Cycling transfers central

[eth-dog]

Thought it time we had a dedicated transfers thread that can last perpetually.

Rogliç looks like he'll be at Bora-Hansgrohe next year.
DSM have gotten Barguil back and have Jakobsen from Quickstep
David Ballerini to Astana as well as Morkov.
Evenepoel to Ineos continues to gain legs.

 

[Vader]

There's a lot of moves which are being held up, pending a final decision over the merger (takeover) between Jumbo-Visma and Quickstep.

If the merger goes ahead then chaos ensues:

• There are a number of riders who will have to be jettisoned from the merged squad (2 into 1 does not go);
• Then there are the riders who were planning on joining one of the merging teams;
• Then there's the question of which team gets the newly released World Tour license, and whether or not they are in a position to recruit riders at this late stage in the game.

Remco despises Jumbo, and the feeling is mutual, so there's no way he stays with the merged entity. However, there's a reasonable chance he stays with Quickstep if the merger doesn't go ahead.

Roglic has confirmed that he's leaving Jumbo-Visma. He desperately wants to win the Tour, while he's still young enough to do so. Whether he's good enough to beat Jonas or Pog is doubtful, let alone having a team strong enough to support him (as he had with Jumbo).

 

[eth-dog]

There's a lot of moves which are being held up, pending a final decision over the merger (takeover) between Jumbo-Visma and Quickstep.

If the merger goes ahead then chaos ensues:

• There are a number of riders who will have to be jettisoned from the merged squad (2 into 1 does not go);
• Then there are the riders who were planning on joining one of the merging teams;
• Then there's the question of which team gets the newly released World Tour license, and whether or not they are in a position to recruit riders at this late stage in the game.

Remco despises Jumbo, and the feeling is mutual, so there's no way he stays with the merged entity. However, there's a reasonable chance he stays with Quickstep if the merger doesn't go ahead.

Roglic has confirmed that he's leaving Jumbo-Visma. He desperately wants to win the Tour, while he's still young enough to do so. Whether he's good enough to beat Jonas or Pog is doubtful, let alone having a team strong enough to support him (as he had with Jumbo).

The Tour team at Bora is pretty good (multiple outlets going with that). Buchmann, Schachmann and probably Uijtdebroeks as climbers to back him. Buchmann is probably a top 5 climbing domestique in the world.

Remco will be at Ineos.

It seems that it'll be mostly Jumbo riders with the likes of Van Wilder, Lampaert, Landa (who probably gets to be a leader somewhere) and a few others staying.

I reckon Merlier and Ala will be sought after. Both would be ideal at Jayco haha

 

[Orange Agent]

I think the UCI will be using all their powers to stop the merger, it's a disaster for the sport. There is over 40 riders contracted for next season and on across the 2 teams, so straight out 10+ are out of work. Landa will not want to stay, he could be team leader at Movistar or similar, Merlier would not get a start behind Koiij, WVA and Laporte.


As expected Cav is now confirmed for 2024 and I would expect Morkov is a done deal yet to be announced. Along with Ballerini, the leadouts will be competitive with everyone else, they could still use Bol as well as Kanter. They now have some serious speedy options to form the train.

If Roglic does go to Bora I wonder what happens to Welsford's schedule. Doubt he gets much support if he is in the Tour squad.

 

[yaco55]

My understanding is that Jayco left two spots open in case the merger took place but one of these will be filled by Plapp - Riders I would consider are Le Clerf, Cattaneo, Asgreen, Van Wilder and C.Pederson.

 

[largebus]

The Quick Step-Jumbo merger has been canned.

With Roglic moving to Bora-Hansgrohe it means him, Pogacar, Evenepoel and Vingegaard are all on different teams next year.

 

[eth-dog]

The Quick Step-Jumbo merger has been canned.

With Roglic moving to Bora-Hansgrohe it means him, Pogacar, Evenepoel and Vingegaard are all on different teams next year.

From what I understand Sporza isn't necessarily the most reliable.

And yeah, even if they had merged Remco probably would have gone to Ineos anyway. He still could.

 

[Vader]

The Quick Step-Jumbo merger has been canned.

