Dan McLay has confirmed that he will probably be leaving Visma-Lease a Bike on the finish of the 12 months, after a single season within the Dutch WorldTour squad.
With ten wins in his personal proper, the 33-year-old was signed to race primarily as a lead-out man for Olav Kooij in mid-October 2024, after the anticipated return of Mike Teunissen fell via when the Dutchman joined XDS-Astana.
Before signing with Visma, McLay raced as a lead-out man with Arnaud Démare at Arkéa, the same team where he turned pro back in 2015 when the squad was sponsored by Bretagne-Seche Environment. In 2018 and 2019, he had a two-year spell at EF Education First and then returned to the French squad in 2020.
Currently racing at the Tour de Pologne to help Kooij – a stage winner on Monday – McLay will subsequent head to the Renewi Tour with the Dutchman, previous to racing within the Tour of Britain. But when his short-term future is obvious, mid-to-long time period is at the moment a really totally different story.
“I am not signed up but, so if anybody desires me for the subsequent 12 months or two, I am nonetheless going,” McLay, 33, advised Cyclingnews on a heat, dry Friday morning on the stage 5 begin of Pologne in Katowice.
“I feel Visma is off the playing cards, they need an enormous, pure bunch sprinter for subsequent 12 months, in order that guidelines that out.”
McLay mentioned his present situation is reasonable-to-good, with Pologne his first race because the Copenhagen Dash in late June.
“I had a pleasant coaching camp in the summertime, so I am wanting ahead to getting again into it,” he mentioned.
“This time final 12 months, I used to be recovering from the Tour de France, so general my legs aren’t too unhealthy. And the solar’s shining too.”
Pologne itself has gone very nicely for the squad, with Kooij taking the opening mass dash on Monday, after which McLay’s fellow-Briton Matthew Brennan scoring an impressive victory on Friday’s very hilly leg to Zakopane from a a lot smaller entrance group of round 50 riders.
Thursday’s end in Karpacz was the one setback for Visma’s sprinters, however the severely technical collection of ultimate city laps made it very troublesome for nearly all of the groups, together with Visma, to work as cohesive items.
“We had been very proud of Monday, Thursday [stage 3] was a bit messy, it did not fairly go to plan, we form of all obtained there at one level however by no means fairly collectively, so it was one to place behind us” McLay mentioned on Friday morning, earlier than Brennan later doubled crew’s win tally in Poland. As for Thursday, Jesper Mørkov, Visma’s sports activities director at Pologne, merely dismissed the end in a crew press launch as “very chaotic.”
Requested about how he has discovered Kooij to work with over the previous few months as a sprinter, McLay described the Dutch fastman as “Not needing an excessive amount of assist, so we at all times try to preserve it free. I simply attempt to assist him when wanted, however we’re not too inflexible about it.”
The Briton’s time alongside the Dutch sprinter just isn’t but over, in any case, however McLay is understandably additionally involved about getting his personal future resolved for 2026, he says. Nonetheless, regardless of some low-level discussions, there may be nothing definitive for now.
“There’s been a bit of little bit of speaking, however not an excessive amount of greater than that,” he advised Cyclingnews. “So if anybody desires me, I am accessible.”
