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.

Team Review

As we do every year, the Team Review is broken into several groups: Tete la course, poursuivants, peloton, autobus, and abandon. Listed after each team is the top placed rider, how much prize money they won, and the jerseys won). Really, this Tour was dominated by one team and one team only, so ahead of the course, there is:

TETE LA COURSE
Team CSC (Sastre 1st place ---, 621,210 Euros, Won Yellow Jersey, Won White Jersey, Won Team Competition, 2 Stage wins, 7 days in Yellow, 7 in White)

What a haul. They won the Yellow with Sastre. Andy Schleck won the White. They won the Team competition. They earned nearly 400,000 more Euros than the second best prize money haul. They dominated the peloton and ended up dominating the podium in Paris. They crushed the rest of the field.

POURSUIVANTS
Team Columbia (Kirchen 8th +7:02, 113,450 Euros, 5 Stage wins, 4 days in Yellow, 6 in Green, 5 in White)
Give the old T-Mobile team credit. They actually looked like a team this year, even though they lacked the big stars of yesteryear. Kirchen was the story of the first week, and he was one of the more unique riders we’ve seen in years as he attempted to contest in both the GC and the points classification. Cavendish won stages by the boatload. They ended up fading a bit in the last week, but Columbia had about as good of a Tour as possible without having a GC contender.

Gerolsteiner (Kohl 3rd +1:20, 192,370 Euros, Won Climber’s Jersey, 2 Stage wins, 2 days in Yellow, 10 days in Dots)
Kohl was the revelation of this Tour. It’s an open question how much of his success in the polka dots was a result of Ricco and Saunier Duval exiting stage left, but he did look like the strongest climber throughout the Tour. What a novel concept, the best climber actually winning the climber’s jersey.

Rabobank (Menchov 4th +2:00, 154,250 Euros, Won Green Jersey, 1 Stage win, 13 days in Green)
Menchov’s fourth place felt rather non-threatening despite only being two minutes out. Oscar Freire won the Green, but I don’t think we’re walking away from this thinking he’s a dominant sprinter. He just won through consistency, which isn’t awe-inspiring, but it is impressive in its own right.

PELOTON
Silence-Lotto (Evans 2nd +0:58, 233,450 Euros, 5 days in Yellow)
I’m not sure how they racked up this much in prize money with just five days in Yellow. I’m tempted to bump them up a slot for their money haul, but this Tour just felt like a failure. Evans was given almost no support by his team, and in the end, he fell short in a course practically tailor made for his victory because everyone attacked him at will. Then again, 2nd place is 2nd place.

Banesto (Valverde 9th +7:26, 59,510 Euros, 2 Stage wins, 2 days in Yellow, 1 day in Green)
Valverde’s disappointing early crack pretty much destroyed their entire purpose. By week three, this was an aimless team derailed by one really bad day. It started so promising in the early days, but it all came apart. They rode well, but ultimately, this Tour was a disappointment.

Cofidis (Moinard 15th +23:31, 91,460 Euros, 2 Stage Wins, Most Aggressive Rider, 1 day in Dots)
The Most Aggressive Rider award for Chavanel is sort of the unofficial “let’s make sure the French win something” award. But he really did spend a good portion of this Tour attacking and his stage win was well-deserved. Cofidis, once again, was a solid peloton team that aspired to minor goals and achieved them.

Credit Agricole (Botcharov 18th +27:18, 55,450 Euros, 2 Stage wins, 1 day in Green)
THOR! Let me down. He never was able to really compete with Freire for the Green and went down meekly. The competition never developed. He finished 3rd overall in the points competition but was not a threat. But two stage wins are two stage wins, even if one was kind of cheeky.

Liquigas (Kreuziger 13th +12:49, 49,220 Euros, 4 days in White)
They had two of the top three in the young rider’s competition, and Kreuziger and Nibali pressured the leaders throughout. They both finished top 20 overall. OK, they didn’t manage to win a whole lot, but they made a good show of things, which is enough to put them in the group of those that had a solid Tour.

Garmin Chipotle (VandeVelde 5th, +3:12, 82,570 Euros)
The Burrito Boys didn’t snag any prizes, but VandeVelde’s fifth place is a tremendous accomplishment. They had a Tour of coming up just short, but they are the standard bearers of clean cycling and they showed they were a legit threat. For a first time team, this was a great Tour. But more will be expected in the future.

Ag2r (Valjavec 10th +9:12, 71,060 Euros, 1 Stage win)
Hey, they won a stage. And Valjavec was usually among the last riders dropped, normally hanging around the Yellow Jersey group on the major climbing stages. They even finished eighth in prize money. A solid, if unspectacular Tour.

AUTOBUS
Quick Step (Carrara 36th +1:09:25, 31,470 Euros, 1 Stage win)
Steegmans winning the final sprint in Paris gave them something to celebrate. But in the grand scheme, it elevated their Tour performance from dreadful to just below average. They were an almost total non-factor.

Agributel (Gonzalo 39th +1:20:06, 32,450 Euros, 1 day in Yellow, 1 day in White)
Feillu did wear the Yellow Jersey after Stage 3, so there’s that. He ended up abandoning. That’s Agributel’s Tour in miniature.

Bogus Telecom (Fedrigo 32nd +50:19, 24,900 Euros, 5 days in Dots)
Thank goodness for Thomas Voeckler. It’s always nice to see him in a jersey. However, holding onto the dots before hitting any mountains isn’t exactly a huge accomplishment.

Euskatel (Sanchez 7th +6:32, 53,130 Euros)
Probably the best team to never win anything. It seems to be a trend for the Basque team. Have a top ten rider, ride fairly well in the mountains, and at the end of the Tour, have nothing to show for the effort. Would it kill them to win one measly stage?

FDJ (Casar 14th +19:23, 45,780 Euros)
Casar turned in his traditional noble effort. He seems ill-suited to be a team captain, but he really could help a team as a lieutenant. Really, what’s the point of showing up every year to just try and finish top 20?

ABANDON
Milram (Zabel 43rd +1:26:54, 35,490 Euros)
Zabel finished second in the Green Jersey somehow. But when an aging sprinter who hasn’t won a stage in half a decade is your top placed rider in the GC… well, you’ve had a lousy Tour.

Barloworld (Augustyn 48th +1:36:21, 22,480 Euros)
They barely finished with a team. Soler broke his wrist on one of the first stages and things did not improve from there. The less said about their misery, the better.

Lampre (Szmyd 26th +44:43, 9.480 Euros)
Look at that. No stage wins. No jerseys. Less than 10,000 in prize money. Barloworld was the second least successful team, and barely made the finish line, and even they doubled Lampre’s haul. Ouch.