Pidcock Gets a Superteam and What the Heck Is the Plan at Lidl-Trek? These Transfer Frenzies Will Define 2027

Lidl-Trek and Pinarello-Q36.5 can’t sign Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel, or Mathieu van der Poel, so they’re hoovering into every other corner of the transfer market instead.

These two cash-rich, ambition-loaded squads have defined the 2026-27 “silly season.”

Unlike last year, when the narrative was shaped around the acquisition of totemic riders – Evenepoel, Juan Ayuso, Oscar Onley, we’re looking at you – this transfer window has been driven by two power-grabbing frenzies and ongoing speculation about Paul Seixas.

The results?

Lidl-Trek has built a superteam designed to usurp the established order at the Tour de France.

The nouveau riche German crew signed an overload of climbers and poached established grand tour directors. It’s got all it needs to dominate except one key thing: A Pogačar, an Evenepoel, or a Seixas.

Meanwhile, Pinarello-Q36.5 has built a squad of super-attackers.

The mass entry of Giulio Ciccone, Mauro Schmid, and nine more new recruits means the upstart ProTeam will be a lot more than Tom Pidcock in 2027.

With Pidcock, Schmid, and the fresh signing of Ciccone on Monday, Pinarello-Q36.5 will be one of the most potent stage-hunting and hilly-classics teams in the bunch.

But Pinarello shares Lidl-Trek’s problem.

It’s an existential crisis facing the entire WorldTour.

In modern cycling, you ain’t gonna win much without Pogačar, Evenepoel, Van der Poel, Seixas, or Jonas Vingegaard on the books.

Lidl-Trek is collecting climbers

Lidl-Trek has made an audacious push for superteam status with its “buy big, buy everything” approach.

With the big names in the WorldTour hierarchy tied to long-term deals and Seixas seemingly committed to Decathlon-CMA CGM through 2027, Lidl-Trek loaded its shopping trolley with everything else it could get.

Felix Gall, podium finisher at both the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, will join the team of Juan Ayuso, Derek Gee-West, and Mattias Skjelmose in 2027.

Gall’s trusted wingman Gregor Mühlberger also moves across from Decathlon.

Jordan Jegat, the unsung Frenchman who finished 10th at both the last two Tours de France, also joins a newly-moneyed superteam that’s confirmed seven new riders for the new year.

According to transfer sleuth Daniel Benson, Filippo Ganna might break contract with Ineos Grenadiers to make it eight newbies at Lidl Trek.

Lidl-Trek transfers 2026-27

Lidl-Trek’s transfer shopping spree is one of the most aggressive power moves of the modern WorldTour.

Having dominated grand tour sprints and classics with Mads Pedersen and Jonathan Milan for the past two seasons, the squad is throwing cash at the GC side of the squad.

The problem?

Gall, Ayuso, Skjelmose, Gee-West …. They ain’t Pogačar. They’re not Seixas, Remco Evenepoel, Isaac del Toro, or Jonas Vingegaard, either.

Lidl-Trek: ‘Stacking names without real sporting logic’?

It’s hard to see how Lidl-Trek will move the needle next year with a bloated roster based on quantity over quality.

Lidl-Trek’s awkward situation without a proven GC winner is escalated by an all-new backroom that will need time to bed in.

Because Lidl-Trek reinvented everything, front to back, for 2027.

The relatively inexperienced Andy Schleck has become big boss after Luca Guercilena left – or possibly was squeezed out of — his long-time CEO role.

Grischa Niermann joins as head of racing after guiding Visma-Lease a Bike through its rise from the beleaguered Blanco to the top of the Tour de France. Dan Lorang comes in after he headed up performance at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

Lidl-Trek’s whack-a-mole transfer policy and staffing restructure has been dream fodder for online commentators and meme accounts alike.

What can so many mid-career, mid-top-10 GC riders achieve in their first season under a new management system?

