The men’s Tour de France is barely in the rearview, but the wheels of pro cycling’s transfers rumor mill never stop spinning.
There’s the Tour of the race and there’s the Tour of “silly season.” With transfers, contract extensions, mergers, and takeovers unfolding in real time, the rumors are flying faster than ever.
Remember, no external transfers can be officially confirmed until August 1 per UCI rules, but that’s never stopped anyone.
The juiciest rumor of them all — Remco Evenepoel and his reported move to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe — seems to be a done deal.
Velo reported last week that talks intensified during the Tour’s second rest day. Other outlets, including La Gazzetta dello Sport and Belgian media, have claimed the deal is already sealed.
The announcement Tuesday that performance manager Rolf Aldag is leaving Red Bull only stokes the Evenepoel fires.
That transfer would have a ripple effect across the peloton that’s already undergoing a major transformation behind the scenes.
The annual game of musical chairs — often dubbed cycling’s “silly season” when riders jockey to stay in the WorldTour and extract maximum value from contracts — is only part of the story this year.
Major behind-the-scenes moves involving several elite men’s and women’s WorldTour teams at the sponsorship and ownership level will have both immediate and long-term implications.
Let’s dive in, starting with the biggest transfers of them all:
Evenepoel seen as legitimate Tour contender
The Evenepoel saga has been swirling since 2023. First, there was a botched merger between Soudal Quick-Step and Visma-Lease a Bike, and then a big push from Ineos Grenadiers to snap up the Belgian superstar.
Evenepoel is viewed by many as the only rider who could disrupt the Tour monopoly held by Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, who have divvied up the last six editions between them.
With both under long-term deals at UAE and Visma, respectively, Remco’s stock has soared, and the transfer buzz hasn’t stopped for nearly three years.
Despite one year remaining on his current contract, sources tell Velo and other media that the deal is essentially done, contingent only on Evenepoel’s green light.
That hurdle appears cleared, with La Gazzetta reporting a contract worth more than $8 million annually over three years.
That would elevate Evenepoel on equal terms to Pogačar’s reported salary of $8 million per season, though one source told Velo that the Slovenian superstar could be earning up to $12 million per year with bonuses and other primes added on.
Red Bull shaking things up
The big mover here is Red Bull, which packs the money and wants to elbow in on the yellow jersey sweepstakes fast.
Vingegaard and Wout van Aert are both reportedly on about $5 million per season at Visma, so the Evenepoel transfer — if it officially happens — will make the two-time Olympic gold medalist one of the best-paid riders in the men’s peloton.
The departure of Aldag and the arrival of former Belgian national coach and Evenepoel confidante Sven Vanthourenhout to Red Bull seems to suggest an announcement is imminent.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe boss Ralph Denk told Velo there are two ways to challenge for the yellow jersey, saying, “You have two options. To try to find one on the market and, if you can, make them better. Or build some new guys up from rookies.”
C’è fermento nel #ciclomercato 2025: Evenepoel e Cattaneo alla Red Bull; Covi, Vendrame e Conca verso la #JaycoAlUla, Vauquelin e Zana vicini alla #Ineos. E poi Groenewegen, Healy, Kooij, Benoot…https://t.co/NqVwGpIodp pic.twitter.com/Xpg7MkrTmx
— tuttoBICI (@tuttobiciweb_it) July 30, 2025
Red Bull is doing both, by aggressively snatching up riders on the open market and investing heavily in its junior and U23 programs.
Though German breakout star Florian Lipowitz isn’t a direct product of Denk’s talent farm, Denk signed him early and developed him into a legitimate yellow jersey contender for the future.
Lipowitz is off-contract at the end of this year, but sources say he’s staying at Red Bull.
After hitting third and winning the white jersey, his value on the open market will certainly rise. No word yet on whether Primož Roglič will stay or go.
Quick-Step pivots back to roots
Evenepoel’s imminent exit from Soudal Quick-Step will leave a big hole in the long-running Belgian team.
Over the past few years, the squad drifted away from its classics roots to support Evenepoel’s rise as a grand tour contender, winning the 2022 Vuelta a España with him and signing riders like Mikel Landa and Valentin Paret-Peintre to support him.
One reason sources said Evenepoel wants to leave is that he feels like the team simply doesn’t have the budget to sign the caliber of riders he needs to truly challenge Pogačar and Vingegaard.
The team’s decision to bring sprinter Tim Merlier and a few support riders for him in the sprint stages didn’t sit well with Evenepoel either, one insider said.
