Dylan van Baarle is leaving the Visma hive at the end of 2026 and joining Soudal Quick-Step. Photo courtesy of SWpix.

Good morning subscribers,

We’ll start with a few announcements that came out on Thursday and Friday, then move on to news about some updates and graduations within Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe Rookies, a new Norwegian talent who could be on his way to Ineos Grenadiers, and the very latest on the teams chasing Biniam Girmay, following interest from Israel Premier-Tech.

There’s also news on Primož Roglič and several other transfer candidates.

Follow me on: Twitter — Instagram — Bluesky

We kick off with the confirmed news that Dylan van Baarle has signed a contract with Soudal Quick-Step for the next two years. We exclusively revealed that the Dutch rider was leaving Visma-Lease a Bike on the eve of the Giro d’Italia and, from all reports, a deal to join Jurgen Foré’s team was already set to take place. I think HLN had the news first.

Several media outlets have tried to position this as part of a Remco Evenepoel rebuild simply because of the timing of the announcements, but in reality, they’re putting Van Baarle and Evenepoel in the same headline because it fits an agenda of driving SEO and, therefore, website clicks.

Read more: Cycling Transfers – All the major signings and news for 2026

Here’s what Jurgen Foré said about Van Baarle during the Giro when I brought the rider [and Jasper Stuyven] up in conversation.

“They’re interesting riders. They’re both good riders and Classics winners. They’re a bit different. Jasper is more of a puncheur type, and Dylan can also be a good person in Grand Tours. They’re very interesting riders. You know the drill. I can’t say anything on incoming transfers but both are interesting riders. They’re different types but they’re definitely interesting,” he said.

The Soudal Quick-Step boss couldn’t confirm the transfer at the time, but it doesn’t take a genius to realise that the move was going to happen regardless of where Evenepoel ended up. At that point, as I reported last week, Red Bull hadn’t approached Foré about a possible transfer for Evenepoel. That didn’t happen until June.