Wellens rises to the top though downpour at yet another supeb race in Montréal

The rain came early and it came often but for those who braved it--and there was more than you'd imagine--they were treated to one of the best races of the year on one of the toughest courses of the year in what some riders described afterwards as the hardest race they had ever been in.

In the end, Tim Wellens won but not before half the field, or so it seemed, had a crack at getting into the break and it wasn't until about 80km left of the 205.7km race that one finally established and lasted beyond a couple of laps of the 12.1km circuit in Montréal. The move contained Thomas Voeckler, Louis Vervaeke (who was in the day-long break last year) and Manuel Quinziato and was launched moments after Michal Kwiatkowski had been pulled back by a large group that contained the likes of Romain Bardet, Warren Barguil and Jakob Fuglsang among several others and that had survived for a handful of laps building a lead of more than one minute at one stage. That group however, like the half a dozen moves before it, was eventually swallowed up by a peloton in panic at the kind of names trying to get away and the brief lull allowed the Voeckler group to establish itself.

The rain eased after the first five or six laps, even allowing the sun to crack through briefly, but the racing rarely abated and the quick start and constant attacks over those early laps soon seen the field splitting up with a large group distanced from the main bunch on that testing 1.8km climb at an average gradient of 8%. It may not seem like much, but when you tackle it 17 times as they did in this race, it quickly becomes a true weeding out process as tiring legs begin to struggle to stay with the pace each time up.

The weather no doubt played its part in the number of abandonment's and by the time the skies opened and the thunder rolled with three laps to go for the heaviest downpour of the lot, the field was down to just 64 of the 167 starters (minus Sky's Bernard Eisel who broke his arm at the Quebec race two days before). And with just a lap to go the break that now also continued Andriy Grivko, having bridged across when he left behind Chris Juul Jensen--himself active in a handful of moves in the early going--was finally reeled in as counter attacks on the last run up the climb gave us our final selection for victory.

The race was wide open to a dozen high profile names but from the move emerged Wellens and Adam Yates and they maintained it to the finish. Not that those of us waiting at the finish knew. The storm that was passing over had cut the local feed to the big screens and word of mouth via those with access to Twitter kept those around them informed of what moves were being made. By the time they splashed under the 1km kite, revealing themselves to those waiting directly opposite at the start/finish line, on their way down to the hair-pin bend for the final time, it was Yates on the wheel of Wellens with a select group of about 12 a handful of seconds behind and what was left of the main field a few seconds behind that. Out of the turn and up through the feed zone Yates ended the game of cat and mouse that threatened their catch when he made the first move, but Wellens countered and took the sprint with relative ease. Rui Costa, previous winner here and perennial podium man who came second last year, came home third this time as the rain tailed off.

Wilco Kelderman, Bardet, Robert Gesink, Philippe Gilbert and Kwiatkowski, who had all tried to force the issue on the final run up the Mount Royale, finished within a handful of seconds of Wellens and in doing so highlighted their intentions and form for the upcoming World Championships. The elite men's road-race championship takes place two weeks after this race and it remains one of the ideal preparation races for it.

The team of the day was no doubt Lotto Soudal and not just because of Wellens's victory. They were also the only team in which all eight men finished the race, especially impressive given the course and the conditions, and their young star, Louis Vervaeke, aged just 21, was rewarded for his long stint in the break by winning the climbing prize.

This Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal never fails to deliver and on the three occasions I have went up to it over the last three years, I've only ever seen good racing. What makes it so brilliant is the fact it is on a circuit. To those watching on TV, that isn't always the greatest way to watch a race when you prefer to see them cover great lateral distances through towns and countrysides, but for the fans that turn out to watch, it's probably the best form of racing.

17 laps of a 12.1km course taking the winner over 5 hours means that you see action all day. You don't stand around waiting for the race to flash past and then head home again, but rather wait less than 20 minutes for it to come through each time while moving around various points on the course to experience different aspects of the race. And it's not too short either to have that feel of a crit, but long enough for plenty to take place within a lap with plenty to challenge a rider on a single lap. Frequently on Sunday we seen breaks go more than half a minute clear, but be caught and a new move launched all within the space of a single lap.

While you don't see what all goes on around the back of the course, it passes you by enough for you to get an idea of what is going on and get the sense that you are watching the entire race develop before you, long before the TV pictures would go live around the world. And this year highlighted that better than ever with attacking all day long in a race that had dozens of pontential contenders.

Post race, Julian Alaphilippe described it on Twitter as "one of the most difficult races of the season", while Lotto Soudal's Greg Henderson celebrated his teams fine performance but called it the "hardest bike race ever", on his Twitter feed.

And yet despite its difficulty, along with the Friday race up in Quebec City, the riders who come across to be a part of it, find it one of the best of the year. The hotel accommodation is as good as they get during the season, and the circuits are unique and challenging. As a one-day race with a World Tour rating, it attracts a strong field of classic type riders and remains arguably the best preparation race for the World Championships. It's just a shame it overlaps with the final weekend of the Vuelta.

I know I'll be back next year, though I hope the rain isn't, and I still retain ambitions of one day taking in the Quebec City race as well on a long-weekend road trip.

