Really happy to see you stuck around Fab. After our conversations last year, I knew what a difficult period it was for you, especially when multiple (people have mentioned Schmiid, but Groves was also affected) riders were suddenly less than before.
Really think there's a rider for this game version in Schmiid as the resistance still plays well it is just mainly if you want him to be a classics rider (Liege, Amstel, Lombardia and maybe another Worlds Medal) his ST has to go up again.
Wonder if youd considered turning him into a week long stage racer at any point and going up with his MO instead?
ALl in all the base of the team down a level is very good could be a fruitful season against less competition
Really glad to see you around Fab and looking forward to the competition in PCT!
I can't see Groves as anything other than a dominant piece in PCT, particularly with the many declines and departures from the division in the sprinting crop. Darbellay also seems like the type to overperform in a number of the hilly/TT stage races that are ever-present in HC. Castrillo just looks super cool and he'll be a fun rider once maxed.
One thing is for sure, you're starting off on such a strong footing this season that the world is your oyster for however you want to approach the year.
First of all: It's really nice to see that you changed your mind and stayed in the game. You are a very valuable member of the game, so it would be extremely sad to see you leave. I had that down-period myself, and it somehow became more fun once I found a way out of it. I hope you'll have the same experience!
Renewals went well clearly. Schmid is obviously high, but he's still trainable into a leader level - or perhaps look at Aranburu for inspiration.
Thanks for the nice words
Well, I did indeed follow Aranburu pretty closely. Schmid and him had some races in common, with Aranburu mostly being more successful. Which is quite logical due to his stats - what is completely off is Schmid's OVL, though. I also considered sending Schmid to the Vuelta and did quite some tests - but it turns out his skills are just a tad too low to be considered in a rather deep field. I did a test with a less crowded field, and he finished 3rd in GC... But when there are many riders with higher Hi/MM stats, he just gets ignored - which is what happened quite a lot during the season. Maybe he'd have been a good scorer in PCT, but in PT his OVL definitely doesn't reflect his scoring potential in the current version.
Or maybe Carlsberg just had more luck this year - I mean, compare Skjelmose and Darbellay, they're very, very similar (with the former being a tad stronger on shorter climbs), but the points difference is more than 300 (at least the higher OVL rider indeed scoring more here). Aranburu scored about 150 more than Schmid, so maybe I just had used up all of my luck in the three previous years
I definitely intend to train Schmid, but it would take a good "sales period" to actually get there. We'll see, it will be interesting...
Just to throw in my two cents, I do think I definitely just had more luck this year. Skjelmose finding the right break and ending up top 5 in the TDF is almost all luck. No way around that. He was falling off the back and not paying any attention to GC until he hit on that break. I think with second and third tier GC guys, this game just leads to a ton of variation in GT scoring from the breakaway antics. I also planned Skjelmose to get a steady stream of white jersey points, which he won't have this year, so that's another difference between him and Darbellay last year.
Sometimes the game is just random though. Aranburu's success was almost all in stage races and primarily the Vuelta—he was even more useless than Schmid in most of the main classics, where Gregaard often outraced him with 71 hill. Even still, I don't really know why Aranburu showed up so well in the Vuelta and even seemed to get priority over guys like Valter at times. I have a feeling if you ran that race 10 times, the version we got is the only one where Aranburu scores that high. But I do think he's generally more suited to stage races with his 70 stamina, so that's the way I will probably keep planning him.
All that said, I think you've done a really great renewals, and I would be surprised if Schmid doesn't excel big time in PCT with the lighter competition and somewhat shorter races, even without training.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Really happy to see you stuck around Fab. After our conversations last year, I knew what a difficult period it was for you, especially when multiple (people have mentioned Schmiid, but Groves was also affected) riders were suddenly less than before.
Really think there's a rider for this game version in Schmiid as the resistance still plays well it is just mainly if you want him to be a classics rider (Liege, Amstel, Lombardia and maybe another Worlds Medal) his ST has to go up again.
Wonder if youd considered turning him into a week long stage racer at any point and going up with his MO instead?
