Ever since Discovery dropped their cycling team last year, I’ve been forlorn wondering what will become of Hincapie, what will become of American cycling. It turns out that things are looking up, and Team Columbia is the team to watch out for this year.

I’ve been reading snippets of cycling news and was aware that there was a new team, titled Team Columbia, but for some strange reason, I kept thinking it was the country Columbia. It never dawned on me that it was a team sponsored by Columbia Sportswear, a local company. Well, not only has Columbia stepped up and sponsored a team, but they’ve revamped the stellar Team High Road, with George Hincapie as captain, and the amazing talents of Kim Kirchen, and Mark Cavendish to name a few.

As their previous team name (Team High Road) implies, they are making a public anti-doping statement:

Through this stringent program, each member of the team gives a minimum of 26 random blood and urine tests per year. The volume of test results enables ACE to build extremely detailed longitudinal profiles of each rider so that they can detect small changes in body chemistry that might be caused by doping.

I hate to say this, but only time will tell if they can truly keep to the “high road.” I sure hope they do. I definitely know that they will be the team to watch out for in this year’s Tour de France.