Result:

1. Tim Wellens 2. Adam Yates 3. Rui Costa 4. Jan Bakelants 5. Tiesj Benoot 6. Wilco Kelderman 7. Romain Bardet 8. Robert Gesink 9. Philippe Gilbert 10. Tom Jelte Slagter Others: 12. Michal Kwiatkowski 23. Michael Woods 35. Chris Juul Jensen 47. Thomas Voeckler 52. Louis Vervaeke

(TLS) (OGE) (LAM) (ALM) (TLS) (TLJ) (ALM) (TLJ) (BMC) (TCG) (EQS) (CAN) (TSC) (EUC) (TLS)

in 5h 20' 9" s.t. @ 2" @ 4" s.t. @ 5" s.t. @ 9" all s.t. @ 9" @ 15" @ 1' 18" @ 4' 59" @ 6' 41"

A ridge too far for Dumoulin as Aru snatches victory with team assault on the loan Dutchman

Tom Dumoulin had fought them off for 16 hard stages until he reached the only individual-time-trial of this years Vuelta, at which time he finally turned the tables in his specialised event and seized the Red jersey with four stages to spare. He even doubled his lead from a mere 3 seconds to 6 seconds a few days later and it looked like maybe he had just done enough with just one day and four mountains left to survive. But then the wheels came off. The climb up the Puerto de la Morcuera proved to be a ridge too far for the Dutchman as his legs finally gave in to the relentless pressure and Aru was free to ride off and win the Vuelta.

Dumoulin had cracked, born a generation too late from a time when two long time-trial might have been the norm and would have seen him win here with ease. Indeed, he picked one of the hardest Vuelta's with regards to climbing in recent memory to stake his claim to win it and the way he went about it was admirable. If only they'd finished the hilly stuff a day before, or indeed on the climb before. If only indeed. By the time all was said and done on the stage won by Ruben Plaza after a brilliant 112km solo ride, Dumoulin had lost 3min 52sec to Aru and slumped right down into 6th overall.

I had felt that having survived the short climb up to the finish of stage 19, and even gained time on Aru, that he had done enough. That with the final of the four climbs on stage 20 coming 20km from the finish, Dumoulin would be able to time-trial back on again even if he were dropped. That we had seen throughout this Vuelta a man able to measure his efforts perfectly, to ignore the gaps the climbers got on him and instead pace himself to the finish without going into the red zone and without losing major time as a result. As it turns out, there is no way to survive it when you're one man against a team and your legs finally call it quits.

Dumoulin came into this Vuelta on a Giant-Alpecin team that never held general classification success as its aim and as a result never sent riders that could aid in going for the Vuelta victory. The upshot of that was Dumoulin, who suddenly found himself in the form of his life and very much in contention throughout, being left isolated by teams loaded with climbers. He had fought them off superbly but on this day, Aru's Astana team played it perfectly.

They put men in the early break, men that then sat up to wait for Aru and help pace him once he had cracked Dumoulin. This gave Aru strength in numbers to survive in the valley between the third climb in which he had cracked Dumoulin and the final climb from which he could then put further time into him. Dumoulin got close to getting across to Aru's group in that valley leading to the Puerto de Cotos, but those extra Astana legs ensured he never got close enough and ensured Aru hit the final climb clear of Dumoulin and could ride on to take the Red jersey on what was his final chance.

Cycling is an individual sport inside a team setting, and vise-versa. Only one man stands on the top of the podium wearing the race leaders jersey come the finish and you must have the legs, the lungs, the talent and the skill to begin with otherwise no team will make a difference, but without that team to set you up, to look after you, to play the tactical game, its virtually impossible to succeed over a three week race. It's why Aru will, as tradition dictates, split his prize money amongst his team-mates. And never has the importance of those men around you been better highlighted than in this stage.

Dumoulin may have been beaten here, but he won't go away anytime soon. He has proven his new found ability to compete over three weeks and you can be sure his team, if they wish to retain him long term, will need to provide him with more suitable support for mountain type stages in the future. He too will know his new capabilities and will surely tailor his training even more specifically towards achieving Grand Tour success. Had he, and his team, known three weeks ago that he could go this far in Spain he'd likely be going home the champion.

I hear that next years Giro might well have two individual-time-trials and if that is the case, Mr. Dumoulin will surely have a new target. Of course, his rivals will now be aware of him from the start. They will no longer ride the first week assuming he will crack in the second and not become a risk to their hopes of success. A new contender has certainly emerged.

But lets save the last word for Aru, the man who won. In what looked like being the closest Grand Tour of all time just two days from Madrid, the Italian ended up winning by a convincing 57sec from Joaqium Rodriguez and 1min 9sec from Rafal Majka. Nairo Quintana eventually came home 4th but a man clealy not fully recovered from his efforts at the Tour.

Aru though had targeted this Vuelta and was justly rewarded for his efforts. I don't know a lot about him personally but Aru comes across as a humble and quiet man. What I do know of him on the bike it's clear he has talent and at the age of 25 surely has more similar success ahead of him. Hailing from the Italian island of Sardinia, his career path is reminiscent to that of a man from the other big Italian island of Sicily: Vincenzo Nibli, his Astana team-mate. His first Grand Tour win also came at age of 25 and it also came at the Vuelta following a podium at that years Giro.

