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 20 Marseille / Marseille - Bodnar The Beast Bags Another For Bora

Stage 20 and the Tour has arrived for the penultimate stage, the 22.5km individual time trial in the famous port city of Marseille.

When I hear Marseille I hear Mediterranean which means seafood and Gabs made a beeline to the fish market to watch the ‘human spectackle’ of fishmongers and customers going about their business.

Then it was off to Le Mirimar restaurant and a demonstration of their not so secret bouillabaisse recipe. Some pastis as an aperitif and a big bowl of bouillabaisse and Gabs is in Mediterranean heaven.

The start/finish venue for the ITT was the Orange Velodrome, which started life as a velodrome and evolved into a fudball ground and is home to Olympique Marseille Fudball Club. Today, it’s been handed back to cycling and with the application of some brand new silky smooth arsefault, the Marseille stadium was transformed into the Thunderdrome.

Tommo and Macca were discussing pre-race favourites and giant chickens rolled in to the stadium behind the pair. What these chickens were doing behind the wheel of the publicity caravan is anyone’s guess.

Mattie and Robbie were warming up to call the first riders out of the start house of the penultimate stage of a “four week three week race”. Now we've heard it all, Mattie and Robbie will be a babbling mess by the time the peloton hits the Champs-Élysées.

Riders rolled out of the start house one by one and the Les Vaches Group’s darling, cow milker extraordinaire, Frederik Backaert put on a turn of pace. He’ll be keen to get back to the farm after the Tour is over, his cows must be busting for a milking by now.

It was time for the Movistars to take to the course and attention turned to the annoying plastic sleeve on the skin suit to hold the bib number. Christ, it's like watching the super sickeningly organised person in the office. Give me some rusty pins any day.

The stands were pretty full and honestly the atmosphere was so charged if a piece of paper blew into the stadium the crowd would’ve gone bananas.

Bling Matthews left the start house looking resplendent in green wearing Cadel Evans’s bib number 141. A sign from the cycling godz? Okay maybe not - it wasn’t lucky for Robbie when he wore it.

Michal Kwiatkowski put in a blistering time to finish only 1 second down on Polish compatriot Maciej Bodnar’s 28 minutes 15 seconds.

Have to hand it to Kwiatkowski, he’s left everything on the road for team mate Chris Froome this tour, a champion rider in a champion team.

Second placed in the GC Romain Bardet was hoping for a miracle to get into yellow and was spotted warming up on the trainer, wearing an ice vest, and my brain flopped out of my head at the logic of it.

Olympique Marseille had better rethink next year's range of time trial bikes.

A solid effort from Frenchman Sylvain Chavanel, although this time he wasn’t riding ahead of himself.

Alberto Contador was the only non-French rider to get a huge roar from the parochial crowd. Bertie hasn’t had a stellar Tour but found some of that El Pistolero spirit and Bertie won us over again.

A huge cheer went up for polka dot jersey wearer and Bling roomie Warren Barguil as he left the start house.

Meanwhile Rigoberto Uran was doing, "a little bit of Mick Jagger on the warm up", according to Robbie. Not sure what he meant by that, dancing? Whatever warm up music was coming out of the ear buds it sure wasn’t anything from ‘Peaceful Piano’.

Clearly there was a mad tribal fudball crowd turnout for AG2R, and as Bardet set to roll from the start house, Mattie let fly with, "Romain Bardet, the student of the sport, is about to go into the exam room". Hey, we know he’s young but not that young.

With a huge roar Bardet rolled out of the stadium and it wasn’t long before Bertie arrived to an even bigger roar.

Barguil arrived in the stadium home and did I hear a "WAAAAAARRRRREN" chant from the crowd?

Not the strongest of disciplines for Bardet, his time trial performance cost him second place and Rigoberto Uran, who has the nicest hair second to Marcel Kittel, moved up and with a handy top ten finish for the stage. Simon Yates breathed a sigh of relief and Yates you can stay in white.

Chris Froome was the final rider to go and looked like he’d been 'poured on his time trial bike' like custard. He rolled out of the stadium to some booing from the crowd. Sour grapes and disrespect toward the yellow? Nah, just some good old fashioned garden variety hostility - there'd be something terribly wrong if the French didn't boo the English.

Froome finished for a comfortable third increasingly his lead in the GC to 54 seconds over Uran. But it was Bodnar the Beast’s day and bagged a second stage win for Bora Hansgrohe.

The podium pressos got underway and what’s with La Marseillaise playing over the PA in Marseille? Did the Brisbane Lions win today?

Now that the podium positions and the jerseys are sorted there’s only the procession to Paris followed by a crit race on the Champs-Élysées to come.

And well done Bling, well done, we look forward to seeing you on the podium in Paris tomorrow.