Riding for a critically ill teammate, Caja Rural want to honour the past and win a stage on their long-awaited Tour de France debut

A new name will grace the start line of the men's Tour de France this year as teams roll off the ramp for the opening team time trial in Barcelona.

Caja Rural-Seguros RGA will be a team familiar to most, thanks to their exploits at the Vuelta a España over the past 15 years, but 2026 will be the first year that the team lines up in the world's biggest race.

"For us, it's incredible to be in the Tour de France this year because we are a small team compared to the WorldTour teams and the other ProTeams. It's incredible for us," sports director Aritz Bagües told Cyclingnews ahead of the team's debut.

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Cooperative banking group Caja Rural has previously featured in the Tour de France, sponsoring the Caja Rural-Orbea team in 1987 and 1988. However, the entity that will race the Tour this year was founded in 1992 and spent almost two decades as an amateur team based in Pamplona before registering as a UCI team in 2010. The team will commemorate sponsor Caja Rural's long history in the sport with a special jersey for the 2026 Tour.

Caja Rural-Seguros RGA has been known over the years as a real talent factory, with names such as Michal Kwiatkowski, Pello Bilbao, Hugh Carthy, and 2026 Giro d'Italia stage winner Thomas Silva developed in the team's system, which also includes a development team that races in the highly competitive Spanish amateur circuit.

The team has enjoyed its own success too, winning one stage of the Vuelta in 2012 through Antonio Piedra, and the mountain classification in 2014 and 2015. The 2026 Tour, however, represents the team's biggest moment.

'It's very special'

In order to make the start in Barcelona, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA had to fend off other ProTeams who were similarly keen to secure a first outing at the Tour de France. The French-Dutch Unibet-Rose Rockets team were touted for selection, but race organisers A.S.O. chose the Spanish team due to its higher placing in the UCI ranking and its vast Grand Tour experience.

Bagües remembers the moment he found out the team had been selected for the Tour. He was in the car during a stage of the AlUla Tour in January when the news came through, but didn't have any signal in the desert. He was told as he parked the car at the finish.

"It was a very special day for all the team," he says. "It's very, very special for us because we've been there a lot of years with a small team doing all the European calendar and nowadays all over the world. It's like a prize for us."

Caja Rural-Seguros RGA's maiden Tour start is even more significant given its proximity to the team's base in Pamplona, in the region of Navarra, about a five-hour drive from Barcelona. Five members of the team's 26 riders hail from the autonomous region of Catalonia: Abel Balderstone (Ullastrell), Jan Castellon (Lleida), Sergi Darder (Barcelona), Joel Nicolau (Llofriu) and Eduard Prades (Alcanar).

The team are expecting a crowd of supporters over the first three days before the race enters France. "We have a lot of riders from Catalonia in our professional team, and in the amateur team too. I think that we will have a lot of supporters there."

Chasing a stage win

Having discovered their Tour participation in late January, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA selected ten riders to be considered for La Grande Boucle in April, to be whittled down to eight ahead of the race's start.

The team will chase stage wins across the three weeks, with two-time Tour de France stage-winner Fernando Gaviria leading the line in the bunch sprints. The Spanish outfit will also contain several climbers who will look to sniff out opportunities in the mountains.

It will be Gaviria's third Tour de France, having taken both of his wins during the 2018 Tour while riding for Quick-Step Floors. The 31-year-old Colombian, who has become famous for launching his sprint early, won't have the luxury of a powerful sprint train like rivals Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) or Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep), but Bagües believes that Gaviria has the experience and talent to find his own way to the finish line.

"We know that this is very difficult, but he's a special rider. He's a very talented rider, and maybe we can do it. It's difficult," he says. "He manages very well in the peloton. He knows where he has to stay, and he's very, very special in that. He's a very, very good rider."

"He's also a very good captain and leader for the guys, and for us, he's a very important guy in the team," Bagües adds.

The team's Spanish climbers have been buoyed by a strong performance at the Tour Auvergne-Rhǒne Alpes, the Tour de France's traditional warm-up race, with José Félix Parra 9th in the General Classification and Jan Castellon 11th, along with several stage top-10s.

"For us, it's good because we see that we can stay there with those guys and with those teams. It's more confidence for us to start in Barcelona with less pressure, because we know that we can do it," Bagües says.

"We put a goal of trying to take one victory in a stage…I think it will be very difficult, but we will try to do it."

Other potential principals in the team include Australian Sebastian Berwick, who won the Tour of Türkiye earlier this year, former Giro d'Italia stage-winner Stefano Oldani and Dutchman Alex Molenaar, who scored a top-10 and De Brabantse Pijl earlier this year.

"They are all motivated. It's very special for the team but also for the riders because it's their opportunity to go to the Tour de France. It's important for all of them," Bagües adds.

Racing for Jaume Guardeño

The Caja Rural-Seguros RGA team is finding added motivation ahead of the Tour as riders and staff keep their colleague Jaume Guardeño in the forefront of their minds.

23-year-old Guardeño, who finished 14th at the Vuelta last year, collided with a car during a training ride in March, putting him in a critical condition. Local media reported that the rider from Altea had struck a rock, causing him to lose control of his bike.

Guardeño was taken to the intensive care unit at Parc Taulí Hospital in Sabadell and has since been transferred to the Guttman clinic in Barcelona; a facility that specialises in "neurorehabilitation and treatment of serious neurological injuries," according to the most recent team update on his condition.

"It's difficult because we know that Jaume is not in a good condition. It's very, very hard for us. We will try to do our best to give him a victory and to give him power to help because he's in a very dangerous situation and it's bad news for the whole team," Bagües says.

Caja Rural-Seguros RGA may be the new boys on the block at the Tour de France, but this Spanish team, with its mix of young talent and experienced heads, are out to prove that they are not just there to make up the numbers.

Particularly in the opening three stages, this will be a team that will be motivated not only by the grandeur of the Tour, but also by the desire to honour their team-mate and the team's long history in the sport.

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