Next year both Aru and Nibali will battle for Astana team-leadership with the younger Italian having now proved himself a winner and surely setting his sights upon Giro success of a first crack at Le Tour, while Dumoulin will go off in search of team-mates that can support him in the high mountains. Until then, the Italian will celebrate a fine win while the Dutchman will lick his wounds and think about coming back stronger.

Final general classification:

1. Fabio Aru 2. Joaqium Rodriguez 3. Rafal Majka 4. Nairo Quintana 5. Esteban Chaves 6. Tom Dumoulin 7. Alejandro Valverde 8. Mikel Nieve 9. Daniel Moreno 10. Louis Meintjes

(AST) (KAT) (TSC) (MOV) (OGE) (TGA) (MOV) (SKY) (KAT) (MTN)

in 85h 36' 13" @ 57" @ 1' 9" @ 1' 42" @ 3' 10" @ 3' 46" @ 6' 47" @ 7' 6" @ 7' 12" @ 10' 26"

GPCQM preview: 10 to watch plus predictions!

Today the first of the two World Tour races in Quebec, Canada get under way in Québec City with the second race on Sunday in Montreal. This will be the 6th running of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec et Montreal (GPCQM) and it's become a big hit with the locals as well as the riders themselves.

A number of riders have spent the past two days posting pictures on their respective social media accounts showing the castle like hotel they have been staying at in Québec City, clearly a level up from what they are used to at many events. I've never been to the Québec City race, though the city looks beautiful with the race going right through the middle of the old part of the city, with a lot of fans at the sides of the road. I really must make the trip to do the double header sometime rather than just the Montréal race. The idea of sitting on one of the patios of those street side pubs watching the race go by all afternoon is very appealing indeed!

This weekend though I will head up to Montréal for the third straight year to watch the race. It's as tough a one-day non-Monument World Tour race that there is: 17 laps of a 12.1km course in which they go up and over the 1.8km Côte Camilien-Houde with an average gradient of 8%, and the 780m, 6% Côte de la Polytechnique each time for a total distance of 205.7km and elevation of 3,893m. And the Québec race isn't a lot easier with 16 laps of a 12.6km circuit for 201.6km of racing and 2,976m of climbing.

Both races are also superb tune-up events ahead of the World Championships with the Montréal race coming exactly two weeks before the road-race this year in Richmond and there are a number of riders who will hope to win the championships who will also take part this weekend. Below are ten names to look out for that should make an impact in one way or another.

#1 Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-Quick Step)
The reigning World Champion will have the rainbow colours on full display in Quebec and both courses are ideally suited to him. He could win on either day or indeed do what Simon Gerrans did last year and win on both. Gerrans for the record is not riding in Quebec this year.

#2 Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-Quick Step)
The Quick Step team have an extremely strong line-up and while Kwiatkowski will lead, they will have other cards to play should things not work out for the Pole. One of those is Alaphilippe who has had a breakout year this season. 2nd in both La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège as well as 2nd overall at the Tour of California, the circuits here, especially Montréal, look made for the Frenchman.

#61 Philippe Gilbert (BMC)
Always a threat on these kind of courses, especially when he's lining up a bid for the World Championships. We all know about his haul of victories in 2011 but Gilbert has had a solid 2015 winning two stages of the Giro and taking 2nd a the Clásica de San Sebastián. And he has history in Québec, a course ideally suited to his style, having won it in 2011.

#77 Adam Yates (Orica GreenEDGE)
I always get Adam and his twin brother Simon mixed up. Both are fine riders though I think the climbing in Montréal might suit the likes of Adam more and he's coming in with good form by coming 2nd in the Tour of Alberta and winning the climbing classification.

#81 Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale)
6th at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, not to mention his stage win and 9th overall at Le Tour and contention for the King of the Mountains, Bardet is a superb young talent who seems to enjoy the one-day events as well as the big Tours. A superb descender, Bardet might like the run-in at Montréal.

#88 Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R La Mondiale)
Team-mate of Bardet, Vuillermoz may be even more suited to either race in Québec or Montréal. The former mountain biker has had a breakout season on the road this year when he won the 8th stage of the Tour de France up the Mûr-de-Bretagne and was 3rd on the stage up the Mur de Huy. Neither race in Canada will finish on such a climb but there are the kind of climbs he will enjoy.

#101 Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida)
Costa likes these races. He won the Montréal event in 2011 and has finished in the top ten of both on six occasions including a 2nd in Montréal in 2014. He won the World Championship in 2013 after finishing 5th and 6th in Québec and Montréal respectively and will be hoping for a similar such performance ahead of Richmond 2015 this time around.

#121 Bauke Mollema (Trek Factory Racing)
After finishing 9th overall at the Tour de France, Mollema came to Canada and won the Tour of Alberta so he's in superb form and has mentioned that he is targeting a win in Quebec before heading to Richmond to play a helping roll for the Dutch team. His form has rarely been better so expect him to feature prominently this weekend.

#141 Ryder Hesjedal (Cannondale-Garmin)
The home-country hero, Hesjedal has said he is coming to Québec and Montréal to try and win. It's likely his last big race of the season and given he is leaving his Connondale-Garmin team at the end of the season he will be looking to go out on a high. He used the Tour of Alberta as a good tune-up and will look to give the Canadian fans something to shout about like in Montréal 2013 when he made a late bid to win only for Sagan to come out on top.

