The time is now for Evans

It's great news that Cadel Evans has decided to leave Silence-Lotto - not that the announcement has come as a real surprise, writes Mike Tomalaris.

It's great news that Cadel Evans has decided to leave Silence-Lotto - not that the announcement has come as a real surprise..

Evans' world championship win has definitely increased his bargaining power - that being the case he may have had no choice but to move camps after winning gold in Switzerland.

Be that as it may, he is the newly-crowned world champion and wherever he ends up, let us hope he is given the respect he duly deserves as one of the world's top pro-cyclists and that his ambition to win the Tour de France is finally realised.

The chemistry between the Australian and his Belgian based team appeared frosty, to say the least. I feel it had more to do with cultural rather than creative tensions between the Silence-Lotto captain and his teammates.

And from the moment he "lost" this year's Tour de France after the team's disastrous performance in the stage four team time-trial, the relationship had clearly broken down.

Evans must ensure this does not happen again.

Ranked number five in the world, he is now in a position to set the table for 2010, signing with a team that is ready to assemble a team of fighters who will bury themselves for him in France next July.

From where I sit covering the Tour for SBS, that hasn't necessarily been the case in the past couple of years.

Off the bike and away from the pressures of the cycling environment which consumes his season, Evans is a genuine "Mr Nice Guy". In fact, you couldn't meet a nicer more inquisitive human being.

In the times I have crossed paths with him, he's often asked about how things are in my life, which is a pleasant change in the world of sporting egos.

But I feel Evans may need to change his attitude and express some more aggression after he signs on the dotted line with his new employer.

Evans learned a lot from Robbie McEwen when the Aussie pair headed Silence-Lotto's Tour de France attack in 2007.

He now needs to take a leaf out of McEwen's book and take a more "hard headed" business approach, and show the honchos at his new team who is boss when it comes to ruling the roads to Paris.

I've got a strong feeling, 2010 may the start of a new era for a bloke who deserves all the accolades he gets.