B&B hotels KTM gone , where now for Cav ?

The only reason that Cav would still be considered for a contract is the romantic notion - particularly amongst the UK cycling press - that he only has to turn up at the TdF next year and he'll finally bag the stage that takes him beyond Merckx. However the fact that he's still without a contract shows exactly what the market thinks of the prospect. Even the B&B set-up, had it worked out, would have been a real "Hail Mary" shot - a 38 year old Cav being led out by a 40 year old Max Richeze and somehow getting the better of the Jakobsens, Groenewegens, Ewans & Bennetts.

What's even more telling is that it seems that he cannot even get the sort of pound-shop contract he had from Lefevre.

The UK press seem determined to keep linking him with a one year deal with Skineos, but I can’t see it happening unless Brailsford and Ratcliffe get overwhelmed with nostalgia for some reason.

Yet the market would seem to disagree that its enough - at least for the type of contract Cav would want, with a guaranteed spot on the TdF squad and a decent lead-out. I think he would have had a better chance of a contract as the type of rider he was at the National Championships this year.

If he ends up at Ineos, i'd imagine it is on some heavily incentivised pay-as-you-go contract, with some vague promise of going to the tour and getting a win. Ineos will probably be all-in for Bernal at the tour, so you'd imagine Cav would get one other guy, maybe Kwiatko as a leadout. TBH it makes sense from an Ineos/Jim Ratcliffe perspective, Brit team with the "greatest" ever brit sprinter going for the TDF record from the great Eddie Merckx, if he pulls it off they would be immortalized.

Caley Fretz is saying that B&B management are alleging the team collapse is Cav's fault:

"According to the Placeholder podcast(link is external), hosted by former Cycling Tips editor Caley Fretz, a source close to the B&B team says that Pineau and the management, when informing the riders last week that the squad was about to collapse, claimed that Cavendish had backed out of his agreement to join the team and instead had decided to retire from the sport completely. Cavendish’s alleged last-minute decision then caused the incoming big-money sponsors, who seemingly had been wooed by the prospect of having their name plastered across the chest of a potential Tour de France record breaker, to withdraw their funding, causing Pineau’s precarious house of cards to collapse."

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-13-december-2022-297997

That doesn't really add up seeing as Cavendish hasn't retired.

Apparently he has a team for next year but like Nairo, I don't understand the delay in the confirmation.

Given the timing of Lopez' departure from Astana and Peter Kennaugh's comment last week that Cav had already signed a contract, it sounds like the negotiations were going on before even before Lopez was fired.

Unless, of course Cav had signed a contract with someone else and has just reneged on it.

Astana it is