With Roglic moving to Bora-Hansgrohe it means him, Pogacar, Evenepoel and Vingegaard are all on different teams next year.

Should make for a really interesting Tour.

 

[eth-dog]

Should make for a really interesting Tour.

I also think it makes for an interesting Giro. Do teams like Ineos (Thomas), Trek (Geoghegan Hart), AG2R (O'Connor), Bahrain (Caruso), EF (Carapaz) and Jayco (Yates) chase a Giro win? These guys aren't on the level of the big 4, and you can bet that UAE and Bora at a minimum will back themselves to win both with Almeida/Ayuso and Hindley/Vlasov at the Giro too.

But I really can't wait for all four to go head to head. Think it'll be Jonas' to lose still butif Pog doesn't get injured during classics season...

 

[yaco55]

Think you will find that S.Yates will ride the TDF again as the program worked well this year - If there is lots of ITT in the Giro then the climber types will gravitate to the TDF.

 

[Vader]

Evenepoul now confirmed as sticking with Quickstep for 2024. Gee, the 2024 TdF is looking juicy - Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), Roglic (Bora-Hansgrohe), Pog (UAE), and Evenepoul (Quickstep). Should be a lot more interesting than the Jonas/Pog show of 2023.

 

[eth-dog]

GCN saying Caleb is coming back to Jayco AlUla. Who gets Le Tour and who gets the Giro out of those two?

 

[largebus]

Somehow I see it ending poorly.

 

[eth-dog]

Somehow I see it ending poorly.

He needs full support in a race. He won't work with Yates or Dunbar, unless it's basically Dunbar being the only climber and chasing stage wins. Which lends itself to him going to the Giro.

 

[Orange Agent]

I can only assume he was cheap, salary wise. He certainly won't be getting the $2mil a year Lotto have been paying him. Team management will be on their toes to keep everyone happy. Him and Mezgec didn't work, so not sure how this will work out. Does the team now build 2 separate sprint trains? Really weird.

 

[eth-dog]

I can only assume he was cheap, salary wise. He certainly won't be getting the $2mil a year Lotto have been paying him. Team management will be on their toes to keep everyone happy. Him and Mezgec didn't work, so not sure how this will work out. Does the team now build 2 separate sprint trains? Really weird.

I think you have to. Groenewegen usually has Mezgec and Reinders as his main lead out riders, and Postlberger was at most. You can use O'Brien and Stewart in the lead out with maybe Quick in there somewhere. Add a couple of workhorses and you're good.

When you're kinda shoehorned into having a split GC/sprint ambitions then you can't really have too much of a lead out anyway.

 

[yaco55]

My first reaction was that Jayco have given up on getting Groves in 2025 - First, Groenwegen and Ewan can effectively be split up during the season - I feel between the two of them they can ride all three GT's in 2024 and it will be road that decide the GT - Looking at it dispassionately, Groenewegen has come so close to beating Philipsen in the TDF and post TDF, so I would be more inclined to send Groenewegen to the Giro to avoid Philipsen and send Ewan to the TDF - With Ewan, I want him to focus more on flat sprints, as he lost a touch of top end speed because he's focused on climbing. Also, Ewan realises that he will not have a full team to support him as Jayco successfully mixes GC and Sprints in GT's - Background behind Ewan's last minute ommission from the 2018 TDF - He was omitted because he refused to share riders with A.Yates, not because of his form - Then in his follow up race in Ride London he disobeyed team tactics by going into the break which then led to a bust up with Mezgec - I expect the Groenewegen train to include Reinders and Mezgec, while the Ewan train will include Walscheid and Stewart - The interesting cases going into 2024 will be Matthews and S.Yates - Bling has suffered with injury and illness and has struggled most of the season - Unless he pulls a rabbit out of the hat then he will not be retained, while S.Yates has had a sneakily good year with 3000 UCI points and 11th in the ranking.

