Just over a year ago, I joined my dream team, the MBH Bank Cycling Team, full of big ambitions. Yet today, the moment has come to announce my decision to leave the team. I’m moving on to new opportunities.
The decision was entirely mine, made for very logical reasons, and now I want to share why.
Everyone dreams of joining this team – and I had the same ambition. This website is proof of how seriously I took the opportunity to spend my junior years here. The plan was clear: if everything went well – and the team agreed – I could progress to the MBH Bank Colpack Ballain Team at the U23 level, a Continental-level squad.
It was an indescribable feeling sitting down with Tamás Sáfár in November 2023 at the Veloroom in Kecskemét, shaking hands, and signing my contract for the following season. Then, everything picked up pace in the blink of an eye: January brought a trip to the team’s Italian headquarters to test the new bikes, February was all about the training camp in Calpe, and by March, the racing season was in full swing.
This team truly provides the best infrastructure: personalized bikes with separate training and race wheelsets, professional service support, a team bus equipped with every convenience, stays in the best hotels, and participation in the best races – the kind other teams, even those with excellent riders, can only dream of.
I am deeply grateful to my team for everything I’ve received this year. Thank you for all!
I gave it my all to repay the team’s trust with strong results and my best efforts. Never in my life have I trained as hard and as determinedly as I have this year. For the past two years, a sports nutritionist has been monitoring my diet, which I follow strictly. I even placed my studies—special thanks to my teachers for their understanding—on the back burner as much as possible to dedicate myself entirely to the sport.
As a first-year rider, I took on a supportive role in the team, and I am proud to say that I played a key part in securing three podium finishes, including two victories and one second-place finish. I provided the lead-out, initiated the breaks, or escaped myself to tire out the peloton, so that when the time came for our riders, they could leap ahead of the exhausted competition. I celebrated those results as if I were standing on the podium myself.
I have no regrets. Even with the knowledge I have now, I’d join this team and do everything exactly the same way.
It’s difficult to explain why I decided to leave the team without touching on sensitive issues, but I’ll do my best to approach it respectfully. If there were – and of course, there were, because there always are – challenges and tough situations, I endured them and handled them with understanding. When I raised concerns, I did so discreetly and clearly. I remained loyal to the team through good times and bad. I’m not here to highlight the negatives or criticize a team that helped shape me. I won’t step on the table from which I ate.
That said, I hope it’s clear that while I did have the trust of some within the management, I often felt I lacked the full confidence of the entire leadership. This wasn’t always explicit, but there were two occasions where I sat on the sidelines for far too long. From my perspective, this wasn’t justified by my performance in races or training. On several occasions, I was left waiting for equipment or clothing, even when they were partially or fully available. My family often stepped in to fill the gaps – for example, when my helmet was broken in a crash and my size wasn’t in stock, we bought a replacement ourselves. These were manageable issues, things I could attribute to organizational hiccups, but it’s hard to shake the feeling when you consistently find yourself at the back of the queue. It’s not the best experience to see others receiving sponsor-provided gear – even those who joined late in the season – while you’re left to purchase your own. Or to sit out for a month while I was racking up KOMs in training, only to see others, whose efforts were visible on Strava, taking race spots. Not that it’s their fault – it’s not about them. Still, it wasn’t easy to take.
I’d rather not focus on this any longer, and I never focused on collecting complaints. Even now, I’ve said more than I initially intended. This isn’t about complaining. I simply feel it’s important to explain why a first-year U19 rider, part of one of the most prestigious teams, would decide to continue elsewhere. Without going into further details, I can only summarize by saying I had reasons to feel – and to increasingly sense – that I didn’t have the full trust of the entire management. When a key figure in team selections isn’t entirely behind you, it can seriously limit your opportunities. Even so, I liked this person, but his choices still had an impact on me.
I spent August on the sidelines, receiving weekly updates that I hadn’t made the lineup but should keep training because the next race was just around the corner. Then the next one, and the one after that – but my opportunity never came. Finally, it did, but by then it was September. Before I could even break a sweat in the peloton, my derailleur failed for the seventh time that year, and it was game over for me in that race.
In the races that followed, my performance wasn’t great. There was illness, and there were simply days when I didn’t ride well. But when you barely get a chance to race, it feels like a mayfly having an off day – you don’t get many second chances.
The season came to an early close this year. In my second year as a U17 rider, I was still racing in late October and even ended the year with a victory. This time around, the final race was already behind us by September 22.
I spent weeks considering my next move. The truth is, the first cracks appeared back in April. During a race in Italy, my derailleur was damaged, but instead of receiving one of the newly arrived replacements, I was sent out with the same faulty Shimano and a bent hanger. This setup carried over to the next two races and ultimately left me on the sidelines for all of May. That was when I first began to feel that things weren’t quite as they should be. I tried to ignore it until August, but the feeling was too strong to ignore. Even then, I wasn’t ready to face it. When my family brought it up, I would quickly change the subject, unwilling to confront the thoughts forming in my mind.