Quick-Step is already loading up on classics riders, with Jasper Stuyven and Dylan van Baarle both linked to joining the team as the “Wolfpack” looks to refocus on the northern classics to keep its Belgian-centric sponsorship base happy.
Yves Lampaert, 34, recently signed a two-year contract extension in part to help chaperone Paul Magnier, the rising French star whom many believe could develop into the next Tom Boonen.
Ineos still searching for a Tour de France star
With the bigger teams signing the best GC riders to ever-longer contracts, it’s very challenging for the rest of the bunch to even get their hands on a potential grand tour winner, even if they have the money.
The big name making the rounds now is Kévin Vauquelin, the punchy climber on Arkea-B&B who hit the top 10 at the Tour.
He’s been linked to Ineos Grenadiers as well as Decathlon-Agr2r La Mondiale, but the latest buzz from sources like transfer guru Daniel Benson has him heading to Ineos.
With Geraint Thomas set to retire (and likely stay on in a managerial role), the British team is hungry for fresh legs. Aussie sprinter Sam Welsford is tipped to arrive as a replacement for the retiring Caleb Ewan, according to Benson’s Substack.
Info @Gazzetta_it – The french Kevin Vauquelin (current 3° in the overall at @LeTour) now with Arkea, is likely to join @INEOSGrenadiers from 2026. According to our sources this deal can be considered almost done @cycling_podcast
— Ciro Scognamiglio (@cirogazzetta) July 9, 2025
Carlos Rodríguez and Tour breakout star Thymen Arensman, both under contract through 2027, will continue to carry team colors as the team tries to reboot.
Talks of a possible merger with TotalEnergies are off. The second-tier TotalEnergies team is funded through at least 2026, and the arrival of TotalEnergies to the Ineos Grenadiers jersey during this year’s Tour was a separate commercial deal.
Some are wondering why Oscar Onley, the 22-year-old Scottish rider who was the breakout star of the Tour with fourth overall, isn’t on Ineos’ radar.
Sources say he’s happy at Team Picnic PostNL and is expected to complete his contract that runs through 2027.
Decathlon doubling down
One of the biggest shifts reshaping the WorldTour is the move from sponsorship to full team ownership for some of the top backers of the sport.
EF Education pioneered the model by buying out Slipstream Sports a few years ago. Now, Red Bull, Lidl, and Decathlon have followed suit, throwing major capital into a sport with no spending caps and no financial guardrails.
Decathlon has taken full control of the long-running team, and French insiders say the sporting goods giant is prepared to invest up to $40 million per year to build the peloton’s next “super team.”
Le transporteur CMA CGM est le nouveau co-sponsor de Decathlon, remplaçant AG2R La Mondiale à compter de 2026 ! Il s’agit d’un partenariat “à part égales”. “Surtout, l’objectif 2030, c’est de gagner le Tour de France”, a répété Dominique Serieys, patron de la structure. pic.twitter.com/FpAHtxjsmd
— Le Gruppetto (@LeGruppetto) July 21, 2025
The early focus appears to be on bolstering the classics and sprint squads. Names floated include Olav Kooij and Tiesj Benoot, both reportedly exiting Visma, alongside Tobias Lund Andresen, Cees Bol, and Daan Hoole, according to L’Équipe.
The medium-term plan is to build out a strong GC squad around Paul Seixas, the 18-year-old phenom who lit up the Critérium du Dauphiné and who has some believing France could have its first legitimate yellow jersey rider in decades.
Felix Gall — fifth at the Tour on Sunday — remains under contract through 2026.
Lidl buys in
Lidl also buys into a majority stake at Lidl-Trek, with the U.S. bike manufacturer keeping a share of team ownership. That move is expected to pump more money into both the men’s and women’s programs.
There are already some rumors that Lipowitz — the first German Tour podium finisher in nearly 20 years — is attracting attention from Lidl, the giant German-based supermarket chain.
These buy-ins or takeovers are pumping more cash into the rider market and giving teams a more stable financial footing. Rather than searching for a new title sponsor every few years, now the sponsors themselves own the teams outright.
Joint Forces for Lidl-Trek: Lidl and Trek to evolve Partnership as Team Co-Owners
Read more https://t.co/vbcDPXGG2I
— Lidl-Trek (@LidlTrek) July 25, 2025
“This gives teams more stability than in the past,” Red Bull’s Denk told Velo of the sponsor takeovers. “If you have a super talent, then you can sign them for the long term. And this is happening right now, especially if you look to UAE, and also some others here in the paddock can hand out long-term contracts.”
