All Black and Argyle

So now Julian Dean is headed to Slipstream. Dean was one of those indispensable guys in this year's Tour, performing the Herculean task of towing Thor Hushovd through two leadout trains and other random obstacles in the Tour sprint stages. Everybody loves guys like that, and his all-black jersey as champion of New Zealand certainly doesn't make him less cool.

This isn't going to clinch Slipstream's place among the upper echelon of the pro ranks, but it does make one wonder what the game plan is. Not in a Rabobank what-the-hell-are-you-thinking kind of way, but in a hmm-this-could-be-interesting way. If they sign a top sprinter for Dean to tug home, I promise not to use the word argyle in the headline.