#151 Robert Gesink (Lotto NL-Jumbo)
The Dutchman is taking these two races very seriously indeed, and why not, other than Simon Gerrans he's the only man to have won both races before (2010 in Montréal, 2013 in Québec City - his last World Tour victory). He has also finished 2nd (2011) and 3rd (2012) in Québec and this year he's been in the Québec City area longer than any other rider, training and getting ready for what he hopes will be further success.

One local rider to look out for...
#208 Mike Woods (Team Canada)
Woods is from Ottawa, just 90 minutes up the road from Montréal and will be hoping to build on his superb form of late after having signed a contract for next season with Cannondale-Garmin. Woods is a late arrival to cycling; a promising middle-distance runner he had his career cut short by injury before turning to the bike and only becoming a professional at the age of 25 in 2013. Since then he has gone from strength to strength, and this year he finished 2nd at the Tour of Utah (with a stage win) and 10th at the Tour of Alberta (best Canadian). He won't win this weekend, but he could feature in a break or indeed on the climbs in the final laps when the action really kicks off.

Past winners:

Year	Québec City	Montréal
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014	Thomas Voeckler Philippe Gilbert Simon Gerrans Robert Gesink Simon Gerrans	Robert Gesink Rui Costa Lars Petter Nordhaug Peter Sagan Simon Gerrans

Predictions:
Québec: 1. Julian Alaphilippe, 2. Philippe Gilbert, 3. Alexis Vuillermoz.
Montréal: 1. Robert Gesink, 2. Ryder Hesjedal, 3. Rui Costa.

Roche no longer in the shadow of his father...Dumoulin fends off Aru's attacks

Nicolas Roche, often mentioned as the son of Stephen Roche though with comparisons rarely drawn anymore, done something his father never did yesterday...win a stage of the Vuelta, for the second time. Stephen only rode the Vuelta once in 1992 and never won a stage whereas Nicolas is taking part for the sixth time and yesterday escaped from the large break with Haimar Zubeldia and then out sprinted the veteran Trek Factory rider to win Sky's first stage of this years race.

Roche has carved out a fine career of his own after those early days when comparisons would be drawn with his dad and expectations to repeat his fathers achievements were rife. While Nicolas is never likely to win Grand Tours like his dad, he has become a very good team player and the road captain for Team Sky. And it's easy to forget he's now a 31 year old veteran himself -- four years older now than his dad was when he completed that Giro, Tour, Worlds triple crown -- and riding better than ever. Indeed he has now started the same number of Grand Tours as his dad ever did and, assuming he makes Madrid this Sunday, will have completed all 15 of them to Stephens 12.

There was no change in the GC battle as the final climb came too far out from the finish to make a massive impact. That didn't stop Aru trying however as he launched a number of searing attacks but found Tom Dumoulin in the red jersey stuck to his rear wheel.

Whether these attacks were meant to test the legs of Dumoulin in the hops of cracking him or just to soften him up for the days ahead, I'm not sure, but even had Aru opened a gap it's unlikely he would have sustained it to the line given 12km remained when the crossed the summit. Tomorrow's 2nd cat. climb tops out even further from the finish so dropping Dumoulin there would only see the Dutchman time-trial back onto Aru assuming he retained his composure upon being dropped as he has each time the little climbers have attacked thus far at this Vuelta.

There is however a punchy little cobbled climb up into the walled city of Ávila at the finish and that could allow for a handful of seconds to be gained. Dumoulin will have to be at his absolute strongest and keep his wits about him also not to allow any gaps to appear. In an ideal world for him he'll remain glued to the rear of Aru and a large break of riders up the road will contest the stage and the time bonuses.

That said, I still expect Aru to try something on the Alto de la Paramera given the desperation we seen creep in yesterday, and why not? He's got nothing to lose now. It's it funny though that it has taken this desperation for Aru to gain three seconds or others to gain time for a podium placing to finally see them launch early and daring attacks. In the stages before the time-trial the majority of summit finishes were being fought out in the final couple of kilometres as each man tried to gain seconds without taking the risk of collapse by going for it too far out. They were aware they had to take time on Dumoulin, but they were too worried about being counter attacked by other climbers and the result only favoured Dumoulin and has left the rest now desperate to attack.

It's made this Vuelta a fascinating tactical battle and one in which Dumoulin has played perfectly. Can his legs continue to allow him to do so? We'll have to see today and tomorrow but he can no longer afford to limit his loses, he must react to every move Aru makes and keep it tight.

Dumoulin smashes TT while Aru finishes strong to remain intact

Slowly the weeding out process of this years Vuelta has seen us left with three likely winners coming into today. Joaqium Rodriguez, Fabio Aru and Tom Dumoulin, all three of whom have had their turn in Red over the past two and a half weeks. Today's time-trial would shake things up further and reduce the likely competition to win overall to just two and in doing so it turned into a micro-version of the race itself with each man taking a turn as provisional race leader on the road until at which times the overall standings were turned on their head with Tom Dumoulin back in Red with just 3sec to spare on the impressive Aru.

No two ways about it, Dumoulin smashed the 38.7km time-trial in impressive fashion, averaging a speed of over 50 km/h to win the stage by more than a minute to the next man and overturn a 1min 52sec deficit to take back the race leaders jersey. Credit too must go to Aru who himself done exactly what Dumoulin has done best in the mountains by limiting his losses enough to remain in touch with the Dutchman overall, while Rodriguez had a disaster and coughed up over 3mins to the stage winner leave him 1min 15sec out of the race lead.

