2015 has seen a few riders break their contracts to do something else. Carlos Betancur recently terminated his contract to find a new team, Gert Steegmans and Kevin De Weert to retire immediately. Steve Chainel has terminated his Cofidis contract to form his own cyclocross team.

The Frenchman began his cycling career in cross in 2000 and has always maintained his love for the discipline, even if he has focussed solely on the road the last few seasons.

"With my new cyclocross team I have the ambition to go in the long run as far as, say, Sunweb, BKCP or Vastgoedservice”, Chainel told veldritkrant.be.

The new team will be called Cross Team by G4 as, "G4 is our clothing supplier. In addition, I wanted to name something international sounding.”

His main purpose is to attract French ‘cross riders to a French team. “Why, for example does (‘cross world champion) Pauline Ferrand-Prevot ride for a Dutch team? There is simply no French top team for ‘crossers."

In his road career, Chainel rode for most of the big French teams: Cofidis, AG2R, FDJ and a previous version of Europcar. The 31 year old took a stage and the overall in the 2008 Circuit de Lorraine and stage one of the Three Days of De Panne in 2010.