactly what we expected from him.

The fact that he was part of the Tirreno lineup that won the team standings - he benefitted from these bonus points as well - confirms his great skills as a "team rider", who's not there to score, but to make others stronger.

He did that really well, and we're quite sad that he's such a late bloomer - there's absolutely no doubt that we'll try to keep him for another year, and another one, and another one! After all, he's our 3rd cheapest rider, scoring almost 2.5 points per € 1,000 of wage - only Theuns and Stüssi were even more efficient!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
229	24	€ 85´000	73.72	79	136	1.72	625

Ethan was our main loan-in target pre-season, and he clearly met our expectations! He's the second rider besides Brunel who did all 4 TTTs, and the TTT unit definitely did a great job this year!

Ethan's personal highlight definitely was winning the white jersey in Praha, where all of his biggest competitors were present - but with a mix of luck and great legs he managed to beat them all, netting us our sole U25 win of the year!

He had two more U25 Top 5s in the other TT-heavy races we did; whereas the Qatar result is fine, we definitely expected more in Germany, but his result was mostly due to bad luck with the weather condition, yielding some pretty surprising results.

Sadly, Ethan will return to his home team now - we were definitely happy to have him, and we're hoping to get some more great loan-ins next season!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
238	32	€ 65´000	74.35	35	133	3.8	489

Yeah, Tomas is another domestique, so we knew we couldn't expect individual top results. That wasn't his main job, though - his main job was supporting Eddie Theuns as much as possible - and looking at Eddie's score, we can conclude that Paprstka did a great job!

And still, Paprstka scored quite a lot of points, in particular given that we did by far not use all of his RDs. A Top 20 result, plus almost another one (teammate Küng "stole" that one from him in Hungary) is a good outcome, and it was definitely worth to agree on that late transfer in the 2024 window!

If Tomas had another maxed season upcoming, he'd definitely deserve another contract. Given that he will decline, though, we'll have to see what we can offer him - and what he'll agree to accept...

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
266	29	€ 165´000	76.26	60	118	1.97	1,398

Wait, you're telling me that Bol had a bad season? Look at these results! And that's not even all - he had 5 more lower Top 10 results!

Yeah, OK. That's true. That's 13 Top 10 results in total (excluding the TTT where he didn't really contribute much). But it's one single podium result. One! And in the Vuelta, he got two Top 10s out of a plethora of flat stages - definitely not what we expected.

Sure, Cees isn't among the top sprinters in PT. But remember that he got two stage wins and 2nd place in points in last year's Giro, plus two stage podiums in Paris - Nice. So this year was a huge step down by him - and we still haven't got an explanation.

What really seems to be the case is that the pressure in PT is too much for him. Fortunately, Kaden and Gergely handled this far better - and good enough to make up for Bol's missed points. But Bol was our 3rd least effective rider, as we had to pay far more than € 1,000 for each of his points!

We think that quite a lot of talks with him will be needed to see how we move on from here. Basically, we know his skills, he showed them last year. So we're not too reluctant to offer him a new contract. But we'll see what we can agree on - it's pretty obvious that this year's wage cannot be justified by his performances.

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
284	28	€ 50´000	73.26	75	111	1.48	450

As our final rider above 100 points, being on minimum wage, Odie definitely did a decent job. He also was part of some TTT lineups - including the team taking 2nd in the Giro TTT - contributing to team success on top of "just" individual points.

He also got some Top 50 GC results in hybrid hilly-TT races like Tasmania, which also was one of the expectations. However, another expectation also was to often see him in breakaways - notably in the early stages of GTs.

And in this respect we're definitely disappointed. Yes, he did get one Top 10 from a breakaway - a 9th place in the Vuelta. But that's all. We were hoping for much more, maybe also an attempt to get a KoM jersey in one of the smaller tours - but no.

Well, if a 50k rider gets you 100 points, it's all fine. So we won't complain too much. But we think there's still some potential for more - and hopefully we'll see that next year! Because domestiques with his skills for this wage are rare, so there's no reason to not renew him (or to sell him after that).