The overall standings were as follows coming into the stage, meaning that Dumoulin had it all to do in his specialty event while Rodriguez and Aru were looking for the time-trial of their lives to remain in contact.

Pre-stage GC:
1. Rodriguez 2. Aru 3. Majka 4. Dumoulin 5. Nieve 6. Chaves	@ 1" @ 1' 35" @ 1' 51" @ 2' 32" @ 2' 38"

By the 13.5km mark, or one-third of the course in, Dumoulin was already stamping his authority on the stage. Riding like a man possessed, or with a Red jersey in front of his nostrils, he posted a time of 17min 44sec (45.7km/h) which was 44sec better than that of Aru and 1min 11sec up on Rodriguez who was clearly struggling and already out of the race lead. It shifted the provisional overall to the following:

Provisional GC:
1. Aru 2. Rodriguez 3. Dumoulin 4. Majka 5. Chaves 6. Moreno	@ 26" @ 1' 6" @ 1' 50" @ 2' 48" @ 3' 3"

By the time they reached the 27.5km check point, Dumoulin (in a time of 31min 41sec, 52.1km/h) had his foot on the throat of both Aru and Rodriguez. Aru had coughed up 1min 44sec and only retained the provisional lead over Dumoulin by 6sec while Rodriguez had lost a massive 2min 38sec.

Provisional GC:
1. Aru 2. Dumoulin 3. Rodriguez 4. Majka 5. Quintana 6. Chaves	@ 6" @ 53" @ 1' 55" @ 2' 54" @ 3' 1"

With 11.2km still remaining, if the time losses kept going at the rate they were with Aru losing 3.75sec/km and Rodriguez losing 5.75sec/km to Dumoulin, Aru would find himself losing 2min 26sec to Dumoulin on the day with Rodriguez worse still at 3min 43sec.

As it turned out, Dumoulin had put in his best effort and was starting to struggle whereas Aru had kept something in the tank. A short sharp little hill in the final sector may well have played its part but rather than lose a potential 42sec over the final 11.2km, Aru only lost 9sec and it meant he finished 1min 53sec behind Dumoulin leaving him just 3sec back overall. Rodriguez also improved in the final 11.2km as he kept what might have been a 1min 4sec loss over that stretch down to just 28sec. It meant he finished 3min 6sec behind Dumoulin, a disaster to his GC hopes you could say, but it could have been much worse.

The result however has seen the top ten turned on its head. Dumoulin is up from 4th place into the race lead, Rodriguez is down from 1st to 3rd, Majka down to 4th, Quintana (6th on the stage) and Valverde (3rd on the stage) both up three spots to 5th and 6th respectively, with Chaves and Moreno each losing a spot and Mikel Nieve losing four places and down to 9th.

With just a 3sec gap, Aru will fancy his chances to still win this race, especially with three hilly stages still to come, but with no summit finishes Dumoulin will also believe he can hang in and maintain his slender lead. For the likes of Rodriguez, Mijka, Quintana and Valverde, something audacious will be required; the kind of move that comes early on a hilly stage and splits the race to pieces. We can only hope for such drama, but given the race lead is only split by three seconds, I'd say we've been spoiled quite a lot already.

Classement:
1. Dumoulin (TGA) 2. Aru (AST) 3. Rodriguez (KAT) 4. Majka (TCS) 5. Quintana (MOV) 6. Valverde (MOV)	in 68h 40' 36" @ 3" @ 1' 15" @ 2' 22" @ 2' 53" @ 3' 15"

The amazing multi-World Champion Ferrand-Prévot...Brief thoughts on the beautiful Tour of Alberta

Away from the men's road scene for a moment and a word on French woman, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot who last week in winning the Mountain Bike World Championship at Valnord-Andorra became the first cyclist in history to simultaneously hold the World road title, World cyclo-cross title and World mountain bike title.

Her road title came in last September's UCI World road championships and on 26 September this year she will get the chance to defend it and go one step further by winning all three championships in the same calendar year.

A extraordinary achievement for the 23 year old highlighting what is a huge talent. One quick look at her palmares and it would seem that up to now she's a woman for the big occasion as all her major victories this year on the road, cross and mountain bike (a first place in stage 5 of the woman's Giro aside) came in her major championships either nationally or internationally. When titles are on the line, this girl delivers.

Simultaneously holding all three titles is a record that is hard to see being beaten, certainly not in the men's side of the sport given the complete lack of cross-over between the three sports. Only Zdenek Štybar is remotely close to doing a double. While still competing on the road in 2014, Štybar won the World cross title, though he didn't defend it this year.

---

Back with the men's road scene, a mention about the six stage Tour of Alberta that wrapped up on Sunday, won by Trek Factory rider, Bauke Mollema. Some of the racing was great to watch though the numbers of fans at the side of the road was a touch disappointing. Still, the scenery was spectacular when the race hit the Rockies for two summit finishes--both won by Tom-Jelte Slagter--but through which Mollema maintained his lead.

