With very little wage cap available, we didn't do much in this transfert season. After all (or most) of the sprinters were unaffordable, we managed to sign Sergi Darder, as stated earlier. At least, we maybe will have a sprinter in a few years time.
CT draft was used to strengthen Darbinyan's and Serrano's support on the cobbles, with the arrival of veteran Maxime Daniel. We hope he still has enough in the tank to support our leading duo, along Le Berre and Donaldson.
Our other choice went to a young rider from Macau, Chin Pok Kam. He has the potential to become a good pure puncheur, with a decent flat finish. After Erdenesuren (who was drafted in the 2024 season) and Royan (on loan from Indosat last season), he's the third Asian rider in the team.
Last but not least, after giving lots of thoughts to who would get to training camp, we decided, considering how the GC fights would play, to once again send Mathus Stocek to get better in the hills.
Thoughts
Without a top 5 GC rider, getting the big points will once again get difficult. We'll have to hope for attacks from our climbers (and Lafay) to get some decent results. We also miss a sprinter, and though we hope Renard will get one our too results from breaks, that won't be the case in every race.
Still, we should be fairly competitives in the hills, cobbles and time-trials, even though we don't have the very best on these terrains. Aiming for a higher top 10 seems reasonable.
“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
A. Roy
You night have missed a MM bump for Stocek in your table from his training, which makes it an even better gambit I think.
You have a really fun team for all kinds of uphills, and Serrano is an underrated cobbles leader that should be fun for many years to come. I agree that even a low tier sprinter might have been worth it to add, but still a really strong team!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Stocek should be among the best puncheurs of the division (and bbl is right about his missing MM bump), the cobbles trio could be good for some strong results and Lafay pulls out the occasional big result as well, but I share your feeling that you'll probably end just shy of the (disband) promotion spots once again.
Hilly races in CT are again going to be very competitive it seems. Not sure if this is a promotion contender, but some internal improvement should be on the cards.
