Cav and Eisel join Sky

It'll be interesting to see who gets the lions share of domestiques since Wiggins is slowly coming up to snuff as a tour contender - granted he may never be. I guess Cav really only needs 3 strong guys to roll him out at the finish, but those $$$ (or British Pounds in this case) get spent pretty quick on the serious support talent and each of those two fellas needs a different type of guy to support him.

I'm quite interested to see if Cav will be riding a Specialized bike re-badged as a Pinarello.

I'd say there was no chance of that happening Tony. There may be a few changes for the new Dogma based on specific input but I can't see Sky having a rebadged Venge on the team bike roster for next year.

One equipment thing that would be interesting would be the bar/stem choice for Cav given that he uses the bars/stem combo that PRO sell with his name on it...

Danfoz,

I think that'll all depend on the goals for the Olympics that are just a week or so after the Tour. Do they ride Cav until the Pyrenees for the stage wins that then pull him to keep him fresh for the Olympic Road Race? Brailsford has an awkward position in that he's heading up the Sky Pro Team and also heading up British Cyclings team (sponsored by Sky) for the Olympics.

Given todays WADA withdrawl for Nielsens Clenbuterol case (his claim was eating contaminated beef), one has to think that Contador has a fairly reasonable chance of riding the Tour next year. He's a great time trial rider and there's a lot of hills in the Pyrenees. With no Giro on the cards for him and 11 climbs slated for two days of mountain fun in the south of France one can expect a fairly fresh Contador to have a go. I don't think that Wiggins, or anyone for that matter, could deal with Alberto when he's on form and rested.

With no team time trial in the leaked race route, the extra ace in the deck - having Cav on the squad for that event, means that Wiggo doesn't have that to fall back on.

Great investment for SKY, winning the most races goes a long way with your sponsors.

I wonder is Wiggo happy that Cav is now on his team?

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by limerickman [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

I wonder is Wiggo happy that Cav is now on his team?

I'd say on a personal level he probably is. They've always seemed to get on well together when riding on the GB track squad together and have won a fair few medals together in the Madison too. He dropped enough very obvious hints in interviews prior to Cav's official signing announcement to suggest that he was keen and therefore possibly happy, at him joining.

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You can't deny that when Cav wants to win in a sprint he'll go for it - it's what he's paid to do and what he's good at but he's also a very very fast team TT rider - darned near a world class team pursuit rider, which makes him a very handy rider to have on the squad.

I don't think that Cav needs a lead out team of 4 or 5 guys, or indeed someone like Renshaw at his beck and call - Cav actually won more stages after Renshaw was DQ'd that before in 2010 but it'll make for a few headaches for Brailsford come grand tour time... Then again, Brailsford has had a lot of experience with both of them for a good number of years so maybe it won't.