Stage 21 Montgeron / Paris Champs-Élysées - It's a Wrap

Stage 21 and can you believe it, another Tour de France done for another year? Seems like we were in Düsseldorf only three weeks ago at the start of this four week, three week bike race.

Gabs was in his element in Paris, drinking champagne and dining out at cutting edge restaurants serving art on a plate. Well, it's good for some. The closest Gabs got to an apron was nosing about in other chef's kitchens and if it wasn’t for a supply of 2 Minute Noodles and the occasional largesse of the NBC catering crew the peloton would have died of starvation.

There was a change of format for the women’s race La Course by Le Tour de France this year. It wasn’t held on the Champs-Élysées and concluded in Marseille yesterday. Annemiek van Vleuten won and what a season she's had coming back from a horrible crash at last year's Olympic Games in Brazil.

In Montgeron 167 survivors of the original 198 riders followed the big red car and at the drop of the flag the Sunday morning coffee ride was on in earnest.

Tradition dictates that there is no challenge for yellow so it was a mere formality for Froome to get to the finish line in one piece and a fourth Tour de France victory would be assured.

The run to Paris is a chance for the riders to relax, have some bubbles and for Adam Hansen to drink beer from one of his hand made shoes.

A real highlight of the stage, and indeed the whole Tour, was Cyril Gautier’s proposal to his girlfriend on worldwide television with the words ‘Caroline, do you want to marry me?’ scrawled on a torn out page of the roadbook. Robbie McEwen later confirmed Caroline said "Oui". NAWWW!!!

The riders made there way by the Seine and I swear sail boats are going faster than the peloton. Apart from the numerous speed humps, this stage looked too easy. Perhaps Christian Prudhomme could spice it up with the riders battling a giant octopus next year?

This Tour has been a great story for Aussie riders. Sure GC favourite Richie Porte crashed out but out of the nine starters, six have come home with one in green. 

Thomas Voeckler and his tongue farewelled the Tour and we will truly miss him. We hear he wants to do more TV after he retires. What a surprise.

Christian Knees was spotted joking for the umpteenth time about getting on his knees praying for a win. After three weeks of listening to this the Skybots couldn't wait for the finish. 

The peloton arrived on the Champs-Élysées to a few drops of rain - not good on the cobbled surface of the famous boulevard - for an eight lap crit race.

Bit of a scare for Warren Barguil after experiencing a mechanical. As he paced to get back to the peloton he bumped into the back of the team car and you don't want to crash out on the final stage of the Tour.

In the final sprint to the line Dylan Groenewegen edged out Andre Greipel and Edvald Boasson Hagen and for the first time since anyone can remember the Gorilla went home without a stage win.

Chris Froome arrived safely to claim his fourth Tour de France and is on his way to match the all time greats.

For the record.

Golden Fleece: Chris Froome (again)

Green: Michael 'Bling' Matthews (you little ripper)

Polka: Warren 'Wazza' Barguil (Bling's roomie)

White: Simon Yates (Yates you can like your brother)

Team: Sky (Sunweb were better bagging Green, Polka and Super-combative)

Super-combative: Wazza

Buerremetric counter: DNF

This is the final Le Wrap. I’ve given the future of this blog a lot of thought these past three wonderful weeks. Little did I realise when I put up the first post in 2013 to celebrate the 100th edition of the Tour that I’d still be going five editions later. 

It’s always been terrific fun (if at times a little daunting) putting each post together, finding the perfect photo and composing a ridiculous headline.

But it’s time to move on finishing on a high note. I want to thank you, the couch peloton, for all the support and kind comments over the years – I couldn’t do this without you!

However, I'll continue to write about cycling, I occasionally pop up on The Roar under the pseudonym Kurt Decker and I'll be still be live tweeting cycling as enthusiastically as ever as @Tete_delacourse 

Who knows what projects await – a podcast that’ll give Lance a scare? Movie deals? An action figure? My own tonight show?

Au revoir!

Stage 12 Pau / Peyragudes - Great Day For Bardet, Not So Fab For Froome

Stage 12 and the riders set out on a rainy 214 km journey through the Pyrenees. Mist over the mountains prevented flying so it became an unofficial rest day for the Tour choppers.

A twelve man breakaway including the likes of Stephen Cummings, Cyril Gautier, Diego Ulissi, Jack Bauer, Marcel Kittel and Michael Bling Matthews formed in earnest. Bling collected intermediate sprint points ahead of Kitteh but has a long way behind the man in green.

Kitteh was dropped on the category 1 Col de Menté. The Gruppetto formed through what Robbie called ‘natural selection’ as the road headed skyward and the Gorilla was spotted in the mist.

Chateaux were few and far between in this part of France with the exception of the old castle in Mauleon-Barousse which, as Mattie explained, had been destroyed and restored a number of times in its long history and was used as a prison during the French Revolution. The history lessons are enlightening but I wonder - was there anything NOT used as a prison during the French Revolution?

On the hors categorie Port de Balès Stephen Cummings was the first over the top.

The yellow jersey group commenced the descent of Port de Balès to the base of the Col de Peyresourde and Skybot Mikel Neive gatecrashed a picnic among the camping cars on a corner taking Chris Froome and Froome’s shadow Fabio Aru with him.

