Road World Champion Cadel Evans has just completed a shock move to the Swiss based BMC Racing squad for 2010.

Evans has raced for many years for the Silence-Lotto/Predictor-Lotto team finishing 2nd twice in the Tour de France. The biggest problem the Australian has had in the last few years is the lack of a serious team behind him when it came to the Tour, often having to hang on to the coat tails of other more powerful teams and their stars in order to place himself for the key stages.  This was brought home to big effect this year when he finished a very disapointing 30th in the race and was out of contention from very early on.

Speaking to Cyclingnews he outlined what happened behind the scenes.  “When the idea [of moving to BMC Racing] first occurred to me I thought, ‘It’s BMC, not a big team or anything’; and of course when I’m making a decision like this I do a fair bit of research,” said Evans. “Then we looked at the names in the team, the plans they have plus where they want to go - everybody [in the team] wants to go to the Tour de France in 2011.

“At that point Andy Rihs and John Lelangue said, ‘Maybe you’d be interested in going to the Tour in 2010…’ and I thought, ‘Oh…’ We had a couple of meetings and it was amazing how everything was in place and ready to go,” he said. “I was just like, ‘This is just such a neat fit for me’.”

One of the biggest problems though is that the team operates on a Professional Continental team license and therefore is expected to mainly race in Europe presenting problems for Evans if he wants to race in his hoomeland, more important in 2010 than ever as he would be wearing the rainbow jersey.  How that will playout remains to be seen with the Tour Dwon Under in January the first hurdle.  It would seem a bit strange though if a World Champion would not be extended a wild card entry to his home Tour.

Obviously the Tour de France is the main goal and Evans was quick to point to the strength in the team.  George Hincapie, Alessandro Ballan and Karsten Kroon have all joined the team in recent months and would be expected to be a big help to the Australian come July.  In particular Hincapie, although in the fall of his career is a highly valued super domestique, at one time considered a potential Grand Tour winner and key domestique for all seven of Lance Armstrongs Tour victories.  In July he will line up with Evans against his old boss.

It would seem that Silence-Lotto were as surprised as everyone else at Evans move as he had one year left to run on his contract and have already thrown their hat into the ring as a potential home for current Tour champ Alberto Contador.  However his arrival would be a bigger surprise than Evans’ move especially given that lack of strength and depth in the team was the reason for his departure.