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From Remco Evenepoel to Bruno Armirail, these 2026 transfers have made themselves at home and thrived at their new teams.
Kristof Ramon, Cor Vos
This time last year, we were debriefing a season of more domination for Tadej Pogačar and his team, and were eagerly looking ahead to an off-season of change, helped along by some tantalising transfer stories.
Remco Evenepoel’s long-awaited departure from Soudal-Quick Step to pastures new at Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe grabbed most headlines, but there were plenty of other big-name moves to whet the appetite, from Dylan Groenewegen’s ProTour gamble at Unibet Rose Rockets to the French influx at Ineos Grenadiers (Dorian Godon and Kévin Vauquelin), not to mention Juan Ayuso’s defection to Lidl-Trek and Biniam Girmay’s intriguing leap into the rebranded NSN team.
By the start of 2026, even more ink had been spilled on team rosters for 2027, with Oscar Onley making an eleventh-hour switch to Ineos Grenadiers, and the confirmation of Derek Gee-West’s move to Lidl-Trek, where it was already getting busy.
2027 transfer roundup: The men’s peloton gets a bit of a shuffle
An updated team-by-team summary of this winter’s transfers throughout the men’s WorldTour and the top ProTeams.
Now, at the culmination of the 2026 season, the transfer highlights are as you might expect, but it’s not all headlines and big names. Some of the better transfer stories came from deeper in the peloton, whether from youngsters stepping up to the top level (e.g. Davide Piganzoli at Visma-Lease a Bike) or domestiques finding their place (Gregor Mühlberger at Decathlon-CMA CGM), or those who were presented with the opportunity to step up and got the job done (Tobias Lund Andresen at Decathlon-CMA CGM).
Transfers typically fall into a small handful of categories:
Riders needing a new environment, whether to reboot a floundering career or to embed themselves in a more professional or dedicated setup, e.g. Sam Bennett to Pinarello-Q36.5; or Remco Evenepoel to Red Bull-Bora HansgroheThose at the end of a contract and/or for whom there’s no more room, or even no more team, e.g. the oversubscribed Lotto and Intermarché teams amidst their merger, and the closing of Arkéa-B&B HotelsVeterans choosing a happier swansong with a team that values their “experience”, or somewhere that represents closing a circle, e.g. Max Walscheid to Lidl-Trek, Sven Erik Bystrøm to Uno-X Mobility and Wout Poels to Unibet Rose Rockets (although he’s now likely to extend his farewell by a year)
There were dozens of transfers heading into the 2026 season, and many if not most were successful (with the exception of a few unfortunate cases like Victor Lafay who’s not raced once for Unibet Rose Rockets due to persistent health issues). What follows are our top 10, plus some honourable mentions.
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