McCormick and Ulriksen Sports are pleased to announce the return of Baltimore-based McCormick & Company as the primary sponsor of McCormick Pro Cycling. McCormick Pro Cycling is a long-term project to build a significant American cycling team.
Team manager Ulrich Ulriksen welcomed the news, "This is our 8th season with McCormick and I think all of us believe it is time to make the next step. Last season's 9th place finish was our best ever and we will be looking to tweak the squad to get into the promotion places this time around".
McCormick also announced that most of last year's squad will return. The most notable departure was Zeke Mostov. Ulriksen said, "Zeke was one of our original 5 young signees and is the second one to depart. We just couldn't get to common ground with Zeke on salary and wish him good luck with his next steps".
The team also announced that Cole Kessler was offered a full-time contract after riding as a stagiaire last year. Ulriksen celebrated the signing, "bring Cole on full-time continues our commitment to young US talent."
The team also announced that Jingbiao Zhao and Justin Wolf will not return nor will stagiares Emry Faingezicht and Anderseon David Palma.
McCormick looks forward to the rest of the offseason and a successful 2026 season.
Renewals - I give myself a C, no disasters but Sosa probably didn't need another 50k to screw things up and Yates is still expensive at 220k. Would have liked Macias to go down more and Hecht had better not flop too badly to justify that wage.
Country
Rider
Age
2025 Wage
2026 Wage
Change
Ivan Sosa
29
365,000
415,000
50,000
Quinn Simmons
25
150,000
345,000
195,000
Adam Yates
34
385,000
220,000
-165,000
Aliaksandr Riabushenko
31
200,000
165,000
-35,000
Jhonatan Narvaez
29
145,000
135,000
-10,000
Gage Hecht
28
65,000
110,000
45,000
Dorian Godon
30
100,000
105,000
5,000
Nicolas Alejandro Cabrera
29
80,000
95,000
15,000
Juan Osorio
31
85,000
95,000
10,000
Sepp Kuss
32
90,000
85,000
-5,000
Nils Eekhoff
28
55,000
80,000
25,000
Gregory Daniel
32
75,000
75,000
0
Pierre Barbier
29
50,000
75,000
25,000
Cesar Macias
23
115,000
70,000
-45,000
Brandon Rodriguez
25
50,000
60,000
10,000
Thomas Revard
29
50,000
50,000
0
Fikri Azka Mohammad
30
50,000
50,000
0
Alex Hoehn
29
50,000
50,000
0
Noah Granigan
30
50,000
50,000
0
Alex Julajuj
28
50,000
50,000
0
Cole Kessler
23
10,000
50,000
40,000
Zeke Mostov
30
50,000
0
-50,000
Justin Wolf
34
50,000
0
-50,000
Jingbiao Zhao
31
110,000
0
-110,000
Emry Faingezicht
23
10,000
0
-10,000
Anderson David Palma
23
10,000
0
-10,000
--------------
--------------
--------------
Total
2,500,000
2,430,000
-70,000
We could probably do nothing in transfers except resign that greedy bastard Mostov and go into next year with an outside shot at promotion, but what fun would that be.
All the non-regional focus riders will be available, as always. And probably Macias as well, not committed to him.
Edited by Ulrich Ulriksen on 09-07-2026 04:49
Solid but not particularly spectacular renewals for you it seems. Sosa is a great rider and should hopefully achieve some decent results this season to match his wage, even with the increase. Super solid team, looking forward to seeing what direction you decide to go in transfers
I for one can certainly believe Jingbiao Zhao was a greedy boy again in renewals. The man is obsessed with money, but yet people still keep paying him in free agency.
On a side note, I'm very much not lot looking forward to a newly maxed Quinn Simmons in the PCT, just as Ardila has left.
I think Yates might have a tough time justifying that salary, but could well do it still. Hecht also a bit on the more expensive side I guess. Other than that, looks like a solid round of renewals Simmons par for the course for a rider of his caliber, I think.
Curious to see what your moves will be to get some more room to work with during transfers!
