Transfer season will officially be underway as of Thursday, August 1, and it’s a truly wonderful time of year for those of us who love racing-adjacent intrigue and drama. Teams, riders and the riders’ agents have been dropping hints for weeks or longer about what is going on behind the scenes, and they will continue to do so until signing something official, thereby keeping the always-entertaining rumor mill churning.
This year’s crop of free agents features a handful of big names, the highest-ranked of whom will surprise you, and a few more up-and-comers that you should know about. Meanwhile, the biggest prizes could be those riders whose current contract situations would not make them seem like transfer candidates at all. Remco Evenepoel has a contract in place at Soudal-Quick Step, but will he indeed stay there? What about Tom Pidcock and the Ineos Grenadiers?
Here’s where things stand as we head into silly season.
The top free agents
We are fairly confident that the top rider on the market, at least according to various ranking systems out there, will surprise you. Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) has not actually won a WorldTour race since 2020, but he sure has been good at winning lower-tier events and placing highly in the big ones. As of press time, Hirschi is ranked 10th in the world according to the UCI, and before you laugh at the UCI’s ranking methodology, you should know that he is a shocking fifth in the ProCyclingStats rankings. Hirschi’s knack for getting UCI points should come in handy if he heads to the second-division Tudor Pro Cycling team next year, as has been rumored for a few months now.
Elsewhere on the UAE front, the team has seemingly set its sights on two-time Giro d’Italia stage winner Jhonatan Narváez, whose contract with the Ineos Grenadiers is up at the end of this season. Meanwhile, Rafał Majka is officially out of contract but reportedly set to stay on with the squad of Tadej Pogačar, while the plans of Diego Ulissi, who also appears to be out of contract, are not yet known.
If Hirschi is the top-ranked rider, Simon Yates is one of the best known. The 2018 Vuelta a España winner has been with Jayco-AlUla for his entire career, but rumors have connected him to Visma-Lease a Bike. It’s a transfer that makes plenty of sense, given Yates’ stage-racing bona fides and that team’s ever-present need for Grand Tour firepower. What more, it could set us up for entertaining battles between superdomestique Yates brothers, with Simon and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) potentially clashing when the top two Grand Tour teams in the sport square off.
Given Yates’s impending departure, it makes sense that Jayco-AlUla would look to add a new GC threat, and reports indicate that they will: Ben O’Connor is rumored to have a deal in place to move over from Decathlon-AG2R la Mondiale. The Australian is a natural fit, even if he has had a frustrating few seasons. Decathlon also stands to lose Valentin Paret-Peintre, who has been linked to Soudal-Quick Step.
Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) is rumored to be headed to Astana Qazaqstan. The team obviously invested heavily in its sprint ambitions for 2024, but Mark Cavendish is set to retire. Groves will slot in nicely as the fastest finisher in the squad.
Although Julian Alaphilippe may not be as highly ranked as he was a few years ago, he is very much an A-lister and likely on the move. It feels like the two-time world champ has been linked to TotalEnergies since before we can even remember, and recently, rumors have connected him to Tudor. Alaphilippe has had some down years recently, but he has looked good over the past few months and at 32, he doesn’t seem too over-the-hill to mount a career comeback.
Speaking of Frenchmen, Lenny Martínez is apparently all set for a move from Groupama-FDJ to Bahrain Victorious, a team in need of some young talent (or really any talent).
Movistar’s Alex Aranburu is another talented rider likely on the move, reportedly to Cofidis. While losing the Spanish national champ could sting for the Spanish WorldTour team, the rumored arrival of Sergio Higuita from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe should soften the blow. Red Bull may also be losing Lennard Kämna, a winner of stages in all three Grand Tours. The German has been linked to Lidl-Trek for next year.
On the flip side, Red Bull stands to pick up several new names amid a significant roster shakeup. One is reportedly Laurence Pithie, who is out of contract at Groupama-FDJ, as if losing Lenny Martinez weren’t enough of a downer for fans of that team. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner Jan Tratnik of Visma-Lease a Bike is also among multiple out-of-contract riders that have been connected to Red Bull in a sign that the team is ready to use its increased budget to bolster its lineup.
Perhaps the biggest question surround Red Bull, however, is whether the team will be adding a rider who isn’t actually out of contract …
The unknown unknowns
For all of those many names in need of new contracts for 2025, there are a few riders who currently have contracts – but still might be looking for greener pastures. And with the UCI firming up rules on such transfers, they may actually be more likely than in the past. Ever since news of Red Bull’s investment in Bora-Hansgrohe emerged, we have seen reports of interest in several big name riders, and that hubhub has not died down.
The rumors around Remco Evenepoel never seem to end. The Olympic time trial champ and Tour de France podium finisher has been with Soudal-Quick Step since the start of his pro career, but has been persistently linked to other teams over the past 18 months, and Patrick Lefevere is always finding ways to tell the world that the team pays its stars too much. Reports of an impending deal with Red Bull have come fast and furious in recent weeks, and unlike recent instances of in-contract riders signing deals elsewhere with poaching teams, this one seems like it interests both involved squads, with Lefevere potentially standing to get a hefty payout.
Remember that last year, Evenepoel nearly ended up on Visma as the Dutch squad nearly acquired merged with Soudal-Quick Step. That possibility seemed to leave a sour taste in Evenepoel’s mouth. He has proceeded to enjoy a very impressive 2024 campaign, raising his profile and, potentially, the salary he gets if he signs a new contract somewhere else.
Tom Pidcock is another rider who has been linked to Red Bull, although it’s unclear whether there is anything in those rumors specifically. More substantially, Daniel Benson recently reported that Pidcock’s 2025 situation is very much up in the air despite his having a contract with Ineos through 2027. At least two unnamed teams are reportedly interested in working out a deal.
The departure of the Amstel Gold Race winner (and two-time Olympic mountain bike champ) would be huge news for a variety of reasons. Outside of former Tour winner Geraint Thomas, he is the highest-profile British rider on the team founded to put British riders atop the Tour podium, but his own GC ambitions have taken a hit over the past few years of relative quiet on that front, even as he has shined in other departments. Any team would be thrilled to have a rider of his talents, but it’s anyone’s guess as to where he will direct his efforts in the future.
The rumor mill has also focused on fellow Red Bull helmet wearer Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) since the start of the year, but there has been even less indication that Van Aert could be headed to the German team. He is contracted through 2026 and a move from Visma would be a big surprise.
Other in-contract riders whose futures have been the subject of rumors are Juan Ayuso and João Almeida, both of them stage racing talents at a UAE team chock-full of them, though little has been reported on the likelihood of either moving or where they may go.
With that, we’ll wrap things up by pointing out that we’ve only covered some of the seemingly countless rumors around riders who could be on the move here, with plenty of other riders also being reportedly connected to this or that team. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as those rumors continue to fly, and as the actual announcements begin to roll out, to see how the peloton starts to shape up for 2025.
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