Winners and Losers - Winter Rider Transfers

It's the time of year when road riders break out woolen jerseys and socks, trainers are dusted off and positioned in front of the television, mountain bikes come out of the woodwork and it gets dark at about 4:00 PM. It's also the time when teams and riders announce their transfers and, let's face it, transfer time can be messier and more dramatic than a season of Grey's Anatomy. For those who don't have time to follow who's going where and who said what about so-and-so's ugly new kits I've condensed all the transfers announced thus far into the following team-by-team synopsis. If your favorite team isn't listed here it's because they either didn't make any significant rider changes or, morely likely, it's due to the fact that they suck. Enjoy.

BIG Loser - Astana

As I blogged about earlier, Astana is a shell of its former self, with the following riders all jumping ship: Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Janez Brajkovič, Chris Horner, Sérgio Paulinho, and Andreas Klöden. To make matters worse for them there is the continuing saga of whether Contador will stay or go. Vinokourov's return tops off Astana's woes and probably hurts the team more than it helps.

Winner - BMC

BMC is beginning to look like an international ProTour team now that they've signed US champ George Hincapie, former world champ Allesandro Ballan, and current world champ (and perennial Tour also-ran) Cadel Evans.

Winner - Garmin-Slipstream

The plaid crew bolstered their roster despite losing a couple of veterans to retirement. Sprinters Robbie Hunter and Johan Van Summeren as well as time-trialists Tom Zirbel and Peter Stetina will all prove valuable assets to what has become a well-rounded international squad.

Wash - Lampre

Lampre loses Ballan to BMC but brings in sprinter Allesandro Petacchi. Perhaps having two Allesandros on the team would have been too much?

Winner - Liquigas

Although Liquigas didn't sign many significant new riders they did manage to hang on to almost their entire squad. Now if Basso, Pellizotti and Nibali can quit arguing about hair product and play nice they'll have a formidible crew for the grand tours.

Loser - Omega Pharma-Lotto (formerly Silence-Lotto)

Sponsor of the week-Lotto loses their only real grand tour hope with the departure of Cadel Evans.

Loser - Columbia-HTC

Despite signing a slew of new riders Columbia-HTC now appears, on paper at least, much weakened from last year due to the loss of George Hincapie, Boasson Hagen, Thomas Lovkvist and Kim Kirchen. TT specialist Tony Martin remains, however, as does the neigh-unbeatable Mark Cavendish. It will be interesting to see if Columbia-HTC's lead-out train retains its ability to deliver Cav to the line after this reshuffling.

Winner - Team RadioShack

See above about Team Astana. After LA & Co. cherry-picked the best from Astana they threw in Thomas Vaitkus and Geert Steegmans for good measure.

Winner - Team Sky

Sky created an international ProTour team from scratch seemingly overnight. With riders such as Kurt Asle Arvesen, Boasson Hagen, and Juan Antonio Flecha they should make some waves in the grand tours next year.

See, that wasn't so difficult, and you didn't have to go watch the entire back-catalogue on the internet like you did with Grey's Anatomy.