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
366	27	€ 50´000	72.47	66	85	1.29	588

As a talent, Filippo didn't have to face huge expectations. Finishing all of his races was what we wanted him to do - and he did exactly that.

The only race where he scored more than minimum points was Franceville, where he got 2 points for his Top 100 GC finish. He narrowly missed out on points in Roma Maxima with a 59th place.

But experience is more important for talents than points (except for the top talents, whereof we "just" had Vernon - on loan, that is), and he surely did get that. He joined some breakaways, and also provided some support for Eddie in the earlier stages of a race, so overall it was a good season for him.

It's pretty obvious that we'd like to renew a maxed talent - and if we can indeed get an agreement, the expectations would definitely be a tad higher than this year. Filippo should be a great domestique next year, and we're looking forward to see that!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
400	24	€ 55´000	71.16	71	73	1.03	753

Whereas we kind of expected that Colombo wouldn't get any "actual" scoring result, the same is quite disappointing for Stehli. Why? Well, because he was better last year - in PCT, to be fair.

Felix won the Deutschland Tour KoM last season - but sadly he didn't show the same level of fighting spirit in 2024. He did join a couple of breakaways - most notably in the final race of the year, Giro di Lombardia. Without much success, though.

In stage races, however, he was completely anonymous. As a rider that we expect to grow into a good breakaway candidate, that's no great news. But well, he still gained a lot of experience - he also did most cobbled races in 2024 - so we're hoping for more in 2025! At least getting one highlight - and be it just a Top 100 place - will definitely be the expectation!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
429	25	€ 75´000	73.66	66	65	0.98	1,154

Just like Vernon, we loaned in Clément hoping for quite some points. In Berthet's case, we were hoping for GT Top 100s as a bare minimum - plus lots of breakaway appearances. Well, all he achieved was a 97th place in the Vuelta. In the Tour de France, his home race, he missed out on the Top 100.

And breakaways? Well, we knew that we couldn't expect that from him in the 3rd week, given his pretty weak physical condition. But he'd have been a perfect rider for the early stages - and he didn't even try.

So he did score some points more than the bare minimum, but we have to conclude that - in contrast to the Vernon loan - Clément didn't really satisfy our expectations. We did at least try our best to fulfill our part of the loan arrangement, providing him as much experience as needed - hopefully his home team will be able to benefit from this next year!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
451	23	€ 70´000	71.39	60	58	0.97	1,207

Just like Felix, Hugo had a highlight last year, and had none in 2024. Well, for a developing sprinter that's nothing unusual. His only real chance at scoring more points would be breakaways, but he didn't really try this year anymore.

Next season, Hugo should be able to work as a good leadout rider - if we ever try to build a sprint train again. But it might be another pretty low-scoring year - hopefully we'll still be able to agree on a new contract! Because the future should be bright for him, starting in 2026!

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
478	31	€ 55´000	72.82	20	35	1.75	1,571

Yep, times change. Krzysztof was one of our core parts of the TTT lineup - this year, he was part of just one of them. He did his job in Scandinavia, helping us to secure our sponsor goal. But otherwise, he didn't get to race a lot.

Given that Vernon returns to his home team, we still want to keep Krzysztof around, as we definitely need someone to fill that gap - and Krzysztof is still perfectly able to do that! We'll see if he has got the same vision of the near future...

PT	Age	Wage	OVL	RDs	Points	PpRD	€/P
482	24	€ 50´000	70.79	29	27	0.93	1,724

Well, we just said we lose one of our TTers because of his loan end. Well, we also gain one, with Christoph maxing this year!

He's definitely not a world-class rider, and probably never will be. But he still got a Top 100 in Deutschland Tour this year, scoring more points than in the full 2023 season (excluding finishing points). And we're hoping for some more next year!

Christoph plays an important role in our future TTT lineup, so let's hope we'll be able to agree on a new contract with him as well!