Of course, the garrulous former Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere has thoughts.

“It feels like stacking names without real sporting logic,” Lefevere wrote this weekend in his column for Het Nieuwsblad. “Building a team is a delicate balance. To win often you certainly need enough leaders, but at the same time enough helpers to do the dirty work.

“I am reading that a number of domestiques at Lidl-Trek are being offered sums of up to half a million euros to terminate their contracts. At the same time, riders such as Jordi Meeus, Jordan Jegat, Felix Gall and Igor Arrieta are joining the team. All of them have won races themselves this year,” Lefevere wrote.

“That balance isn’t right for me.”

Ciccone trades Lidl-Trek for a place with Pidcock

Lidl-Trek’s spending spree appears to have rubbed Ciccone the wrong way.

The Italian raced for Lidl-Trek for the last time this weekend at Il Lombardia after the team suddenly revealed they would part ways.

The curt PR note confirming the split hinted at an unhappy ending.

After eight years with the team, Ciccone leaves Lidl-Trek on a mid-career high. Top-10s at the Canadian classics, world and European championships, and the Race of the Falling Leaves made the 31-year-old Italian one of the riders of the autumn.

That’s a telling loss for Trek – and a massive coup for Pidcock.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens at Lidl-Trek next year.

It will have the roster and resources to put it on a level with the established superteams of UAE Emirates-XRG, Visma-Lease a Bike, and Red Bull.

It’s got everything it needs to win big … except the best climbers in the WorldTour.

Pinarello-Q36.5 builds beyond Pidcock

Pinarello-Q36.5 is approaching the Pogi problem from a different angle.

In Pidcock, the team has locked in with one of the few riders who dare take it to Pogačar in the hilly classics.

But the Brit has always started on two back feet. He doesn’t have Pogačar’s wild power, nor has he had a deep support bench. At races like Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo, he’s had to do most of the work himself.

Not anymore.

Pinarello-Q36.5 has used team backer Ivan Glasenberg’s billions to buy very big for 2027.

Swashbuckling attackers and proven grand tour winners Ciccone and Schmid headline the team’s 11 … yes, 11, new recruits for the new year.

They’ll form an all-attacking trident with Pidcock that could take it to anyone in races like Amstel, Liège, or Lombardia in 2027.

Anyone except Pogačar and maybe Mr. Paul “7 w/kg” Seixas, that is.

“This opens up exciting sporting possibilities. Ciccone and Tom Pidcock have frequently featured at the sharp end of major races this season,” read a Pinarello Q36.5 press note confirming Ciccone’s arrival. “From 2027, their complementary qualities and attacking instincts will become part of the same collective ambition.”

Elsewhere, Pinarello-Q36.5 signed smart, bringing in wily veterans like Ethan Hayter and Davide Ballerini, as well as rising stars like AJ August, Sebastian Berwick, and Tom Crabbe.

It’s a deep, diverse roster that can barely fail to get itself promoted into the WorldTour in 2029.

Pinarello-Q36.5 transfers 2026-27

New superteams but the same winners in 2027?

Pinarello-Q36.5 and Lidl-Trek will hit hard in 2027.

But they both embody the WorldTour’s problem.

Pogačar has put a cap on what can be achieved. Until his crash at the Vuelta, the 28-year-old has been unbeatable. And if Seixas continues to develop as fast as he has in the last 18 months, he’ll be making life doubly difficult for the peloton as soon as next January.

No amount of individual signings can guarantee a solution for these two supertalents.

But what are rival teams supposed to do?

Give up? Wait for the Pogi era to end?

Pogačar has got years left in his legs, and Seixas, the seeming heir to his throne, is barely out of high school.

But we saw at the Vuelta a España that Pogi isn’t totally infallible. And Seixas discovered at road worlds that he still has a lot to learn.

Lidl-Trek and Pinarello-Q36.5 are making sure they’ve got as many chips in the game as possible.