The weather was tough throughout with many of the stages raced in winter weather gear as temperatures plummeted to close to freezing at times. It was a tough all-round test, highlighted the day after the mountains when the race had sectors of dirt road thrown in, that mixed in with the rain, looked like North America's very own Hell of the (Great White) North mud-bath. That race was won by Lasse-Norman Hansen of Cannondale-Garmin but only after the finish was neutralised when the chasing peloton took a wrong turn.

Still, a fine event of which the organisers can be proud, and it ties in nicely with the Grand Prix Cyclistes de Quebec and Montréal this coming Friday and Sunday respectively. I'll be at the race in Montréal so will tweet some pictures and put together some form of report upon my return. Bauke Mollema will surely fancy his chances.

New and old stage winners while the GC remains tightly poised ahead of time-trial

Five stages have passed since my last musings into the Vuelta at which time Chris Froome had just abandoned and Fabio Aru had just moved into the Red jersey. In those subsequent five stages we've seen three extremely hard days in the mountains and two rolling stages in which the metal of all those left contending was tested to the max, as the climbers looked to shift the specter of Tom Dumoulin from the GC ahead of Wednesdays' time-trial, while also trying to battle one another for stage success and time gains overall.

Stages 12 and 13 gave us inaugural Grand Tour stage winners as Danny Van Poppel proved himself a chip off the old block when he won from a bunch sprint followed a day later by Nelson Oliveira who won solo as the contenders finished together.

On stage 14 the heavy lifting began again when Alessandro De Marchi won from the early break in the mist at Fuente del Chivo as Aru got a little too excited too early and cost himself time late on to Quintana while only taking 19sec from an impressive Dumoulin.

A day later on stage 15 it was Joaqium Rodriguez who took the race to Aru and narrowed his deficit to the Italian overall to a mere 1sec as Dumoulin once again limited his losses to just 36sec.

Then yesterday, on stage 16, Frank Schleck summoned his old self and emerged alone from the breakaway group to win his first race in over four years. Almost 9mins later the contenders arrived to the harsh summit and once again it was Rodriguez leading the charge. The 35-year old Spaniard, still seeking his first Grand Tour win, took the required 2sec from Aru to move into the race lead as everyone else conceded time. Quintana, still recovering from an illness but still not looking the man he was at the Tour, lost 12sec to Rodriguez while Dumoulin surrendered 27sec.

Dumoulin's riding over these high mountain stages has been mightily impressive. He has rode extremely intelligently by not going too far into the red when the Red jersey group would accelerate on the steepest slopes, but rather accepted his limited fate on such gradients and rode within himself to lose seconds rather than minutes. He went into the first rest day with a 57sec lead in the overall to Rodriguez with Aru in fifth at 1min 13sec. Six hard stages later, better suited to his rivals, he arrives at the second rest day -- and more crucially, tomorrow's individual time-trial -- with a 1min 51sec deficit to Rodriguez.

Given Dumoulin's time-trialing ability he could very well overturn that gap and find himself in Red with just four stages left. The question will be how much he can take back on Rodriguez and Aru, and indeed extend as a lead, given that three of the final four stages are reasonably hilly, though none with a summit finish. Indeed, Aru and Rodriguez will still be watching the time of one another in the hopes that Dumoulin's body proves more beat up than it otherwise would be before a time-trial and he fails to deliver the goods. Aru is likely the better man against the clock between the two, but with Rodriguez now in Red and with what is surely his last chance to win that illusive Grand Tour, will that be the extra incentives he needs to see off Aru and even what Dumoulin has to offer?

It will be fascinating to follow and I have to think it won't decide the Vuelta but merely tee up those final three hilly stages.

Overall standings after 16 stages:

1. Rodriguez (KAT) in 67h 52' 44"

2. Aru (AST) @ 1"

3. Majka (TSC) @ 1' 35"

4. Dumoulin (TGA) @ 1' 51"

5. Nieve (SKY) @ 2' 32"

6. Chaves (OGE) @ 2' 38"

Others: 7. Moreno (KAT) @ 2' 49"; 8. Quintana (MOV) @ 3' 11"; 9. Valverde (MOV) @ 3' 58"; 10. Meintjes (MTN) @ 5' 22"

Froome's Vuelta goes up in smoke as Aru takes control of Red

Chris Froome's hopes of winning the Tour-Vuelta double went up in smoke yesterday as the Sky rider crashed early and never recovered as his future team-mate Mikel Landa got in the early break and won the day, while Landa's soon to be former team-mate, Fabio Aru destroyed all those who were contending for the Tour and hoping to contend here, moving himself into the Red jersey and in complete control of the race.

It was billed as the Queen Stage and it was one of the toughest in recent memory with five brutally hard categorised climbs, but in the end it almost proved too difficult for a field containing many spill overs from the Tour. Aru, who has been targeting the Vuelta all season looked the sharpest and while his lead of the Vuelta is still a matter of seconds to the likes of Joaqium Rodriguez and Tom Dumoulin, men like Nairo Quintana (@ 3min 7sec) and Alejandro Valverde (@ 1min 52sec) are all but out of the running.

Chris Froome is very much out of the running. He limped home in 32nd, 7min 19sec after Aru who came home second behind Landa at 1min 22sec, with limping being the optimal word. Froome crashed early and though he made his way back to the main field, when the pressure went on at the front later in the stage, Froome was immediately distanced. There is no doubt Froome is not at his very best, despite coming second this past Sunday, but even tired legs from the Tour would not have seen him struggle this badly. And so it proved to be this morning when Froome failed to take to the start, abandoning the Vuelta with a broken foot.

