These are exciting but slightly fraught weeks for all concerned with Team Sky as the clock ticks down to their Pro-Tour debut in January when the “Tour Down Under” will see them race for the first time.

Forming a Pro-Tour from scratch is a strenuous and hideously expensive business - estimates vary from between £20-40 million and if you include the one-off start up costs I would vere towwards the latter - and the toughest thing of all is pulling everything together within a given timeframe.  You are hitting deadlines every day, hour by our hour, and the pressure begins to grow inexorably.

“Even NASA had its teething problems,” concedes Team Principal Dave Brailsford with a nice sense of irony as his team aim for the stars

They have for example, at the time of writing, got no identifiable GC (General Classifaction) rider which would seem quite an omission for a team whose mission statement is to win the Tour de France within five years. Australia's highly talented Simon Gerrans might develop into just such an athlete but there is no guarantee - at present he is the sort of rider who will win his share of mountain stages on the Grand Tours without quite challenging for GC.

As most of the cycling world knows Team Sky covet Bradley Wiggins (pictured) - both as their GC rider and a charismatic 'British' team leader to help gel everything together which is another thing they lack at present. Wiggins, all things considered, would not be at all averse to joining them. 

Wiggins is contracted to Garmin for one more year however and that’s a strong hand Garmin hold when the two parties stop dancing around each other and acting all coy and negotiations start in earnest, which they will because money always talks. Reports earlier this month that Wiggins had already signed were a long way short of the mark but the 'end game' is about to be played out one way or another.  Brailsford and Garmin boss John Vauhgters are both guests at Dave Millar's wedding in Oxfordshire on Saturday, I wonder if a bucketload of champagne might lubricate the process a little?

Garmin are a popular free-booting bunch who can race serious one day and kick back the next but they are not the wealthiest team on the block so that is something to bear in mind over the coming weeks.

The joker in the pack, however, could be if Astana fail to receive their Pro-Tour license from the UCI - its not looking promising at present - which would leave Tour de France winner Alberto Contador free to join them. This year’s Tour de France winner spent much of the downtime in the peloton nattering to Garmin – well the craic wasn’t exactly great with his Astana ‘mates’ - and made it quite clear that Garmin were his sort of team.

If Contador did head for Garmin everything would fall quickly into place for Team Sky with Wiggins quickly reduced to second billing and therefore expendable, at a cost of course because Garmin would need much of that money to help sign contador's, the sport's biggest star.

If that scenario did not pan out, however, Sky would either have to break the bank or accept a very rare defeat in matters financial and hold off for another year until Wiggins goes out of contract. We will know soon enough.
 
Sky meanwhile are set to announce another tranche of eight new riders this week - they are now just two short of their full 26 strong sqaud with presumably one of those places left vacant for Wiggins.
 
It's a more than useful squad with Brailsford and his backroom team, always aware that their perfect GC rider might not emerge straight waway, taking the view that you must be able to walk before you go full tilt at the Tour de France itself. Team Sky need to be a full operating Pro-Tour team competing nine months of the year and winning races across the board and around the world before they aim for the ultimate goal. They need to establish a rock solid base camp before aiming for their sporting Everest.
 
Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen, rated number three on the UCI world ranking and proven winner of one day stage races and One day Classics, will be their star man initially along with Gerrans. Columbia owner Bob Stapleton admitted at the World Championships on Sunday that it was a real “Balls-breaker” losing Boasson Hagen to Sky.
 
Boasson Hagen is the racer most likely to kick it all off for Sky with a stage win at the Tour Down Under - he helped himself to four at the Tour of Britain recently,having won three the year before. Look out for Peter Kennaugh as well in the coming months - the 20-year-old Brit is fearless and could make a big impact on his debut at senior level while Geraint Thomas is a quite exceptional athlete who hasnt even begun to fulfil his talent on the road. Expect big things from him as well.

Brendan Gallagher covers rugby and cycling for The Daily Telegraph and also worked with Bradley Wiggins' criticially acclaimed book, In Pursuit of Glory: The Autobiography, which was released last year and is now out in paperbook. You can order it here