carpediemracing 

A couple I know had one of their first "dates" at Costco where they ate dinner off of all the sample stations. They're happily married and comfortably well off and laugh about their "unplanned dinner" date.

I agree that CVV will be good for a year or two.

I disagree that Dave Z will be super useful. Useful, yes, not super useful. I don't know him at all but he seems to be fragile. I think Millar is the Voights of Garmin.

I don't hold too much confidence in their sprinters but that's a significant distraction when you're going for the overall. Imagine if Silence-Lotto didn't have to pay McEwen? They'd have two climbers instead, and maybe Evans would have had more at the end.

I wish I had more faith in Tom Danielson. He'll be a challenge to toughen/harden up, but if he got good, he'd be a great rider in the mountains. Vaughter's next challenge if he's still on the team.

I think that Vaughters & Co have proven their ideas. They will be the new CSC, the team that older riders will be willing to join in order to find some lost sparkle. Look at CVV, Millar, even Pate, the mustachio man, all these guys would have been sort of lost on Euro teams. Here they were all significant.

cdr