Felt declines to re-new sponsorship of Argos-Shimano in 2014

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American bike manufacturer Felt have announced they will no longer sponsor Argos-Shimano with Giant expected as the replacement company to provide bikes in 2014. It was reported in August that Giant was likely to switch support from Belkin to Argos-Shimano for the upcoming season. Giant is yet to officially comment.

This signals further change for the team who are set to announce a new major sponsor with Argos also declining to re-new its sponsorship for next season.

Felt had provided bicycles to the Dutch WorldTour team for the past two seasons and the decision to stop its sponsorship was "toiled over" said company founder Jim Felt.

"Felt has always been a company that raced and the last two years with Team Argos-Shimano have been tremendous," said Felt.

"It is time for us to look to new opportunities. This is in no way to say we do not support road racing at the very highest level-we whole-heartedly do and we will continue to-it is just that we wanted to move some of the sponsorship pieces around."

Argos-Shimano thanked Felt for their support and sponsorship over the last two seasons. "Felt was part of a very important period of the project and we experienced many great moments together. The bikes were fantastic, the partnership was warm and the cooperation was always good," said the team's general manager Iwan Spekenbrink.

Felt will no longer have a presence in the WorldTour peloton but will continue to support bicycle racing across all disciplines. Felt will announce their full 2014 sponsorship details before the end of this year.