Bernhard Eisel is about to begin the next step in his career as he links up with his former teammate Mark Cavendish at Dimension Data (formerly MTN-Qhubeka).
Eisel has had a lengthy career after turning professional in 2001 with Mapei-QuickStep alongside Fabian Cancellara and Michael Rogers. Since then, his career has taken him to some of the world's best teams, where he has helped the likes of Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins to stage wins and Grand Tour success respectively.
Cyclingnews sat down with Eisel at Dimension Data's training camp in November as he talked us through turning professional, working with Marc Madiot, and trying to save the HTC-Columbia team.
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It was the best and the biggest team in the world. When you look back, no other team won more than Mapei and back in the day they had a dream and a vision. They had a young rider group and pretty much all of them made a breakthrough and most of them are still out there racing.
I was quite a good junior and Pippo Pozzato helped me quite a lot in getting a contract at Mapei-QuickStep. I did the tests and then they said, 'we'll sign you straight away.' Giorgio Squinzi [former head of Mapei] had said that they weren't going to sign any more than 40 riders, and I was the 41st. The best part was, that I got a phone call about eight o'clock at night and they said, 'we have good and bad news for you.' The good news was that I had a two-year deal with Mapei, and the bad news was that they were meeting at nine the next morning for their first team training camp. I had to drive all the way from Austria. It was an exciting drive, even if I was a bit tired. I didn't sleep a minute that night and I slept even less when I got there.
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