The name Benoît Cosnefroy has been circulating for a while as the replacement for the experienced Romain Bardet, but beyond that, it remains completely quiet regarding incoming transfers for Picnic PostNL. After a season with two faces, the team is certainly counting on talents from its own development squad.
The Dutch WorldTeam led by Iwan Spekenbrink is thus, alongside XDS Astana, one of the two WorldTeams that has not yet strengthened its roster for 2026. Bardet ended his career after the Critérium du Dauphiné, and Tobias Lund Andersen and Kevin Vermaerke have already made the step to Decathlon CMA CGM and UAE Emirates respectively. "But I don’t think we should be worried now. The transfers might already exist, but they just haven’t been communicated yet," says team director Pim Ligthart to us from the Tour de Langkawi.
The sports director is not only looking at external moves for that. "We want to build on our development team. Look at our roster for the Tour de France: we raced with five riders who have come through our own Development Team. You see that working with that structure pays off, and we will continue to do so. We have Christiaan van Rees and Oliver Peace waiting in the wings, and you may have already seen Matteo Vanhuffel. There are quite a few riders coming through here and there."
"It was a solid year"
What is also encouraging: after a difficult start to the season, Picnic PostNL convincingly avoided relegation from the WorldTour in 2025. That immediately makes the team more attractive for potential new signings. "We can’t deny that we were far down in the UCI rankings for a long time, but we always stuck to our process and way of thinking," explains Ligthart. "We knew we’d finish on the right side of the line, and those points are no longer a topic within the team."
Looking back on the cycling year, it took quite a while before the turnaround came for the team. "At the beginning of the year, we had a lot of bad luck. Julius van den Berg, Fabio Jakobsen, and Max Poole were sidelined for a while, but that’s part of the sport. It is a utopia to think everyone stays healthy. From the second half of the season, things started moving again."
"That already began with a third-place finish for Oscar Onley in the Tour of Switzerland," Ligthart recalls. "We never deviated from our plan and then we just performed well. We showed ourselves very positively in the Tour (with Onley's fourth place in the general classification as the highlight). It's great to be able to do that in the biggest race of the year. Ultimately, that’s where the media focus. Additionally, we won some nice races. It was simply a solid year."
Climbing domestiques for Onley?
Earlier this fall, we already made an analysis of possible incoming transfers at Picnic PostNL. Currently, twenty riders are under contract for the upcoming season, but it seems some of the possible departures may still renew their contracts. Furthermore, there are already five newcomers in the development team.
According to our analysis, the team would best use the freed-up salary from Bardet to sign climbing domestiques for Onley and Poole, preferably with a good time trial ability for the team time trial in the next Tour. Free agents like Jack Haig, Torstein Træen, George Bennett, and James Knox would be good additions as climbers, although the first two might be on the pricier side.
| Rider | Ratings |
|---|---|
1734 | |
1564 | |
1764 | |
1178 | |
1442 | |
1123 | |
939 | |
1461 | |
1206 | |
1573 | |
1483 | |
1563 | |
1258 | |
1478 | |
1324 | |
1270 | |
1478 | |
1344 | |
1175 | |
1742 | |
1591 | |
1177 | |
1114 | |
1514 | |
1653 | |
1481 | |
995 | |
1328 | |
1392 |
| Rider | Ratings |
|---|---|
1564 | |
1384 | |
1764 | |
1328 | |
1392 | |
1442 | |
1123 | |
939 | |
1573 | |
966 | |
1483 | |
1273 | |
1563 | |
1258 | |
1271 | |
1478 | |
1324 | |
1478 | |
1344 | |
1175 | |
1742 | |
1224 | |
1591 | |
1215 | |
1177 | |
1114 | |
1514 | |
1653 | |
995 |
