Dylan Maples is having a heck of a couple seasons. From being included on a factory team on a temporary baseis to fill in for an injured rider, and scoring some big results while there, to being added to Commencal Muc-Off full time for 2025. Now, the U.S. racer is being picked up by Pivot Factory Racing.
The move comes as a result of a weird new rule from the UCI limiting how many riders a team may field in each cateogry. Any given team may only have four riders in one category. With Commencal Muc-Off picking up Loris Vergier to join Amaury Pierron (and Myriam Nicole) and, at the same time, Max and Till Alran graduating into elite to join them, someone had to go. That ended up being Maples.
Not many teams will run into the problem of having too many star riders in the same category. Commencal Muc-Off have an unlikely problem with having two of the top juniors join three very good elite men on one team. And then having to choose who to cut from those five.
Commencal’s loss is Pivot Factory Racing’s gain. It’s great to see Maples land with a program that can help him continue progressing through the ranks. With the California rider finishing last season 19th overall, he’s a big addition to the Pivot program.