It's a shame for the competition, and because Froome was in the mix to win this Vuelta before the stage, it leaves the debate open as to whether back-to-back Grand Tour wins is still possible? At first glance it almost appears not -- and certainly the idea of a triple crown has been put to bed -- because even before the crash, Froome has found the going tougher than he otherwise would if he hadn't rode in France this past July. Aru on the other hand looks fresher and a level above the rest. Shy of having all the contenders ride all the Grand Tours, it would seem the likely favourites are those who came in fresh and even targeting that specific race.

So was the stage too hard? Well Landa and Aru would say no, of course, and neither of them rode the Tour. Besides, the route is set long before the entry list is known and the route organisors can hardly dictate the route to account for riders who may come to contend but do so after a hard Tour de France. That said, the difficulty of the stage all but nullified any serious racing until late on and when it did open up so too did the time gaps. In contrast you had a stage like the one on stage 9 in which there was only one serious climb, right at the end, and numerous contenders, arriving that little bit fresher, took the race to one another with a winner and the potential ramifications for the overall not known until the very end.

There is a long way to go, of course, and many mountains in which Aru could yet collapse, but only Joaqium Rodriguez looks a likely contender to take the race to him.


That said, it takes all kinds of stages to make a Grand Tour and it's only in hindsight that people are questioning yesterday's epic. The morning of, anyone would be lying if they said they weren't excited for what lay in store. And with 10 stages left to go and plenty of climbing in store this stage will, at very least, have served to further soften up the legs of those who pushed hard for more potentially unpredictable action ahead.

It's that theory that we can only clutch to in the hopes that a wide open fight to win this Vuelta remains. Aru will hope I'm wrong, Rodriguez will hope I'm right, and Quintana will somehow look to the gap he almost overcame against Froome in the Alps last month.

Result:		Classement:
1. Landa (AST) 2. Aru (AST) 3. Boswell (SKY) 4. Moreno (KAT) 5. Rodriguez (KAT) 6. Majka (TSC) --- 8. Chaves (OGE) 9. Dumoulin (TGA) 12. Valverde (MOV) 14. Quintana (MOV) 32. Froome (SKY)	in 4h 34' 54" @ 1' 22" @ 1' 40" @ 1' 57" @ 1' 59" @ 2' 10" @ 2' 59" ST @ 3' 4" @ 4' 19" @ 8' 41"	1. Aru (AST) 2. Rodriguez (KAT) 3. Dumoulin (TGA) 4. Majka (TSC) 5. Chaves (OGE) 6. Valverde (MOV) --- 9. Quintana (MOV) 15. Froome (SKY) 22. Roche (SKY)	in 43h 12' 19" @ 27" @ 30" @ 1' 28" @ 1' 29" @ 1' 52" @ 3' 7" @ 7' 30" @ 13' 3"

Grit and fight lead the way for Dumoulin and Froome

Yesterday's stage 9 finish in the Vuelta on the Alto de Puig Llorença was one of the best climaxes to a stage I have seen in some time. On such a short climb you wouldn't have expected the damage we got, but it was so brutal that those attacking early completely underestimated what was to come. Tom Dumoulin stood up to those attacks, measuring the timing of his efforts perfectly to take the win and overall lead, while Chris Froome went from looking in real trouble at one stage to blowing the race wide open with a set of searing attacks late on to hammer home a remainder to his rivals that he's getting better by the day.

With around 3km to go I was thinking in terms of minutes as to the time Froome might lose, as Nairo Quintana, Alejandro Valverde and Fabio Aru took turns attacking the Tour de France winner. With Froome in trouble and sliding out the back it was clear they felt the chance had come to put a dagger into his GC ambitions. The only problem was the hardest part of the climb was still to come and their early efforts only served to exhaust them as the attacks became ever more fleeting before the ever shrinking lead group slowed down to look at one another for the next move.

In doing so Froome was able to ride at his own tempo and limit any losses and in doing so rode himself back into the group. Suddenly he was the one at the front and putting down the hammer with a renewed vigor. From the brink of extinction of the GC battle, Froome was suddenly making his overly-excited opponents look like under-experienced rookies as his perfectly timed ride up the climb was in stark comparison to the others.

Only Dumoulin measured up. The Dutchman known more for his time-trailing is having the week of his life here and seems suited to the kind of short-sharp finishes we've seen thus far. On a climb that seen continual changes in elevation he could allow himself to attack on the flatter sections and use his time-trialling skills while merely surviving on the super-steep parts. One of those steep parts allowed the fast moving Froome to overwhelm him but with the finish in sight and knowledge that the red jersey of Estaban Chaves was in serious trouble, Dumoulin summoned one final burst of effort to close the gap to Froome and come past him for a fine victory on the line by a mere 2sec.

Joaquim Rodriguez rode it smartly, covering moves rather than making them until the final stretches when he attempted to win on a road that his father had spent the previous night painting his name on, only to run out of gas when Froome came through. He finished 5sec back on Dumoulin but with enough to move into second place overall.