It wasn’t easy to come to terms with what I was seeing and accept that it was real. This didn’t seem like something that happened by accident. Even now, I don’t want to assume bad intentions behind it all, but based on the data, I have to believe that I saw and interpreted a different reality than someone else did. Perhaps the person making decisions didn’t review the same data – or didn’t pay sufficient attention to it – and instead relied more on gut feelings to evaluate performance. I know for certain he doesn’t use Strava, and I don’t think he uses TrainingPeaks either.
I understand, of course, that a team has its own interests. They need to deliver the best results to satisfy sponsors. A team with the best infrastructure can afford to select the best riders and showcase only the top performers. I have no problem with the fact that, as a first-year rider, I wasn’t given the same role or opportunities as a second-year. I came in fully aware of this and knew my place. But what happened went beyond that.
A team’s priority is its overall success, while a rider’s focus is on their individual career. Ideally, there’s a substantial overlap between the two. At the very least, there should be some overlap. As the season progressed, however, I felt that the intersection between my career goals and the team’s interests was shrinking. By the end, it felt almost symbolic.
After the final race in September, I eased off on training and went through two brief illnesses. Following one of them, I was advised to take a four-week break, which I used as my annual rest period. When I got back on the bike, I realized it had been two months since I last had a training plan in my TrainingPeaks account, so I made arrangements to fix that. Still, I increasingly felt that I needed to have a conversation with the team before the year was over.
The message came at just the right time: Tamás, the vice president of the club, had organized an end-of-season review day in Kecskemét for November 27. As it turned out, I had been meaning to get in touch with him to discuss what’s next. We agreed to meet an hour before the review event to go over everything ahead of the team meeting. I’m fairly certain he had a sense of why I wanted to talk.
I’m so grateful for Tamás’s radical honesty and the freedom to express my perspective just as openly. There were things we both agreed to put on the shelf of “this is just how life works sometimes” – things we simply have to learn to live with. And there truly are moments where you can leave things on that shelf because, if there’s nothing substantial behind them, there’s no point in overthinking them.
I got straight to the point and asked whether I was in the team’s plans for next year. Tamás said yes, 100%. He explained that for anyone he places his trust in, and who shows the right level of motivation and dedication, he fully supports him. I was, and still am, incredibly grateful for this. But I also heard the nuance in his words – this was Tamás’s opinion, not necessarily that of the entire leadership team. So, I asked directly, and I got my answer. The one I had been expecting. It was as I had thought: Tamás had to fight for me.
I can’t find the words to thank him for standing up for me during talks with the rest of the team leadership about next season. He secured their approval for my contract. As is clear from the above, I won’t be taking that offer, but it means so much to me that he went to such lengths. However, it’s also clear that staying with only 50% support wouldn’t make sense.
Of course, I didn’t come to this point without a Plan-B, but my primary intention was to stay if the team counted on me. Despite the past challenges, I wanted to negotiate changes where possible and learn to adapt to the unchangeable. Partly because I truly enjoyed being here, and partly because, without question, this team offers the best opportunities for anyone looking to continue their cycling career after U19. And that’s what I’m aiming for.
However, I also knew it would be meaningless to stay if I ended up on the sidelines for roster-limited races – which, practically speaking, describes most key races in Italy and abroad. Sitting on the bench, waiting for a spot to open due to someone being sick or studying for exams, wasn’t what I signed up for. I believe I’m capable of more than that. I’m not leaving out of anger or frustration, but I’m a rider who races at full strength and needs full support to do so.
I’ve thought this over a thousand times and come to terms with the fact that freedom comes at a cost. For me, that cost is letting go of the opportunities this team offers – opportunities that are often out of reach for riders on other teams. Even the leftovers I might have been given held weight. It’s an impressive portfolio, but I’ve lived through it, and I’ve learned it’s not the right one for me.
Tamás and I agreed that I’d make my decision by Friday, November 29, at noon. He suggested I take my time rather than deciding impulsively at the negotiating table, as I initially wanted to. He was right; emotional decisions are rarely the best. I’m grateful he took some of the pressure off me.
I’ll be calling Tamás in the morning, and as soon as we finish the call, I’ll publish this update.
Next season, I’ll be part of a team with clearer frameworks but fewer unpredictable restrictions, giving me the freedom to show what I’m capable of. For now, I can’t share more details about where I’ll be heading, but as soon as it’s public, I’ll let you know.
Thank you to the MBH Bank Cycling Team for an unforgettable year! Every moment mattered, from the successes to the setbacks. I believe that losing is part of the journey to winning, and I’m grateful to Tamás for his words of honesty that went above and beyond, as well as for his invaluable advice. To my teammates, thank you for the battles we fought together. To those just joining the team, I want to say that I was really looking forward to riding alongside you – but I’m sure our paths will cross again, perhaps sooner than expected.
Wishing the entire team the best of luck and every success ahead!
As for me, it’s time to move forward.
