As the end of the 2008 season approaches, we are seeing lots of bike sponsorship changes in the Pro road peloton. Who are the winners and the losers of the 2009 bike sponsorship challenge and who just swapped teams?

Well, the disappearance of Colnago might be the big story. They always seemed to have had multiple teams in the pro peloton and now they appear to have lost all 3 teams (Milram, Rabobank and Katusha/Tinkoff) at once. Another bike manufacturer on the outside looking in is Pinarello with their loss of Caisse d'Epargne to the French brand Look. Are these two big Italian brands now following in the foot steps of De Rosa to a more quiet life?

Canyon and Focus are some of the new players that may surprise some folks. Both these brands are German based and while Canyon has dabbled in that world before via team Unibet, Focus is completely new to the game. So in 2009 we will see Team Silence - Lotto on Canyon bikes and Team Milram on frames from Focus. Well, Milram's TT bikes are Focus by Walser, and thus Switzerland gets a bit of love here too.

Specialized jumped on a "new horse" with Team CSC - Saxo Bank when the "old horse" Team Gerolsteiner started to lame. Plus they held on to their Belgian based team Quick Step.

Scott walked away from Scott - American Beef and moved over to American Team Columbia - Omni Shade.

Here is a quick chart of all the changes we are currently aware of.