Wow, thats very cool.  Let us know how he does.

Cheers,

JS

BMC goes bigger
The biggest domestic team-development news concerns the upgrading of the amateur BMC team to UCI-continental team status. The squad, led by early-1980s American pro Gavin Chilcott and former Volvo-Cannondale team manager Charlie Livermore, has signed Health Net-Maxxis veterans Scott Moninger and Mike Sayers as well as Kodakgallery.com-Sierra Nevada speedsters Jackson Stewart and Dan Schmatz. Also reportedly joining the BMC team is Einstein's Bagels rider Jonathan Garcia, and Chad Hartley, who spent 2006 at TIAA-CREF. Returning to the team is Scott Nydam, who split his season racing for BMC and the Boulder, Colorado-based Rio Grande-Sports Garage squad.

Swiss rider Alexandre Moos, who spent 2006 riding for the otherBMC-sponsored team, Phonak-iShares, will likely race for the squad in a split-season role, with mountain-bike and cyclo-cross racing also a priority. Former 7-Eleven, Motorola and Mapei team doctor Massimo "Max" Testa and former Olympic speed-skating and national road champion Eric Heiden, both of the UC Davis Sports Performance Program, will reportedly serve as the team's medical advisors.

The team's upgrade reportedly came together as a byproduct of the relationship between USA Cycling president Jim Ochowicz, who continues to work as a paid consultant for Phonak, and Phonak team owner Andy Rihs, who also owns BMC Bicycles. (So no, there is no need to speculate on what kind of bikes they'll be riding.) I asked Chilcott if the team is essentially Rihs's way of pulling out of the big-budget, high-risk ProTour and instead investing far less money on a lower-risk North American program.

"The whole Floyd thing was unfortunate for everybody," Chilcott said. "I don't have an official position on that. The whole doping situation is a disaster. I hope that this is a painful period we endure and survive. We're going to be a clean program and a fresh new story - that is without the trappings of the top level. In terms of the direct relationship between Phonak and us, it's uncertain. What we do know is that there's been an emphasis on the American team, there's an interest in the American market, which [Rihs] believes is significant, and I think the primary driver behind the whole thing is that he loves cycling and he believes in the sport as a redeeming activity. He believes that there should be bike racing, and that puts the onus on us to run a good program that stands on its own merits."

Also rumored to be in discussions with the BMC team is 2003 national road champion Mark McCormack, who has yet to re-sign with Colavita Olive Oil-Sutter Home.

Management of the Colavita team, which has been run for years by Colavita Olive Oil general manager John Profaci, Jr., was recently transferred to Tom Schuler of Team Sports, Inc. Schuler, formerly the general manager of Saturn Cycling and the current manager of Targetraining, took over management of the Colavita-Cooking Light women's team when it merged with Quark at the end of the 2005 season.

Rumor is that neither McCormack, nor his older brother and Colavita team director Frank McCormack, have re-signed with Colavita for 2007. "As of right now I am unsigned for 2007," McCormack wrote in an email. "I am talking with a few different programs at the moment. I prefer not to name them at this point but will say that it's untrue [that I am close to signing with BMC]. Beyond that I can't comment."

Moninger, who turns 40 later this month, shows little sign of slowing down, winning the NRC individual ranking in 2005 and taking the Tour of Utah overall in August. The veteran said the move to BMC was right for him given the current climate.

"It's never easy to leave a team that you've been involved with for a number of years," Moninger said. "Health Net has been my family since the beginning of 2004, but there have been a lot of changes happening there, guys retiring and moving on. The timing was right for a change. Sometimes change is good, and I'm hoping it will be in this case. Gavin is a stage-race fanatic, and he wants to focus mostly on stage racing and not focus too much on one-day criteriums, so that's a good fit for me. It sounds like he's building a stage race team, with guys like Garcia and Nydam, and a guy like Alexandre Moos is a pretty big name as well."