These 5 Transfers Will Transform Pro Cycling in 2027

Grand tour winners, former world champions, and one of USA’s hottest talents will make career-defining transfers this winter.

Richard Carapaz, Giulio Ciccone, Filippo Ganna, Felix Gall, and Andrew “AJ” August are the headline names making moves in a wildly busy transfer window that’s already seen Tom Pidcock get a superteam and Lidl-Trek go transfer crazy.

These five blockbuster moves promise the riders more freedom, leadership opportunities, and career progression. They offer the teams victories from Paris-Roubaix through the Tour de France.

But it’s not all sunshine and roses.

Broken contracts, bizarre motivations, and troubled teams accompany some of these biggest moves of 2026-2027.

Here’s all you need to know about the five biggest transfers in the men’s peloton, as of October 20.

Stay tuned for a similar feature on some whopper contracts in the women’s sport.

Richard Carapaz (33): EF Education-EasyPost to NSN Cycling Team – three years

What’s at stake

For Carapaz: How does Richard Carapaz benefit by moving to NSN Cycling Team?

If you’ve got an answer, please let us know.

This feels like a sideways, or maybe even a backward move for one of the top-ranked riders in the world.

EF Education-EasyPost isn’t the best GC team in the world, but it’s been good enough to put Carapaz into the top-4 of a grand tour for three years in a row. Plus, it allowed its biggest rider the flexibility to roam free. Stage hunting, the KoM classification, GC – nothing was off-limits for Carapaz at EF.

What does NSN have to offer Carapaz (beyond a bigger paycheck)?

The Swiss-registered squad was a sprint-focused team in its debut 2026 season.

It’s bolstered its climbing division with Santiago Buitrago and Lennert Van Eetvelt for 2027, but is still short on the climbing support Carapaz might need if he wants to go big at the Tour de France.

Beyond that, Carapaz might not get such a long leash at an ambitious team that clearly wants to break into GC racing. Here’s hoping he can keep bringing the panache.

For NSN Cycling Team: The answer is obvious – the team gets possibly the most exciting racer in the world. Carapaz will bring the team results, charisma, and guaranteed TV time.

Luring Carapaz from EF was the heist of the season, and by far the biggest transfer in the men’s peloton so far.

Any drama?

Carapaz broke his contract with EF to join NSN.

It’s hard to see why he did it.

There’s no rumor of bad blood between the Ecuadorian superstar and the American team that gave him free rein over his racing ambitions. It just supported him through one of the best seasons of his career.

Maybe money spoke loudest.

EF boss Jonathan Vaughters confirmed this week to Escape Collective that he’s suffering a budget crunch – something already evident in the exodus of talent leaving the team this winter and its sparse recruitment policy.

Maybe NSN made Carapaz an offer he couldn’t refuse, and one that Vaughters couldn’t match. The likelihood of a buyout fee would have made it a reluctant no-brainer for the impoverished American team.

Giulio Ciccone (31): Lidl-Trek to Pinarello-Q36.5 – three years

What’s at stake

For Ciccone: Giulio Ciccone will be a great white shark at Pinarello-Q36.5, having been one of many fish in an overflowing pond at Lidl-Trek.

The exuberant Italian will join Tom Pidcock as one of the ultimate bigs at Pinarello-Q36.5, which is rapidly emerging as one of the most audacious, ambitious teams in the bunch.

How Ciccone and Pidcock divide the calendar and their ambitions is another matter. Scheduling two top riders with such similar skill sets won’t be simple.

For Pinarello-Q36.5: Ciccone could have won GP Québec, the European championships, and Il Lombardia in the last month. When combined with Pidcock and Mauro Schmid, Pinarello-Q36.5 will have the ultimate triple-threat on suitably punchy parcours.

And if Pinarello-Q36.5 has Ciccone, Pidcock, and Schmid divide and conquer, they’ll be drowning in the UCI points they need to hit the WorldTour in 2029.

Any drama?

Seems like it.

Ciccone was signed with Lidl-Trek through 2029. However, the 31-year-old was reportedly rubbed the wrong way by the recent management overhaul and identity shift at his long-time team. The Italian was a close ally of former team boss Luca Guercilena, who appears to have been squeezed out of his role in the team’s structural upheaval.

The overload of GC racers at Lidl-Trek no doubt improved Cicco’s mood, either.

This seems to have been an ugly divorce. The statements from Ciccone and Lidl-Trek confirming their contract termination couldn’t have been frostier.

Filippo Ganna (30): Netcompany Ineos to Lidl-Trek – three years

What’s at stake:

For Ganna: Filippo Ganna needed a reboot, bad. The towering Italian has huge potential, and it’s been going untapped.

Sure, Remco Evenepoel is unbeatable against the clock right now, but Ganna’s proven he can be a lot more than just a time trialist. Remember his forays into bunch sprinting? Or his barnstorming breakaway antics at the 2020 Giro?