 

[eth-dog]

My first reaction was that Jayco have given up on getting Groves in 2025 - First, Groenwegen and Ewan can effectively be split up during the season - I feel between the two of them they can ride all three GT's in 2024 and it will be road that decide the GT - Looking at it dispassionately, Groenewegen has come so close to beating Philipsen in the TDF and post TDF, so I would be more inclined to send Groenewegen to the Giro to avoid Philipsen and send Ewan to the TDF - With Ewan, I want him to focus more on flat sprints, as he lost a touch of top end speed because he's focused on climbing. Also, Ewan realises that he will not have a full team to support him as Jayco successfully mixes GC and Sprints in GT's - Background behind Ewan's last minute ommission from the 2018 TDF - He was omitted because he refused to share riders with A.Yates, not because of his form - Then in his follow up race in Ride London he disobeyed team tactics by going into the break which then led to a bust up with Mezgec - I expect the Groenewegen train to include Reinders and Mezgec, while the Ewan train will include Walscheid and Stewart - The interesting cases going into 2024 will be Matthews and S.Yates - Bling has suffered with injury and illness and has struggled most of the season - Unless he pulls a rabbit out of the hat then he will not be retained, while S.Yates has had a sneakily good year with 3000 UCI points and 11th in the ranking.

I think you tie Bling to Caleb. They've been friends for a long time and the fact that is he's finished 1 GT in the past 3 years so at least Bling gives you options if he doesn't finish.

I also feel like if you do that, Eddie needs to ride whatever GT that will be. He's only ever going to be a fringe top 10 candidate so you can get away with only having 1 climbing domestique. So to an end, I think if you send Caleb to the Tour and Groenewegen to the Giro your teams would be:

Giro: Yates, Hamilton, Harper, Reinders, Juul-Jensen, Welscheid, Mezgec, Groenewegen
Tour: Ewan, Stewart, Matthews, Craddock, Durbridge, Plapp, Zana, Dunbar

With a TTT in the Tour next year I think you have to have all three of Craddock, Durbo and Plapp there. Plus both Craddock and Plapp are pseudo Mountain domestiques as well as flat land domestiques so you can cover bases there.

 

[yaco55]

My feelings are that Groenewegen couldn't beat Philpsen in a sprint in the TDF and post TDF, allbeit he has come extremely close, then you send Ewan to the TDF because he's a better chance of beating Philipsen - Walscheid will definitely be part of Ewan's train - Expect, Yates to again ride the TDF because apparently the Giro has 73kms of ITT - Even though Yates is a more than decent ITTer, he must get first preference over Dunbar. Giro presentation 13 October and TDF presentation 25 October.

 

[eth-dog]

Formolo and Cavagna to Movistar. Interesting move. Formolo targeting GC?

 

[Orange Agent]

Formolo and Cavagna to Movistar. Interesting move. Formolo targeting GC?

I think just go for stage wins in breakaways or hilly 1 day races. Cavagna wanted to ride more classics so he will be maybe number one here. His TT might go downhill but.

 

[eth-dog]

I think just go for stage wins in breakaways or hilly 1 day races. Cavagna wanted to ride more classics so he will be maybe number one here. His TT might go downhill but.

He's in that awkward in between that he isn't in the class of Ganna, Remco, Küng etc but better than most. He probably ends up as their main Classics guy anyway apart from the very flat ones (Gaviria) or stuff like Lombardia.

 

[Number37]

Evenepoul now confirmed as sticking with Quickstep for 2024. Gee, the 2024 TdF is looking juicy - Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), Roglic (Bora-Hansgrohe), Pog (UAE), and Evenepoul (Quickstep). Should be a lot more interesting than the Jonas/Pog show of 2023.

60ks of time trials works in Evenepoel's favour but he is miles off Pogacar and Vingegaard climbing.
They (Quickstep) will have to light up so many stages that it will work against Evenepoel.
If Roglic can do a good impersonation of Quintana (sitting in the wheels) he might be able to take time here and there.

 

[eth-dog]

Quintana at Movistar confirmed. They say in support of Mas but I'd be surprised if he didn't ride as the leader for the Giro alongside Gaviria and then domestique for Mas at the Tour.

 

[yaco55]

He'll definitely ride the Giro for GC - expect him to do smaller races hunting for UCI points.