Almost 200 pros still without a 2027 contract: who they are

On the weekend of 31 October and 1 November we found no WorldTour or ProSeries road or MTB races: the season is over, and the only race the sites are talking about is cyclocross, which we already covered in our Koppenbergcross piece. What is moving now is the transfer market, and one number stopped us: according to Tuttobici, almost 200 WorldTour and Professional riders still have no announced 2027 contract. Primož Roglič is one of them. Here is who they are, what it really means, and how to read this news without being fooled by headlines.

How many riders have no contract for 2027?

On 31 October Tuttobici wrote about almost two hundred WorldTour and Professional riders without an officially announced contract. Cyclingnews, in its piece on riders still looking for a team, talks about more than 120 WorldTour riders without an announced contract and hundreds more at ProTeam level (the part you can read without a subscription). The two figures do not contradict each other: they count different categories and we do not know the reference date. So we do not add them up and we do not pick the bigger one. The cautious reading is that we are talking about a few hundred professionals who, a few months before the season starts, still have no announcement with a team name.

Does "no contract" mean "no team"?

No, and it is the most important clarification in the Tuttobici article. A deal can exist without being announced, and teams sometimes communicate in waves: until the official announcement the rider stays, on the lists, without a contract. One example from the same article: Lorenzo Rota and Samuele Battistella would join MBH Bank, but that comes from a 9 October rumour the paper recalls, not an announcement. When we write about transfers we also separate official announcement, rumour and speculation, and we tell you which of the three we are reading.

Who are the best-known names without an announcement?

The biggest is Roglič, 36: according to Tuttobici he will not continue with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and his options narrow to a new team or retirement; Escape Collective, on 25 October, asks the same question. Then Max Schachmann, 32, with two Paris-Nice wins and a Soudal Quick-Step contract ending at the close of 2026 (CyclingUpToDate). Danny van Poppel, 33, Florian Sénéchal, 33, Koen Bouwman, 32, with two Giro stage wins and a mountains jersey, Sam Oomen, 31, and Tobias Foss, 2022 time trial world champion. Among Italians, Tuttobici names Davide Formolo and Luca Vergallito.

They are not all veterans. Paul Penhoët, 24, and Martin Svrček, 23, appear in Domestique's list, and Colby Simmons, 23, in Tuttobici's. The count is ours: of the nine riders whose age we found, six are between 31 and 36 and three are under 25. It is not a statistical sample, only a snapshot of the names the sources mention.

Escape Collective, on 25 October, writes about teams that have disappeared (Kern Pharma and Flanders-Baloise), a Picnic-PostNL with an uncertain future and a TotalEnergies that is not folding but is still looking for a title sponsor. We only read this there and could not cross-check it with a second source: take it as an indication. Tuttobici instead quotes Jonathan Vaughters, who speaks of a 15% budget cut at EF Education-EasyPost. For the wider picture of why contracts now break and are signed like this, read Ganna, Ciccone, Carapaz: why contracts are being broken now.

How to read a transfer story in three moves

First: look at who is speaking. A team announcement is worth more than a "they say", and an unnamed rumour is worth less than both. Second: look at the date, because in November a list of free agents ages in a few days, and a name missing today can sign tomorrow. Third: look at the category of the count, because WorldTour, ProTeam and Continental are different worlds, and a "200 without a team" that mixes them says less than it seems. With these three questions most alarmist headlines lose half their force.

And for you, riding on Sundays?

According to Tuttobici, for many professionals a signature that never arrives can mean the end of the career. One line to take away: for us watching, cycling stops in October, but for almost two hundred professionals the hardest part of the season starts in November. We only sign the entry form of a gran fondo, so we can do little, but something: follow smaller races and teams too, go and watch a race near home and mark the dates in the 2027 Calendar. To ride with others there are the group rides, and if cyclocross intrigues you, the next date is the World Cup, which starts on 27 November in Ostrava.

Your turn: at 36, should Roglič look for one last team or is it right to stop here? And should transfer announcements come earlier, so almost two hundred riders are not left in doubt? Tell us in the comments.

Sources: Tuttobici, 31/10/2026, Cyclingnews, Searching for a future, CyclingUpToDate, 26/10/2026, Domestique, 28/10/2026, Escape Collective, 25/10/2026. Photo: Emc2, Wikimedia Commons. We could not read the full paywalled articles.