He's on his bike

It's not that long ago (almost a year to be precise) that I was posting about the demise of HTC and how Cav would have to find a new team and that it would probably be Sky. Well he's now moved from Sky to Omega Pharma-QuickStep, signing a three year contract in the process, in a move that he hopes will bring him more success on Le Tour and also in another races across the professional road tour in 2013.

There's no doubt that he was a square peg in a round hole at Sky but he was there during the glorious summer of 2012 and despite differences in aims and ultimate goals he worked hard as a team rider. You would never have thought that, prior to last summer, you would see Cav leading a peloton on a hilly stage but we saw that twice, firstly in Italy and then later in France or would you have expected to see the wearer of the World Champions jersey returning to the team car for drinks for the rest of the team.

Le Tour was probably the big deal breaker, Sky were going for gold (well yellow) and winning individual stages and bunch sprints wasn't a priority for the team. Cav won three stages, one of which was down to his own imitative and one which was down to a pre stage plea to his team mates, Sky are not a team who want to be involved in big lead outs.

Omega announced the signing on their Facebook site whilst Cav took to Twitter. "After a while away from twitter, I'm pleased to return with the announcement I'll ride for @opqscyclingteam Omega Pharma-Quickstep next year"

The big question now of course is will Bernie Eisel move from Sky as well. Bernie has been Cav's wing man since they both joined the old T-Mobile team, his job has been to make sure Cav got through the mountain stages in one piece and also to play his part in the road trains, and he moved from HTC to Sky with Cav*. The move to Omega Pharma-Quickstep will also help raise the profile of the Belgian team (Omega make laminate floor coverings) and will reunite Cav with German Tony Martin who was part of his lead out at HTC and put him in the same team as Tom Boonen another multi stage winner of the classics.

* update, Bernie has signed a new deal with Sky until 2015.