Controversy erupted when the rest of the yellow jersey group waited for Froome to rejoin. Keeno called it ‘driver error’ and there was no need to wait unlike for a mechanical or a crash. Now, if that was Aru in the group up the road...

Gotta wonder if Froome is a protected species, not just by his Skybots but the rest of the peloton.

So much for the unwritten rules and the unwritten rules are due for a rewrite.

And what was it with all the nature breaks? Was there beer in the bidons? The moto cameras didn’t know where to look. Robbie got sick of calling them nature breaks switching to 'comfort break'.

On the penultimate climb of the Col de Peyresourde, Cummings was still leading until caught 3 km from the summit. Hats off to Cummings, a huge effort which earned him 'the most biggest job of work' award.

In the yellow group Narrow Quintana was dropped at 11 km to go and it seems the attempt at a Giro-Tour double has taken its toll on the Colombian. Alberto Contador was looking a little more like his old self and even mustered up a bit of a Bertie dance on the pedals before eventually blowing up.

After a short descent of the Col de Peyresourde there was a short but brutal 2.4 km long climb to the finish at Peyragudes. 

Riders were "throwing out the bidons" (it's sandbags Robbie, sandbags) and Kiwi 'Curious George Bennett' attacked but was quickly pulled back by Skybot Mikel Landa who looked like he was riding for Landa, not for Froome. Froome struggled as Fabio Aru slipped into the yellow jersey on the final ramp up to the line.

But it was the twelve year old Romain Bardet who first crossed the line to claim his third Tour stage win.

On the podium Aru had a grin wider than the entrance to Luna Park as he was presented with the golden fleece.

Just when you thought the Tour was predictable the race can be turned on its head in the space of a few hundred metres. Aru only has a 6 second lead but Froome looked vulnerable - everyone waited when he was in trouble and still he lost yellow.

Stage 5 Limoges / Le Lioran - GVA FTW

After four days on flat roads, the riders got their first taste of the mountains in the Massif Central on the stage 5 216 km route from Limoges to Le Lioran.

In the Tour kitchen Gab’s prepared duck fillet with porcini mushrooms and green peppercorn sauce. Er, Gabs, I’ve run a few checks over the recipe and no butter – again. What happened to the supply from Normandy? Have you been secretly gnawing away on the butter all this time? ‘Year of the butter.’ Yeah, maybe for YOU Gabs!!!

Robbie dashed to the caravan of commentary after catching up with Tomo. Robbie described the ‘arsephalt’ surface of the road as being a bit rough.

The temperature had been steadily rising all morning and Robbie confessed that he would have liked a dip in a creek and a nanna-nap on the grass on a hot day when he was racing.

That may have been you Robbie put the nine man early breakaway wasn’t taking this stage lying down.

Andriy Grivko, Rafal Majka, Cyril Gautier, Greg Van Avermaet, Serge Pauwels, Bartosz Huzarski, Thomas De Gendt, Romain Sicard and Florian Vachon built a lead on a peloton happy to sit back while the breakies knocked themselves out. The lead bunch split again with Greg, Grivko and De Gendt taking off up the road.

At around 73 km to go GVA, Grivko and De Gendt had built a 15 minute lead and wondered if the peloton had stopped for a quick dip in the creek and a nanna-nap. It was clear the breakaway would survive but there was some tough climbing ahead.

Phil and Paul caught Robbie and Mattie at about 50km to go. Phil looked at the geography of the Massif Central and worried about the 6 million year old puys or extinct volcanoes rumbling back to life during the stage. Paul reassured Phil that, “there are ‘happy geologists’ taking a look at the plugs of extinct volcanoes.” Let’s hope they don’t pull any.

Paul was more concerned with the ‘heavy’ roads of the region slowing down the bikes. Perhaps they should have been made from lighter arsephalt?

The Skybots turn the tables on the Moviestars

At 35km to go the peloton, sensing it’d better hurry up or fall outside the cut-off time, stepped on the gas led by the Moviestars, who gave the Skybots a very Hollywood slap in the face.

Grivko couldn’t hang on to GVA and De Gendt on the climb of the Puy Mary. Back in the peloton Peter Sagan cracked and kissed goodbye to yellow as he was dropped. Sagan was still smiling for the cameras, or was he hiding a grimace?

A stage like today can be pretty tough for a sprinter and Paul noted of the climbs, “if we were in a hot air balloon we’d be throwing out the sandbags to get height”. We’ll be needing to turn off the hot air if we ever want to get back down again.

The Skybots turned the tables on the Moviestars giving them a slap or two. Meanwhile Julian Alaphilippe, (currently second in the GC standings) was, in the classic words of Paul, “fighting with his machine.”

Paul said GVA had 'a job in hand' to get the yellow jersey but he got the better of De Gendt and soloed away on the Col de Perthus. The ‘magnet of the maillot juane’ drew him ever closer to the finish. There was one tricky right hand turn that, according to Phil, if you didn’t make it you’d “go in for the full on barbecue”, but GVA went on to win the stage and slip on the golden fleece for the first time.

You could say it was a massif win for GVA, and on a sprayed BMC bike too. Previously, as Phil noted, the BMC team had ridden naked carbon.