Smiling into the cameras and dedicating his victory to his late mother, Zoom-Zoom Froome collected his final yellow jersey — and then the gendarmes leapt upon him, pinioning his arms and forcing him into a brisk perp-walk toward a jet-black Citroen 2CV, which whisked him away to a windowless concrete bunker where. …
Naw. Nothing like that happened. The Big Three duked it out at the line and Mad Manx found himself staring up the heavily muscled arses of a couple really fast Krauts. Not for the last time, either.
Meanwhile, Zoom-Zoom pissed away nearly a minute coasting home on the Champs-Élysées but still won the 100th Tour de France by 4:20 (ahem) over Nairo “That Creep Can Roll” Quintana, who must buy his kit in the Junior Girls section. Joaquim “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em” Rodriguez finished third overall, 5:04 down, and was already talking about bringing some fresh pain at the Vuelta.
I don’t know how the big finish looked on TV, but it looked pretty feeble on an iMac, I can tell you that. Pro journos in attendance who shall remain anonymous were deploying phrases like “complete and total clusterfuck,” “totally overrun with VIPs and cellphones,” and “they turned the Arc de Triomphe into a video game that no one could understand.”
And the game has only just begun. Zoom-Zoom is all of 28 years old. Says St. Eddy: “I don’t see who can beat him in the coming years, unless Quintana significantly improves his time trialing.”
Mad Blog Media 
CBF even flipping the remote to watch so I also played it out in the mind’s eye: Just as the bubbling cat-piss gets decanted into those weird-looking flutes O’Grady and Jens Voigt scoot off down the road on a mad two man break, chased by The Jesus who gets blown off the road by a crosswind, never to be seen again. On the podium they drop the bib and brace and present Pat McQuaid with the full-moon salute.
We can always dream, eh?
Which O’Grady?
I couldn’t hang on Jensie’s wheel if I were riding a Harley Fat Boy.
I doubt a 2CV could whisk anyone anywhere, except off a cliff.
They’re wonderfully ugly, though. Just like bicycle racing. And I love the way it sounds: See-train doo-shuh-veaux.
I haven’t been watching did Lance win again?
Who?
Well I liked it. The light show on the Arc de Triomphe worked for me. Could perhaps have done without some of the smugness from le Grande Froomage but otherwise an fine conclusion to the best Tour for some years.
I found myself developing a sneaking admiration for Super Spaniard, who kept trying until rolling that big ol’ rock uphill just became ridiculous and then took the beating like a man. Good on ‘im.
St. Eddy needs to remember what they said about “Kaiser Jan” after his first (wait a minute….ONLY) TdF victory. They haven’t even finished the dope testing yet. Unless you’re a Brit I doubt this edition of Le Beeg Shew will go down in history as anything special other than it was the 100th time they’ve run it.
Now all those who pay attention to bike racing only in July can go back to sleep..illustrated by the LUG poll showing this year’s Tour as more exciting than the Giro? Really?
There were moments. Tejay van Garderen going for it on L’Alpe d’Huez only to get caught at the end. Jens Voigt showing up the young pups in his final Tour. Marcel Kittel winning four stages. Nairo Quintana grabbing a stage, polka dots and white … at age 23. Peter Sagan and the Cannondale boys turning up in green clown wigs at the final sign-in (and Sagan himself with his beard dyed green).
I’d have liked a little less dominance in the fight for yellow, but there was other stuff to watch.
Was already impressed with Kittel. Watching him dodge Henderson and others takes it up another notch.
Wait a minute. I thought CLEVELAND was the city of light.
That’s what Randy Newman called it, anyway.
John, I’ll try to remember to be “the other john” from now on. There are a lot of us, as any successful streetwalker will attest.
I really don’t know how a video snuck onto my comment, but I apologize anyway.
Let me comment on the comments for a second. Not specifically here, but from multiple sources.
Fan consensus seems to be, boring Tour. And most folks’ beef is that Sky/Froomey are looking too Postal. Dude can time trial for sure, and is a top 2% climber. Add in the best team money can buy, and we’re looking at black and blue Rapha stripes on the podium for the next five years, yeah?
As Lee Corso would say, not so fast …
First of all, Sky is good, but not without their weaknesses. We saw Froome isolated at the end too many times.
Second, Froome can definitely climb, but so can some other guys. His stage wins came when his team launched him all the way to the final pitch. But Stage 20 showed what can happen when he’s duking it out mano e mano, hand to hand, without extra weapons.
Third, look at the young pups in the race right now. Quintana has me totally psyched, I’m hoping another Pantani minus the coke and pathos. Rodriguez is going to win a couple along the way. And those two American kids now both have top 10 finishes. (Teejay and Telansky — sounds like a ’70s buddy cop sitcom.)
Sky might go Postal on us. And I don’t think ’12 and ’13 highlight DVDs are going to break sales records anywhere outside of the UK. But there’s no reason to assume the next five are just more of the same.
Final: How about NBC Sports decision to train their robo-cam on Cav and the Gorilla while Kittel ran away with it safely out of the frame?
Cameraman on a motorcycle. Maybe the robo-cam wouldn’t work in near darkness. As it was, the speed plus lack of available light made for a very grainy image. That’s all French tv camera work, isn’t it?
I enjoyed the Corsica stages that enlivened the first week, the most interesting ITTs, especially not having an ITT on the last Saturday. I hope they continue that. I enjoyed this tour more than most TdFs. Usually I enjoy the Giro more, but the weather really ruined a few stages.