Team Sky Tour De France 2012

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten Siustou. You can make an arguement for not including any lead-out in the team and just going 6-3 for climbers-sprinters/breakaway/minders.

Wiggins
Froome
Siustou
Porte
Pate
Uran (who everyone seems to have forgotten and who had a great TdF this year)
----
Eisel
Cavendish
EBH

EBH for breakaway wins and Cav for flat stages with potentially EBH, Porte, Pate and maybe Siustou acting as some form of leadout train. That leaves Eisel as minder and Froome, Uran and Siustou as the main domestiques.

What nobody else is really considering is who else in the Team Sky squad will be missing the tour to concentrate on Olympics duties? Will Porte and Pate be involved on the track/road along with EBH? Sky can't make them jeapordise their Olympics for the sake of the Tour if they're letting Thomas take the first half of the year 'off' while he prepares.

I'll throw a couple of other names in to drheaton's list - Siustou (formerly Sivstov), who I reckon has to be a TDF climbing domestique for Wiggins, and Michael Rogers, assuming he's fit.

From Team Sky's point of view, it's a nice problem to have too many riders who can play a solid role in the TDF than too few.

Clearly there is going to be a lot of planning of riders' seasons, with a lot of discussions along the lines of, say, we'll support you to go for GC in the Tour of Califiornia but you'll be supporting Brad in the Tour (to pick one race/rider type combo at random).

One thing about the amount of racing and size of squads out there nowadays is that it's possible to do that.

I reckon Froome will be given leadership for the Giro with a half decent team around him (plus the likes of Sutton for the sprints) and then, depending on how he's feeling, he may ride as super-domestique for Wiggins in the TdF.

Alot depends on the route and whether or not there's a TTT in the TdF. If there is I can't see Sky not taking the likes of Pate and Porte.

The TdF squad might also depend alot on who's riding with Cav at the Olympics. If Froome is going to be a big part of the Olympics squad they might not take him to the tour.

It's going to very hard as you can't fit Stannard, EBH, Fletcha, Xandio, Porte, Pate and Eisel in there with Cav, Wiggins and Froome. You need to drop two and if Sky have any real ambition of winning the race then it'll have to be Stannard as 'leadaout'. Either way getting the right balance is going to be really tough.

Let Froome fly in the mountains and watch the fireworks at next years tour.....

Don't forget Riche Porte too, I was sure I'd seen somewhere that he'd signed for Sky.

Also, I doubt Thomas will ride the TdF this year as he's concentrating on the Track events at the Olympics.

Leader - Wiggins
Sprinter - Cavendish
Free Role- Boasson Hagen
Lead out - Thomas
Team mate- Froome
Team mate- Pate
Team mate- Uran
Team mate- Eisel
Team mate- Hayman

You've got Cav's lead out men, men who can go on their own and strong climbers to help out either Wiggins or Froome.

Thats if Cav and Eisel sign ?

Froome as just a team mate? The guy is more likely to take a GC than anybody else.

I see Stannard has gone to BMC too, which was a surprise.

I thought Gerrans was off to Green Edge next year?