ALl in all the base of the team down a level is very good could be a fruitful season against less competition
Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, it sucks when your long-term plan around one of the potential world-class riders of your focus region go down the drain just because of a game version change... But I'll try to refocus and adapt to the new reality (that might already change again in a couple of years, who knows ^^). For Groves, yeah, the game somehow didn't consider him anymore in easy hilly stages - but I guess it's rather a stamina or flat issue, as Aniolkowski, who's weaker on the hills, worked incredibly well even in such stages ^^
Really glad to see you around Fab and looking forward to the competition in PCT!
I can't see Groves as anything other than a dominant piece in PCT, particularly with the many declines and departures from the division in the sprinting crop. Darbellay also seems like the type to overperform in a number of the hilly/TT stage races that are ever-present in HC. Castrillo just looks super cool and he'll be a fun rider once maxed.
One thing is for sure, you're starting off on such a strong footing this season that the world is your oyster for however you want to approach the year.
Darbellay overperforming in hilly/TT stage races? It was the complete opposite last year, he missed every single important split, even when dudes like Würtz could still keep up ^^
But yeah, maybe it will be a bit better against PCT competition, we'll see.
Groves certainly is a great rider to have in PCT, but we'll see how we can fit him in our plans. Fully agree on Castrillo though, sadly he's already too strong for C2 racing
Just to throw in my two cents, I do think I definitely just had more luck this year. Skjelmose finding the right break and ending up top 5 in the TDF is almost all luck. No way around that. He was falling off the back and not paying any attention to GC until he hit on that break. I think with second and third tier GC guys, this game just leads to a ton of variation in GT scoring from the breakaway antics. I also planned Skjelmose to get a steady stream of white jersey points, which he won't have this year, so that's another difference between him and Darbellay last year.
Sometimes the game is just random though. Aranburu's success was almost all in stage races and primarily the Vuelta—he was even more useless than Schmid in most of the main classics, where Gregaard often outraced him with 71 hill. Even still, I don't really know why Aranburu showed up so well in the Vuelta and even seemed to get priority over guys like Valter at times. I have a feeling if you ran that race 10 times, the version we got is the only one where Aranburu scores that high. But I do think he's generally more suited to stage races with his 70 stamina, so that's the way I will probably keep planning him.
All that said, I think you've done a really great renewals, and I would be surprised if Schmid doesn't excel big time in PCT with the lighter competition and somewhat shorter races, even without training.
Right, I forgot Skjelmose's U25 points. I also targetted them the year before with Schmid - sadly he got almost none ^^
I mean, Darbellay also overperformed, in particular in the Giro. Otherwise he might have scored 1/3 of Skjelmose's points - the latter definitely is a slightly better rider, but yeah, I guess you had the luck that I had the years before
Hilly classics somehow are really hard to understand, no clue how Gregaard could outrace Aranburu. Or Schmid. Just no clue.
Stage races and shorter classics probably are the way to go for the likes of Aranburu or Schmid, even though I still hope that I can somehow fix the latter. Maybe he is indeed great in PCT, that would be awesome. Not for the next renewals, but for our points
Decent renewals. One small benefit of relegating to CT is that I don't have to get my ass kicked by Bissegger after helping to develop/train him last season
Very good squad to make the jump back to PCT immediately. That Groves cut is excellent, while Castrillo was expected.
I don't actually target back-to-back relegations to jump back to PCT immediately
But yeah, right now it doesn't look that bad, we'll see what harm I can do to the roster during transfers
The Groves cut might not have been possible with a 2024-like outcome, but last year I think he was pretty average, or even a tad subpar.
Decent renewals. One small benefit of relegating to CT is that I don't have to get my ass kicked by Bissegger after helping to develop/train him last season
Thanks for helping with his training, he really deserved it And hope to see you bounce back right away
After last year's exodus, we don't have quite as many riders for sale as we did in 2025 - but we could still imagine having quite some movement among our ranks.
We said it in the renewals update - our roster is 100% compliant with MGUCI regulations for PCT teams, so we could just start the season with the team we have. But you also all know by now that our sponsors want us to invest even more into the development of Swiss cycling.
In order to do so, we will both need to get some free cap space - always a challenge after relegation - and get the funds for some meaningful training sessions for our top riders. Will we make it happen? It's the market that will decide...
Let's look at the current availability list - depending on rumours, budget or other scenarios, it could still change until the start of transfers - and most likely will during the first 48h of the window, with any plans usually going down the drain until deals are officially allowed...
