Bob Stapleton confirms HTC Highroad to be wound up after sponsor search fails to bear fruit

This brings to mind when Honda pulled out of F1, it's quite a shock. They'd look odd in Honda jerseys? wouldn't they ? would they? dunno? next year... Honda maybe????? or even a premiership club sponsorship? arrrghhhh......

Have they tried REDBULL? They have their fingers in almost every pie in sport and dont just sponsor, they own every team with their brand on it. TEAM REDBULL?

Glad the article made mention of the loss of a high profile women's team, albeit if only two lines...one step forward one step back.

I was toying with the idea of an HTC mobile phone next week. Maybe I'll get the Samsung instead.

As much as it's a shame to loose teams, especially of the calibre of HTC, there will be others that will appear and prosper in their own right - Greenedge and Geox come to mind.

Whatever happens no doubt the riders will try their best to shine in their new teams.

Have Garmin Cervelo got the money for Martin? Maybe The Shack would go for him but aren't they quitting this year too?

Looks like 3 spaces just opened up at Garmvelo with Bobridge and both Meyers away to Greenedge. We know how much Garmin like their TT boys so wouldn't be surprised to see 1 or more HTC riders going there!

As far as Sky goes, I hate the link to Murdoch, and now hate BSkyB even more thanks to their ruination of free to air F1.
I do like the Sky team despite that. I do not neccesarily think that it is the best place for Cavendish tho'. His problem is that I see no space in any of the top teams for Cavendish to take a couple of leadout men with him.
I am truly gutted about the loss of HTC, as they are an exciting team that goes way beyond the Cavendish train. The Velits brothers and gretsch have already secured contracts. I guess after Cervelo last year it should be no real surprise, that a huge team will go down. Who's next, we now have the Omega Pharma Quickstep team too. Well that should leave a space for Geox in all the big races.
When you add all this up the sport is once again in crisis.

Agree with the comments above that (a) it is a shame for cycling to see one of the major teams fold but (b) it was probably on the basis that no sponsor would stump up enough to hold the current roster of riders (or similar). At least this way everyone gets to leave with their head held high, I suppose.

Personally, while I'm keen to see Cav in a good team, I'll be more interested to see where Martin ends up (since I'd be very surprised if Cav doesnt end up at Sky anyway). Martin's a super talent, and could win more races if he wasn't focussing his efforts on supporting another leader.

Let's hope Cav wasn't put in a position like Tommy V was in getting Europcar off the ground.

That's a lot of pressure.

Well, I wonder what Cavendish would look like in SKY kit, probably not as good as BMC

Maybe a catch 22. No sponsorship without a guaranteed, contracted Cav and he wasn't coming on board unless the team had a guaranteed, contracted sponsor?

By all accounts, HTC's investment was a 'mere' $10M per year. Even in the current climate, one would have thought some tech company could be persuaded to pony up a few quid, with or without Cav. Especially given the frankly obscene amounts lavished on failing F1 teams. Further proof that our sport is a minority pursuit.

Sure the economics aren't great at present, but the selfish DOPERS must be held equally responsible?

Perhaps not so much that Mr Stapleton couldn't find a sponsor but that he couldn't find one that would enable him to balance the books. It would surely be hard to run the team on a relatively half-arsed basis after having been on top of the world. At least going out this way means he leaves with his dignity intact and ready to fight another year. We'll never really know whether Cav et al would have left, anyway. In a way, it's better that the cards are thrown up in the air. After all, Cav has a couple of quite important races coming up where he MUST do without Mark Renshaw and Tony Martin unless they would be prepared to drive the train for team GB. I think not.

Amazing. A shame too.

I guess it is a sign of the times with all that is going on the world at the moment. Such a shame

It does seem bizarre they couldn't find sponsorship, being the winningest team and all. Were they asking for too much money?

I find this truly staggering. A team with almost 500 wins can't find a sponsor?! Surely the other big teams must be concerned what happens when their sponsor deals expire? This is ominous for the sport.

Real shame. Can't say they were my favourite team, but they were the most consistent, impressive and, when it counted, devastatingly effective team. Cav for Sky then?