Aside from his spectacular win at Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Ganna lost his road-racing chops this season.

Ganna must see a move to Lidl-Trek as a new chapter.

New management, new motivation, and a team committed to classics racing and sprinting might restore the true “Top Ganna.”

For Lidl-Trek: Lidl-Trek must have watched the Italian track pursuit team and liked what it saw. Just imagine Ganna leading out his Italian pursuit teammate Jonathan Milan at the Giro d’Italia?! Bellissimo.

Ganna will bring Lidl-Trek a leadout man de-luxe and a heavyweight addition to its already hulking classics squad next year.

Ganna, Milan, Mads Pedersen, and Mathias Vacek could flatten even the most gnarled, off-set cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix. In a race as unpredictable as “The Hell of the North,” this type of full-frontal offense could compensate for Lidl-Trek not having a Pogi, Wout, or Mathieu.

Sadly for Lidl-Trek, multiple second-tier leaders aren’t so advantageous in grand tours, as we’re about to explore …

Any drama?

Possibly, yes.

Ganna split from Netcompany Ineos a year early, and it seems like the British team did little to stop it from happening. According to Domestique, Netcompany Ineos didn’t demand a transfer payment from Lidl-Trek and may have even sweetened the deal.

If true, that’s kinda crazy.

Maybe Ineos couldn’t wait to get rid of the big Italian? There’s no rumor of a rift, but who knows what goes on aboard the team bus.

One speculative explanation? Ganna’s build toward the L.A. Olympics with the Italian track team, and its impact on his road race schedule.

Felix Gall (28): Decathlon CMA CGM to Lidl-Trek – three years

What’s at stake:

For Gall: As one of the boldest, best-financed teams in the peloton, Lidl-Trek will no doubt offer Felix Gall two big things: Lots of money and lots of resources.

Gall had spent five years with team Ag2r / Decathlon, so maybe he felt it was time to move on.

But will Gall be better off at Lidl-Trek?

Maybe not. Keep reading.

For Lidl-Trek: Gall is one of the most consistent grand tour racers in the bunch. The 28-year-old won’t be beating Tadej Pogačar any time soon, but for Lidl-Trek, he represents a stone-cold lock for a grand tour top-five.

But wait a sec.

What about Juan Ayuso? Lidl-Trek invested €25 million into a five-year deal with the Spaniard on the premise of him being the team’s grand tour leader.

And what about perennial GC wannabes, Derek Gee-West, Mattias Skjelmose, and another of Lidl-Trek’s 2027 signings, Jordan Jegat?

Lidl-Trek will have to manage a crowded, confused leadership stable in 2027. Five riders, five ambitions, and none of them even close to the level of Pogi, Jonas Vingegaard et al.

The team might have a plan, but we ain’t seeing it.

Any drama?

No controversy with this transfer – only confusion.

Gall’s decision to move is hard to compute. He had free rein over every race Paul Seixas chose to swerve at Decathlon CMA CGM. The Austrian will now have to argue with Ayuso, Gee-West, Jegat, and Skjelmose … providing Lidl-Trek isnt focusing on sprints with Mads Pedersen and Jonny Milan, of course.

Maybe the money spoke.

Andrew ‘AJ’ August (21): Netcompany Ineos to Pinarello-Q36.5 – three years

What’s at stake:

For August: Andrew “AJ” August is being promised the world by Pinarello-Q36.5. According to the team PR, the rising New Yorker will be put through a full development program as part of a “long-term project,” all while seeing a full race program.

Sounds good, huh?

This move seems the logical next step for possibly the most promising of the USA’s crop of young talents, having hit the WorldTour aged only 18 and spent three years at Ineos.

For Pinarello Q36.5: August joins rising sprinter Tom Crabbe and Tour de l’Avenir runner-up Niels Driesden as one of three emerging 21-year-olds coming to Pinarello-Q36.5 on multi-year deals in 2027.

With a total of 11 – yes eleven – new recruits confirmed so far, the second-division team is clearly thinking beyond just achieving WorldTour status in 2029. It’s thinking further into the future.

August, Crabbe, and Driesden represent both cheap talent for the present and – with a little loyalty and a good development system – future potential for life in cycling’s top tier.

Any drama?

Nope. No gossip with this one.

Editor’s note:

It was a tough call to decide whether August or his fellow young American talent Magnus Sheffield (who moves to Uno-X Mobility) should be the fifth rider on this list. But after some deep soul-searching, August made the cut. August’s recent form, his age, and what’s promised to him at Pinarello-Q36.5 won out. Sorry, Magnus.

Honorable mentions

Here are a bunch more intriguing transfers we’ll be keeping tabs on in 2027.

These stage-hunters, second-line sprinters, and rising Americans will move the needle at some point in the season, you can bet on it.