Spin Cycle: Boon or bust – will the big rider buyouts be worth it?

It’s peanuts in professional football, but until last season virtually unheard of in pro cycling. Anthony Tan muses over the three biggest buyouts from the 2025 season and whether it will be worth it.

Ten million Euros. Seven million Euros. Six million Euros.

And these were just the buyout fees paid by Lidl-Trek, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe and INEOS Grenadiers for Juan Ayuso, Remco Evenepoel and Oscar Onley, respectively.

Add their reported salaries for 2026 – €3M for Ayuso, €6.6-8M for Evenepoel and €2M for Onley – and all three amounts equal or eclipse Tadej Pogačar’s base salary with UAE Team Emirates, believed to be at least €8M per annum and contracted till 2030.

The Pog won 20 races last season. In chronological order they included Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Critérium du Dauphiné, Tour de France, Road Worlds, the European road championship, and Il Lombardia.

It was an extraordinary year for the 27 year-old Slovenian.

That said, “extraordinary” and “Pogačar” go hand-in-hand and an annus mirabilis is more the norm than the exception for a still relatively young Tadej.

Given Ayuso was on the same team as Pogačar last year and he is also a GC specialist, to win eight races – six at WorldTour level – isn’t too shabby.

But it’s not extraordinary, either.

His most significant was overall victory at Tirreno-Adriatico but his main aim was the podium at the Giro; an inauspicious cocktail of intra-team rivalry with Isaac del Toro, multiple crashes and a bee sting eventually saw him abandon on the eighteenth stage.

He was again a co-leader at the Vuelta a España, this time with João Almeida, who finished second overall to Jonas Vingegaard.

Ayuso finished 68th on GC but came away with a hat-trick of stage wins.

To date, his best Grand Tour result is third at the Vuelta – his first three-week race – in 2022.

The 23-year-old Spaniard begun the 2026 season well with overall victory at the Volta ao Algarve.

Second to fifth were Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team), Almeida, Onley and Kévin Vauquelin (both Ineos Grenadiers) – a who’s who of next-gen talent.

That said, at Paris-Nice overnight, Ayuso did crash – although indications are he somehow dodged major injury, but it’s still a rough start to the year.

And while his €10M buyout appears OTT (over the top) on face value, don’t forget he’s contracted to Lidl-Trek till 2030, so it’s a far more palatable €2M per year.

Remco leads the PC (popularity classification)

Like Ayuso, when it comes to Grand Tours, Evenepoel’s still a relative newcomer; Ayuso has started five and finished three; Evenepoel’s finished half of the six he’s started.

However, Remco has already won a Grand Tour (the 2022 Vuelta, only his second three-week outing) and finished on the podium at Le Tour in 2024.

A DNF at the Tour aside, his 2025 season was solid with eight victories. I’d say his best result was taking his third world time trial championship in Kagali last September. His best GC performance at WorldTour level last year? Fourth place at the Critérium du Dauphiné – 4’21 behind Pogačar.

It’s no secret the 26-year-old Belgian, after seven seasons with the same mob, was not entirely content at Soudal Quick-Step, so a move needed to happen.

As I’ve written before about Remco, he is a quintessential ‘Red Bull type of guy’. His charisma matches his talent, and via his social media channels, through good times and bad, he’s willing to put himself out there, which makes him even more endearing and interesting.

Regardless of whether he one day wins the Tour, many cycling fans, including myself, are captivated more by his journey than the destination.

Out of the two stage races he’s done so far – Volta Comunitat Valenciana and UAE Tour – he’s finished first and tenth.

It’s still almost four months till the start of the Tour. I wouldn’t read too much into it. It’s a good start, he hasn’t crashed, and he’s stayed healthy.

Evenepoel’s contract with Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe is believed to run to 2028, so again, spread over the length of his tenure, his €7M buyout fee is more easily digestible.

I’d say his palmarès, potential and X-factor make the deal worth it.

From 4th at TDU to 4th at TdF…

Out of this Big Buyout Trio, if there was a rider recruited based on his potential Oscar Onley would be at the top of the list.

In the space of 18 months, the 23-year-old, who was born in London but grew up in Scotland, went from fourth place overall at the Tour Down Under to fourth overall at the Tour de France.

Having started at Team dsm-firmenich in 2023 where he was on a five-year contract, this season marks his fourth at WorldTour level.

So far, he’s only ridden three Grand Tours: one Vuelta (his team won the opening team time trial before he crashed out on Stage 2) and two Tours de France (39th in 2024, 4th 2025). Again, and like Ayuso, he also crashed at Paris-Nice, which does spice things up a little.

but for me, the €6M buyout is justified because 1) INEOS Grenadiers wants to win the Tour again; 2) they are flush with cash; and 3) the two biggest hitters are taken.

Egan Bernal, their previous big hope and 2019 Tour champion, is unlikely to reach the same heights again, so they must now focus on guys like Carlos Rodríguez (25 years old), Kévin Vauquelin (24) and new recruit Onley.

There is also something about having a British rider on a British team.

First, though – and I’m sure head sports director Geraint Thomas is on to it in a big way – Onley must improve against the clock. Across the two time trials at last year’s Tour – one of which was a mountain TT to Peyragudes – he conceded 3 minutes and 53 seconds to The Pog.

That said, had he not lost any time, he would still have been a massive 8 minutes and 19 seconds behind.

The reality is that, as far as the Tour is concerned, everyone is chasing Tadej at the moment – you just have to try to keep up.

Ayuso, Evenepoel and Onley are all down to race around France in July.

Let’s see how close they are to Pogačar and Vingegaard before we value their worth.