Rotten Bastard

I thought he was going to announce it Sept. 1...?

DXchulo

That is a good question. Sky could use some good news right now.

canuck4levi

+1. I'd put my money on the Manxster going to Sky. First there is the need to ride for the mother county...

chasm54

You think so? I'd say they've had a pretty good season. Cavendish would be a superb acquisition, of course, and unlike Wiggins he has the personality to be a leader on and off the bike, but they're going to be in danger of having too many chiefs and too few indians. Picking a GT squad that can support Wiggins in the GC, Cav for green, as well as accommodating the ambitions of EBH and Thomas, that's going to be interesting. And then there's the emergence of Froome, who as well as being a climber can evidently TT with the best. Hmm.

Kind of Blued

I don't see Cav ever having seasons as successful as the last few. HTC was so completely based around his abilities that they basically threw any GC hopes out the window in favor of having nothing BUT monster lead-out guys. Their best placed rider in the Tour this year was Peter Velits who finished in 19th, and he did that well IN SPITE OF the work he had to do for Cavendish. If Cav rode the Tour on a team with a legitimate GC contender, he'd have a harder time winning stages, and likely wouldn't even finish the race at all. When he was in trouble this year, his entire team dropped back to get him through mountain stages. That's an unacceptable liability if your team has a GC contender to protect.

SunSwingsLow

Cav can get over the mountains just fine. Hes finished mutiple grand tours and shown he can win with less leadout than the "traditional" HTC leadout. Hes the fastest man out there and even without the HTC leadout train he will continue to dominate sprint finishes. Sky would be a nice team for him.

Kind of Blued

Really? He was insinuated in cheating in order to catch the grupetto this year, needed his entire team to fall back at least once to barely get him within the time cut, and flat out missed the time cut at least twice.

I agree that he can freelance a bunch sprint pretty well if he has to, but it makes it a lot harder, and that doesn't jive well with his tendency to give up, throw up his hands, and complain mid-sprint when a competitor does something that keeps him from easily winning.

cyclezen

who cares?

chasm54

Yes, really. When he missed the time cuts he did so by narrow margins, in the company of about 50 other riders, and they virtually toured across the finish line because they knew there were too many of them to get thrown out. He, and pretty much all of the rest of them, would have made those cuts if they'd needed to.

He can climb pretty well. In the 2009 tour he won a stage that had a categorised climb just a few km from the finish, and he was one of a small bunch at the front of the race over the top of that climb.

Rotten Bastard

Me.