Black Friday Transfer Thoughts

Why losing Maxim Van Gils may not be a disaster for Lotto-Dstny & how Jack Burke presents the perfect Moneyball opportunity for low-budget teams willing to take a risk

Programming Note: In addition to continuing to release the BTP tiers for One-Day Riders and Sprinters, I will re-start my annual off-season Weekly Transfer Analysis (for paying subscribers only) and a new mailbag section (email your questions to beyondthepeloton@substack.com) beginning next week.

New BTP Podcast: In the latest episode of the Beyond the Peloton podcast, Andrew Vontz and I discuss a wide variety of issues, including, but not limited to, what we are thankful for from the 2024 cycling season, what we want to see in 2025, and whether the demands of modern training are actually extending, rather than shortening, riders' careers.

Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music or wherever else you get your podcasts.

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A Few Black Friday Transfer Thoughts

1) Maxim Van Gils Will Score a Big New Deal, but It Could Land Him in a Far Worse Sporting Situation: With the Tom Pidcock transfer saga going quiet, at least for the moment, the big transfer drama of the last week has been 25-year-old Maxim Van Gils terminating the remaining two years of his contract with Lotto-Dstny as he and his new agent Alex Carera, shop around for a new, higher-paying deal, reportedly coming from one of RedBull-Bora-hansgrohe, Astana, Ineos and Movistar. On its surface, this seems like a coup for Van Gils and his representation and a massive loss for his former Lotto-Dstny team, but if we dig deeper, things aren’t so clear.

• Carera, one of, if not the most powerful agent in the sport, recently secured Tadej Pogačar a €50 million, six-year extension with his UAE Team Emirates team, plus potential bonuses and a €200 million buyout clause, has become the go-to representation for riders who want to force their way out of their current contract. For example, Carera was retained by Cian Uijtdebroeks before the young Belgian left his deal with the then Bora-Hansgrohe team.

  • Part of the reason Carera is able to serve this function is the massive amount of leverage he has due to his high-powered and deep list of clients, which puts teams in a situation where it is easier to simply accept an agreed-upon buyout payment and move on rather than take the issue to court and risk being blackballed by Carera and his extensive client list.

• While it is great for Van Gils that he is getting a significant pay raise (likely up from roughly €500,000 per season to closer to €1,500,000 per season), it isn’t clear to me that, unlike the financial package, he will find a sporting situation better than his current one.

  • For example, even if the quality of the behind-the-scenes touchpoints at RedBull-Bora far exceeds the one at Lotto, their strong roster and aggressive recruitment of top talent (I’m still not convinced they won’t renew their pursuit of Remco Evenepoel following the 2025 season), means he likely won’t have nearly as much freedom in one-day races or Grand Tours stages he had at Lotto.

  • Even if Ineos has dropped down a level, it still features an extremely talented and deep roster with multiple riders (including Tom Pidcock) who will want to target major races in 2025.

    • This leaves Astana and Movistar as teams with the room to accommodate Van Gils's ambitions. However, both finished well behind Lotto in terms of UCI points in 2024 and aren’t exactly trending in the right direction.

      • And, if Van Gils were to join Astana, he would find himself back in the second division after this coming season while his former team, Lotto, is promoted into the WorldTour.

2) Losing Van Gils May Not Be the Disaster It Initially Appears to Be for Lotto-Dstny: If we look at Lotto, while it is certainly frustrating to see a strong talent like Van Gils, who scored a 3rd place at Strade-Bianche, 4th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and 7th at Milano-Sanremo in 2024, leave the team, there is no guarantee he would continue to improve, and they are getting a nice cash injection, as well as avoiding a major financial liability for a rider that only has a single WorldTour win (Eschborn-Frankfurt) on his Palmares.

• As we saw with Cian Uijtdebroeks in 2024, RedBull-Bora was able to avoid re-signing Uijtdebroeks at a higher amount after the 2023 season, and, instead, got a substantial payout after Uijtdebroeks left for Visma, and was able to at least partly use that to reinforce the team with riders like Primož Roglič and Daniel Martínez, who scored a combined eight WorldTour victories, two Grand Tour podiums and an overall Grand Tour title.

  • Meanwhile, Uijtdebroeks failed to win a single race at his new team, Visma Lease a Bike, over the same time period.

3) If Smaller Teams Want to Compete With the Superteams, Amateur Canadian Jack Burke Presents the Perfect Moneyball Opportunity: It is interesting that in an era when there is a minimum physiological bar to compete at the biggest races, and we hear small-budget teams throwing their hands up in frustration at the trend of the biggest teams scooping up the biggest talents, that there isn’t a gold rush for any available rider with the talent to clear that bar.

• For example, Jack Burke, a 29-year-old Canadian amateur with extensive racing experience and who is based in Europe, has recently set Strava KOMs (aka the fastest times on climbs amongst those using the Strava ride-tracking software) on three of the highest-profile climbs in professional cycling, the Stelvio, Mortirolo and Alpe d’Huez.

  • Burke did the Stelvio in an hour and eight minutes, finishing over a minute ahead of Jai Hindley, who set the previous record en route to finishing second place overall at the 2020 Giro d’Italia.

  • On Alpe d’Huez, he finished a few seconds in front of Sepp Kuss, who clocked his time on Stage 12 of the 2022 Tour de France after coming to the line with Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar (his time has since been flagged and isn’t currently reflected on the Strava leaderboard).

  • However, his Mortirolo attempt, where he shattered Vincenzo Nibali’s record time by well over a minute on the 43-minute climb, presents his strongest case for a contract, in my opinion.

    • Burke’s Mortirolo Numbers:
      Time: 42’53
      Avg. Power: 435 watts
      Watts per Kilo: 6.5
      VAM: 1,776

• Prospective teams may have understandable concerns about Burke’s relatively advanced age, his lack of experience at the top level, or his cultural fit in a squad, but considering that these numbers surpass what Primož Roglič produced on Stage 6 of the Criterium du Dauphine, en route to winning the overall (6.4 w/kg for 31’28), or matched what Remco Evenepoel produced on Plateau de Beille on Stage 15 of the 2024 Tour de France (6.6w/kg for 42’18), it seems absurd that any lower level team looking for a rider available at a team-friendly price with the tools to win Grand Tour stages hasn’t been picked up.

  • Of course, there may be many good reasons each individual team has for staying away from Burke, especially this late in the transfer season, but it is important to remember that if teams want to walk their Moneyball talk, they have to get out of their comfort zones if they want to sign top talent on ultra-discounted deals.

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