2010 TdF All-Star Team

OK, first the easy picks for the All-Star team. Conveniently, Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck were unequivocally better than anyone else in the race, so they take the two spots for GC riders. Likewise, there is a clear drop in the quality of the sprinters after Mark Cavendish and Alessandro Petacchi. Fabian Cancellara is a no-brainer of a pick for the time trial specialist, although it's worth pointing out that Tony Martin is an honorable mention (Martin was 17 seconds behind Cancellara in the stage 19 ITT, and the next best racer was about 90 seconds behind him). The two spots for climbers go to Denis Menchov and Samuel Sanchez. There is a reason why these two were in a tight race for the last podium spot, and it's because they were consistently in the elite group of climbers. Really, no one rode past them except for Schleck and Contador--they climbed better than everyone else in the race. My first pick for a domestique is Astana's Daniel Navarro, who always looked like he was about to collapse, but was amazing setting the pace in the mountains. He repeatedly whittled the peloton down to a couple dozen or less and was almost always Contador's last teammate. I thought Contador's team would be a liability, but Navarro made sure it wasn't. My final pick is Chris Horner, the unsung hero of RadioShack. Simply put, I don't think RadioShack wins the team competition without him. The big three on his team all faded at least one day in the mountains, but he never did, and finished top 10 because of it.

Other awards:

Iron Man: Cadel Evans. I can't see him ever wearing yellow in Paris, but he dug deep to wear it well (and stay in the race another two weeks) despite having a broken arm.

Biggest surprise (for good reasons):
Alessandro Petacchi, age 35, rode over the mountains and ended up with a green jersey in Paris.

Biggest surprise (for bad reasons):
Bradley Wiggins. It seems like he wasn't in the race. At least Armstrong had a couple good stages and helped his team win. VandeVelde & Frank Schleck crashed out. Evans at least wore yellow for a day. Wiggo was a complete bust.

Mr. Free Agency: How about Robert Gesink. I don't know when his contract expires, but today he's 24. He finished 6th overall. Just maybe he's got a good future in this, but he's going to have to learn how to do a time trial.

Worst thing about this Tour: The difference had more to do with machine than the guys on the machines.

Best thing about this Tour: A two part answer--Contador is now in the pantheon of the greats as a 3-time champ, but with Schleck's improvement, the gap between the two has narrowed, so we should have some great contests between the two in the coming years.