2006 TdF All-Star team

It's like the all-Madden team, but with bikes.

GC rider:

Floyd Landis (Phonak): If you win the yellow jersey, you’re on the All-Star team. Yeah, he popped on one day; he made up for it.

Andreas Kloden (Telekom): Pereiro ended up ahead of Kloden on GC because of a 30 minute aberration. Kloden was outstanding in the time trials and very good in the mountains. He did slip a tiny bit a couple times in the mountains, but didn’t really bonk, and he was better than Pereiro in the mountains anyway.

Time trialist:

Serhiy Gonchar (Telekom): Duh! He won both time trials. If you combine the two time trials, his closest competitor (Landis) is 2:22 behind. So, you can argue that Gonchar wins by a mile, more or less.

Climber:

Carlos Sastre (CSC): Sastre was good in the Pyrenees and better in the Alps, where he worked himself into yellow jersey contention. Sastre made a habit of attacking and dropping people in the mountains.

Michael Rasmussen: (Rabobank): Once again I feel like a tool picking the polka dot jersey guy for this spot, but whom else could it be? Rasmussen paid his dues with an all day breakaway. He stayed with the contenders on most of the other climbs and did paced his man Menchov on a few climbs too.

Sprinter:

Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto): I thought he was too old, but he was automatic. This was supposed to be a deep field and a tight race. Instead, he won three stages and won the green jersey by 89 points.

Oscar Freire, (Rabobank): The only thing to disrupt McEwen’s dominance in the first half of the Tour was Freire, and he did it twice. I hesitate to put someone who abandoned the race on the All-Star squad, but since he left to be with his wife and newborn, I’ll cut him some slack.

Domestiques—the best category:

Jens Voigt (CSC): Jens Voigt is the type of guy you want on your team, because he’ll do anything he can to the best of his ability to help the team. He won stage 13 and set up 2 teammates in stage 15. Voigt can’t climb worth squat, but he rode in front all day in the breakaway so that he could lend his wheel to Schleck, who won the stage, and Sastre, who attacked on Alp d’Huez. He finished dead last in the first time trial; it was rumored that he was saving energy for later in the race. After doing his heavy lifting in the third week he still finished 14^th in the second time trial. Voigt is cool!

Michael Boogerd (Rabobank): I thought his best days were behind him, but Boogerd was a nice surprise in this tour. It was his pace that broke up the pack of elite climbers in stage 11. After that, it seemed he was always hanging around Menchov or Rasmussen to help them out.

Best rider not mentioned: I don’t think we mentioned Haimar Zubeldia once in three weeks, but he finished 9^th. He’s the one thing Euskaltel has going. And if he cares about his career, he’ll be going too.

Best moment of the Tour: It’s got to be the Floyd Landis suicide mission of stage 17. Take your pick of the image to remember: there was his attack on the first climb, the point where he reached the last summit with a 5 minute lead, or the moment when he showed anger and defiance pumping his fist as he crossed the finish line. However you remember it, it’s a day meant for TdF lore.

Worst moment: How about several contenders being yanked before the start because of doping allegations. I’d say the worst of them was Vinokourov because he wasn’t accused; it was the fact that the accusations against his teammates caused the expulsion of his whole team.

Worst crash: Bobby Julich’s was bad, but the worst was that 3 man crash involving Mattias Kessler, David Canada, and Rick Verbrughe. Two flipped over a barricade, and the third slid across the street. One had a broken leg; one had a broken collar bone; Kessler (former Iron Man Award winner) finished the race.

Iron Man Award: Last year we awarded none, so this year, we’ll award two. Obviously there is Landis riding with a degenerative hip that will be replaced with metal pipe next month. And then there is Stuart O’Grady, who broke his back in the first week but still finished the Tour.

Best Surprise: Just who is Cyril Dessel? He got the yellow jersey for one day as the result of the breakaway, then proceeded to ride with the contenders in the mountains as though he belonged. He finally cracked on the last day in the Alps, but still rode a fine time trial to preserve a 7^th place finish (plus best Frenchman).

Biggest Disappointment: Individual—Levi Leiphiemer almost won a stage, but was terrible in the time trials. He burned himself out in the mountains through frequent attacks and fell all the way to 19 minutes back. Team—Discovery Channel. I’ll mention more about them in the team review, but they were flat.

Mr. Free Agency: Marcus Fothen lost the white jersey by less than a minute to that guy who’s already a big name because he won the Giro. So if I want to steal a rider from another team, I take this fellow who’s just 25 but rides well in the mountains and on the time trials.

Best name (aside from Thor): Joost Posthuma.