Danny Pate on life and racing after Team Sky

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The 2016 season will mark a new chapter in Danny Pate's career, with the American rider returning to race on US soil as part of the Optum Pro Cycling Team.

After a long and successful stint in Europe, in which he rode for a trio of WorldTour squads, Pate tells Cyclingnews that he still has ambitions to make an impact on the US domestic scene and that despite entering the autumn of his career he has no intentions of slowing down.

There's a sense that Pate's last few years in Europe were laborious and in one sense of the word they were. Pate's job, whether it's been at HTC HighRoad – the team he moved to Team Sky from – or at the British team, was about selfless dedication and sacrifice. As a domestique who rides on the flat and in the mountains it's was Pate's job to deliver his team leader into the best position possible before the race finale. Pate was racing a race within a race, only his one would effectively come to an end just as the real race was starting.

"I'm hoping that it's going to seem totally fresh. I know it's going to be a totally different team to Team Sky, I mean it couldn't be a more radical change if you compare the two teams. In some ways it's going to be more comfortable, in that things will be more relaxed on Optum but in other ways there will be more challenges. I'm hoping its' going to be more fun. You can have all different conversations about how the two teams contrast but I think that's the type of change I needed."