That’s also what’s driving the new trend of “lifetime contracts,” where teams like Visma have signed superstars like Marianne Vos and Wout van Aert to career-long deals that will keep them in team kits until they retire.
UAE still rules the roost
UAE Emirates-XRG is widely believed to have the peloton’s deepest pockets, with budget estimates soaring past $50 million, with some claiming it’s essentially unlimited.
Team boss Mauro Gianetti routinely denies this, insisting to Velo that the team adheres to a defined budget.
A few names have been linked to UAE for 2026, but no blockbusters are expected, and sport director Joxean Matxín Fernández said he cannot say anything publicly.
Most of the team’s major stars are all signed through at least 2026. Tim Wellens, a recent Tour stage winner and one of the favored teammates of Pogačar, is expected to sign an extension.
Despite reports that UAE is blowing up the rider market with big salaries, sources tell Velo that the team doesn’t necessarily inflate the salaries to unsustainable levels, but simply has deeper pockets to sign more riders to top-level contracts.
That means a team with a smaller budget might be able to afford one GC headliner and maybe a star sprinter or classics captain, while UAE has the checkbook to sign multiple leaders across all disciplines to multi-year, high-dollar deals.
WORLD TOUR CYCLING TEAMS BUDGETS (collected from many sites and sources) #TDF2024
UAE Team Emirates: 60 million €
Visma-Lease a bike: 50 million €
Ineos Grenadiers: 45 million €
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe: 45 million €
Lidl-Trek: 35 million € 1/3 pic.twitter.com/JZ92surAVT— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) July 11, 2024
One rumor heating up again is that Juan Ayuso — already on a long-term deal with UAE through 2028 — wants to head elsewhere.
Part of the reason is that with Pogačar and the rise of Isaac del Toro, seen by many as heir apparent at UAE, Ayuso senses he will keep getting squeezed out on leadership roles.
Movistar is said to be the frontrunner to sign Spain’s top GC hope to partner with Enric Mas, who is signed through 2029. Stay tuned.
What about the Americans?
There are a few key moves for Americans in the bunch.
Luke Lamperti is expected to leave Soudal Quick-Step for EF Education-Easy Post, sources told Velo. Several teams are vying for the signature of highly rated climber Matthew Riccitello, with Lidl-Trek and Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale said to be in the running, according to Benson’s Substack.
Matteo Jorgenson recently re-signed with Visma-Lease a Bike that will keep him in the yellow kit through 2029, with Jorgenson telling Velo, “This is the best team for me to be to continue growing.”
Sepp Kuss is also locked in at Visma through 2027. Will Barta, who impressed on his Tour debut, is likely to extend with Movistar.
5 nuevos nombres para Visma / Lease a Bike 2026
Bruno Armirail
Filippo Fiorelli
Timo Kielich
Davide Piganzoli
Pietro Mattio … del equipo de desarrollowielerflits. news pic.twitter.com/u5QFky1lS2
— Jesús Eguizábal (@jesus_egizabal) July 24, 2025
Tour stars Quinn Simmons and Neilson Powless remain under contract through 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Kevin Vermaerke is off-contract at Team Picnic-PostNL and has been linked to UAE, but team officials would not comment.
The emergence of George Hincapie’s new U.S.-registered team isn’t having a direct impact yet on the WorldTour. Sources confirmed that 11 riders have already signed a letter of intent with the upstart squad, but none of them are joining from the WorldTour.
Worried about missing out
The transfer window could get messy as the weeks and months tick by, particularly for riders caught in the middle of team shakeups.
Teams will often have their rosters all but locked in by the end of the Vuelta a España, so riders heading into the fall without a contract rightly get very nervous.
The likely demise of Arkéa-B&B Hôtels has left its entire roster scrambling.
Rumors of a possible merger between Lotto and Intermarché-Wanty continue to swirl, with one insider saying “dozens” of riders across both teams are anxious about being squeezed out.
Also, any teams facing relegation could see riders jettisoned if they have an escape clause in their contracts if a team loses WorldTour status.
And what about Chris Froome? He signed cycling’s first “forever” contract with Israel-Premier Tech in 2021, and it’s said to be finally running out. No official word yet if he will continue.
Cycling’s “Silly Season” is just heating up, and for plenty of riders and teams on the bubble, the next few months will be anything but relaxing.