Here's the current list, ordered by availability:
Rider
2026 Wage
Availability
Kaden Groves
320'000 €
••••
"El Chapu" Chapulin
100'000 €
••••
Teten Rohendi
90'000 €
••••
Muhammad Abdurrahman
90'000 €
••••
AOP Setiawa
55'000 €
••••
Jose Fernandes
100'000 €
•••
Gergely Szarka
125'000 €
•••
Niklas Larsen
100'000 €
•••
Filippo Colombo
50'000 €
•••
Jake Stewart
115'000 €
••
Pablo Castrillo
240'000 €
••
Jan Sommer
70'000 €
••
Christoph Janssen
50'000 €
••
Nils Aebersold
55'000 €
••
Robin Donze
55'000 €
••
Roman Holzer
60'000 €
••
Fabio Christen
80'000 €
•
Valentin Darbellay
190'000 €
•
Stefan Bissegger
120'000 €
•
Mauro Schmid
400'000 €
•
•
Unavailable
••
Unlikely to leave
•••
Maybe, maybe not
••••
Likely to leave
•••••
Available
Surprised? Probably not that much. With Schmid - despite of all the issues there are with him - being one of our cornerstones, it's the 2nd highest wage rider who is top listed here.
While it's still not guaranteed that Kaden Groves will leave us, it's pretty likely. After all, he's likely our highest value rider on the market - and with his 28 years he's still pretty young looking at the sprinter field!
Obivously, he'd be a tough loss, and we certainly won't let him leave for free (don't even bother offering less than 7 digits for this triple Tour de France stage winner, and 2024 Maillot Vert winner!), but if we really want to commit to boosting Swiss cycling, it's kind of the obvious choice.
"El Chapu" - if you actually want to look him up in the DB, his full name is Luis Fernando De la Cruz Chapulin - joined us last season, but obviously was in Schmid's shadow all year long. We would love to see what he can do if given a team's leadership - and we're sure that CT would be an awesome place for him. But there are also races in PCT where he could shine - after all, he's got a great kick and good enough physical condition to do well!
The Indonesian diaspora in Switzerland grew by one rider last transfers, now including Teten Rohendi, Andreas Odie Purnama Setiawa and Muhammad Abdurrahman - but despite our flags having the same colours, they all say they're a bit homesick. Understandable, and even more so given that the only Indonesian team is riding in PT... We would wish for them to leave "en bloc", but if we can get some better value by trading all of them individually - so be it!
Given our big losses in the TT department lately - including last year's FA Ferreyra who we simply couldn't renew on his terms - it would be rough to lose the versatile Portuguese TTer Jose Fernandes, and we'd only trade him for a great offer or if we really have to. But he could go, and given that there's at least one new Portuguese co-sponsor in the peloton, we suspect there might be some interest.
And it's even possible that we could lose both of our sprinters during transfers, even though we'd greatly prefer keeping Gergely Szarka on board. But between him and prologue specialist Niklas Larsen, it's not impossible that one of them will leave the team. We'd like to keep the latter for at least another year to mentor our own developing prologue talent, but we'll see what our requirements could become during transfers.
There's even a Swiss rider among the "three-dotters", with Filippo Colombo. With Jan Sommer maxing, and cobbles not being a priority for us, we might agree to trade Filippo if there's a good offer for him. We've heard there's another team with a partial focus on Switzerland around, so who knows...
The "two-dotters" would only be an option if we really, really needed more cap or cash (or both). Stewart should be our cobbles leader for the season, and Castrillo is a very cool talent we'd really love to keep; on the other hand, you see his wage, which is what might still make him available. Don't count on it, though.
Then there are pretty much all non-leading Swiss riders on two dots as well; we don't intend to sell them, but if someone else really wants to start something cool in Switzerland, there might be a chance.
Finally, it's highly unlikely that one of Christen, Darbellay, Bissegger or Schmid leaves. We currently don't see such a scenario - even though one certainly exists. You can always surprise us - but the default answer will be "No".
Generally, we'll be looking for money deals. We have a minimum fee in mind that we would like to get in cash for each rider; it's always possible to do swaps beyond that amount. We do have a pretty clear target number in terms of training money in mind - but if there's a great swap deal for the team's future, we clearly won't refuse it, either!
It was the complete opposite last year, he missed every single important split, even when dudes like Würtz could still keep up ^^
