Tardy Tour Tidbits

After flying halfway across the country and driving back, and then finally getting my internet re-connected, I can throw in my 2 cents a couple days late.

1) I’m really glad the way this Tour ended. I wanted to see someone win by riding away from the competition in the mountains. Thank you, Carlos Sastre! There are lots of ways to win the Tour, and for Sastre it would mean making no mistakes for three weeks, controlling the bleeding in the time trial, and beating down the other guys in the mountains. He nailed it, and he’s the champ, deservedly.

2) About Poseur’s team evaluations…I agree for the most part. Ordinarily Columbia, with 5 stage wins, 15 days in 3 different jerseys, and a top 10 finisher, or even Gerolsteiner, with a podium finisher, the KoM champ, 2 stage wins, and 2 days in yellow would make it to the Tete de la Course, but CSC was just too freaking good. They dominated this Tour, and made it look like everything was scripted in their team bus. CSC has been great for years, and it is even more impressive that they changed their m.o. this year and thrived.

On the low end of the scale, I’d put FDJ in the Abandon category. They completely suck. I suppose Euskaltel is debatable between Autobus and Abandon. Yeah, a 7^th place finisher is nice. There were a couple days in the mountains in which they had decent finishes. I’m annoyed with this team because they are supposed to be great climbers, but they always lay an egg. They haven’t won a Tour stage since 2003, and that cyclist is now serving a doping suspension, so there is no reason to have high expectations, is there? On the other hand, they did better than Milram, Barloworld, and Lampre, didn’t they.

3. Tour de France All-Star Team

My GC men are Sastre and Evans, which is kind of obvious since they finished 1-2. I’ll take Schumacher as my time trialist, which is also obvious because he won both time trials. Naturally, the green jersey winner, Oscar Freire is on the team as a sprinter. I’ll take Mark Cavendish even though he abandoned, because it’s hard to deny a guy who wins 4 stages. I’m only picking one climber…Bernard Kohl. Really, who else earned an All-Star spot as a climber…Sastre, who’s already here.

Domestiques…I’d like to take Schumacher for riding in support of Kohl. He went on two breakaways in the Alps in the last week to prevent other teams from getting points. I thought it would burn him out, but he still had the goods for the final time trial. So, I’ll take Andy Schleck, Frank Schleck, and Jens Voigt. And why not…CSC was that good. Hector of Troy may be the breaker of horses, but Jens Voigt is the breaker of pelotons. On the stage to Hautacam it seemed like he set the pace for an hour, steadily dropping riders off the back…and he will not be getting a Christmas card from Alejandro Valverde, that’s for sure. Once he checked out, the Schleck brothers were an awesome pair of attackers who kept finding weakness, one day it was Menchov, another day it was VandeVelde. Plus, they made it look like Frank Schleck was their guy for 16 stages before Sastre took over.