The Tour de France may be over for another year, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of cycling news to talk about. While teams gear up for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in a few weeks, they are also re-configuring themselves to get better in the future.
Two days ago we received word that Australian rider Stuart O'Grady was leaving Team Leopard Trek to join the all Aussie squad of GreenEdge, which is forming up for next season. Today we get even bigger news, when it was announced that Team BMC had added Thor Hushovd to the line-up. Yep, that's right. This year's TdF champion Cadel Evans will now be riding alongside the God of Thunder himself.
According to this story from Velonews yesterday, Thor was no longer happy riding for Team Garmin, in part because the team dynamics had changed, and there were internal conflicts as to which rider would be the leader heading into various races. Apparently his role will be more clearly defined on BMC, where Evans is the clear-cut leader of the team.
Hushovd won't be joining the squad until 2012, and the contract is set to run for three years. He's not only joining Evans on the squad however, as the already packed roster also includes George Hincapie, Taylor Phinney, and Alessandro Ballan. This new "super squad" will definitely be a force to reckoned with when they hit the roads in Europe next year.
As the reigning World Road Champ, who has won multiple stages in the Tour de France, Thor says that his goal is to win the Paris-Roubaix race, a single day classic that has evaded him so far.