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Evans on the Move
By Bob Roll

In a surprising transfer move Cadel Evans has just signed up to race for the American BMC Team. BMC has signed a number of top riders this off season including Alessandro Ballan, George Hincapie, Karsten Kroon and Marcus Burghardt. BMC has gone about bolstering their roster and now looks to be one of the top teams in the world.

BMC is owned by Swiss Industrialist, Andy Rhys and one of the co-owners is Jim Ochowicz (Och) who was the manager of the 7-Eleven and Motorola cycling teams who are now a legendary part of the American race scene. In a short period of time it seems as if all the elements for a competitive team have fallen into place and there’s no reason why BMC could not participate at the highest level of the sport. This will be quite amazing that as recently as this year BMC was mostly an American cycling team racing in domestic events and dabbling periodically in European races.
It was when the Team signed George Hincapie, that the world began to take notice and also the team bolstered its roster to give George a chance to fulfill his destiny and win Paris Roubaix. There were no plans announced at the time of signing George to race the Tour de France, but now with the signing of Cadel Evans it would be very disappointing if the organizers of the Tour did not let them compete.

What is amazing about that for American fans is that we could possibly have no less than four American Teams in the Tour. Garmin, Columbia, Radio Shack and now presumably BMC is a miraculous number of American teams to have in the Tour.

It’s possible the United States will have as many teams as power house cycling nations France, Italy and Spain. Cycling in the United States has come a very long way since the days of Jim Ochowicz who faced incredible challenges just getting one American team to the Tour. Our sense of fair play and our sense of adventure lends itself perfectly to a sport that has become truly international in flavor and character. We have seen in recent years teams that have adopted this ideololgy like Cervello and Columbia rise to the top very quickly rather than languish for years in old world tradition. The teams that have the most international rosters have the most consistent success and teams that are mired in the old entrenched European system like Cadel Evans Silence-Lotto team, struggled to find success. Cadel has been with Lotto for 5 seasons, his talent is undeniable, but his results look like the San Andreas Faults rictor scale. Cadel recently confirmed his prodigious talent by winning the World Road Race Championship. It seemed as if Cadel would have another disastrous season after a lack luster tour and total disintegration after leading the Vuelta but then he redeemed his season by winning the rainbow title and confirming he is truly a great champion, It’s been a very long time since a contender for the Grand Tours has won a World Championship.

We have to go a long ways back to find a rider who is racing for the Tours yellow jersey and a win the World Road Race. Miguel Indurain might be the very last rider to compete in both the Tour and the Worlds. Looking back over the names you have to go all the way back to 1989 to see the name of Greg LeMond as the Worlds winner and although some of the GC riders have been contenders at the Worlds, Cadel Evans is the first rider in a long time that is competitive in the Grand Tours and able to have enough power left to win the Worlds. (Lance Armstrong won the Worlds in Oslo in 1993, but had not yet won Le Tour)

2010 is shaping up to be the best year ever for American cycling fans. The only wild card left in the deck is where Alberto Contador will wind up. Does Evans departure from Lotto give the beleaguered Belgium squad a chance to sign Contador? Doubtful at best.

There are no lonesome winners in cycling and the team support Cadel Evans has received from Lotto has been slim to none and that will most certainly change with Jim Ochowicz in charge and with teammates like George Hincapie. I’ve often wondered why Cadel stayed on Lotto in spite of the lack of support and it seems as if he has finally taken the initiative to improve his chances by taking a chance on a new team, but it seems as if he had nothing left to lose because the Lotto program is content to plot along and maybe win Tour of Flanders once every three to five years. Congratulations to Cadel for winning the Worlds and changing teams and let’s hope his Kutzpah is rewarded with an invitation to race the Tour de France.