Aru was next in at 16sec, Quintana and Valverde lost 20sec, and the Red jersey of Chaves lost 59sec by the time all was said and done. These time gaps are relatively small for the likes of Aru, Quintana and Valverde, but it was the manor in which they were achieved that stood out. The way in which Froome remained composed under what must have been serious stress as the others got excited early and the way in which he took it to them later. There is a long way to go and Froome is still 1sec behind Quintana overall and 1min 18sec off the Red jersey, but a statement has been made and he must be the favourite heading into the kind of terrain in which he thrives.

The individual time-trial will suit Dumoulin more than Froome, though Froome himself will relish it more than the rest, but it's hard to see Dumoulin measuring up to Froome in the high mountains where the serious time gains will be made.

Result:		Classement:
1. Dumoulin (TGA) 2. Froome (SKY) 3. Rodriguez (KAT) 4. Aru (AST) 5. Majka (TSC) 6. Quintana (MOV) --- 7. Valverde (MOV) 15. Chaves (OGE)	in 4h 9' 55" @ 2" @ 5" @ 16" @ 18" @ 20" @ 20" @ 59"	1. Dumoulin (TGA) 2. Rodriguez (KAT) 3. Chaves (OGE) 4. Roche (SKY) 5. Valverde (MOV) 6. Aru (AST) --- 7. Quintana (MOV) 8. Froome (SKY) 9. Majka (TSC)	in 35h 22' 13" @ 57" @ 59" @ 1' 7" @ 1' 9" @ 1' 13" @ 1' 17" @ 1' 18" @ 1' 47"

* The stages either side of this one both ended up in bunch sprints with Jasper Stuyven winning on stage 8 and Kristian Sbaragli on stage 9. The only change either day made to the overall was on stage 8 when Dan Martin and Tejay Van Garderen both crashed out. Also mixed up in a crash involving a motor bike (those again!) was Peter Sagan. He was furious and had to be restrained and he finished the stage, but he didn't take the start the next day.

Froome loses time while Quintana and Valverde still look strong

So after a flat stage won in a sprint by the impressive young Caleb Ewan and another hill-top finish won, once again, by Esteban Chaves who took back his Red jersey after its day on the shoulders of Tom Dumoulin, the Vuelta once again finished at the summit of a hill, albeit a bigger one that we've seen thus far, and once more put the contenders to test.

Bertjan Lindeman won the stage, a survivor of the days break, but the big news was the sight of Chris Froome struggling near the top and losing 27sec on the majority of his rivals who finished on the same time as one another 36sec behind Lindeman. Tejay Van Garderen also lost out, conceding 49sec to the likes of Majka, Valverde, Quintana, Roche, Dan Martin and Joaquim Rodriguez.

Chris Froome losing contact on this climb was somewhat surprising, though perhaps not completely unexpected. Surprising in the sense that this was far from the worst climb they're due to face; one in which the likes of Chaves and Dumoulin stuck with the big-boys with the former retaining his overall lead. Not unexpected because the effort Froome put in to win the Tour followed by the host of post-Tour crits he has been attending which ate into his time for ideal pre-Vuelta preparation was sure to ware on him and take its toll.

The key for Froome here is limiting any losses in this first week and even parts of the second week and hope that his legs come back to him. He need also hope that the likes of Quintana and Valverde, who finished on the podium with him in Paris and suffered right with him through the Pyrenees and Alps, would start to find the going tough too, but so far, perhaps surprisingly (and perhaps young legs in the case of Quintana) both of them look strong here as though the Tour was months ago.

One rider not expected to suffer in this first week was Fabio Aru. The young Italian skipped the Tour to target the Vuelta and should be fresher than many of those around him; should be looking to take as much time as he can, while he can. And that proved to be so today when he went on the attack and stole 7sec on the contenders.

Tomorrow is an interesting stage, though not one the favourites likely need to worry about as the two cat. 3 climbs top out some 17km from the finish. It's virtually all down hill for the first 140km, and while the sprinters may have their day spoilt by the two climbs, someone like Peter Sagan must really fancy his chances.

Result:		Classement:
1. Lindeman (TLJ) 2. Richeze (LAM) 3. Aru (AST) 4. Cousin (EUC) 5. Majka (TSC) 6. Chaves (OGE) --- 7. Valverde (MOV) 8. Quintana (MOV) 17. Froome (SKY)	in 5h 10' 24" @ 9" @ 29" @ 34" @ 36" ST @ 36" ST @ 1' 3"	1. Chaves (OGE) 2. Dumoulin (TGA) 3. D. Martin (TCG) 4. Roche (SKY) 5. Valverde (MOV) 6. Rodriguez (KAT) --- 7. Quintana (MOV) 8. Aru (AST) 12. Froome (SKY)	in 27h 6' 13" @ 10" @ 33" @ 36" @ 49" @ 56" @ 57" ST @ 1' 22"

12 years on Valverde still winning at the Vuelta

The ever popular and age-less Alejandro Valverde timed his ride up the 1.5km finishing climb to Vejer de la Frontera to perfection as he held off a surging Peter Sagan to win today's fourth stage of the Vuelta and pick up a 10 second time bonus on his major rivals.

It was the seemingly ageless Spaniards 11th career win at the Vuelta, the first of which came twelve years ago on stage 9 of the 2003 edition, a race in which he won two stages and finished third overall behind Roberto Heras and Isidro Nozal. Also winning stages that year was the still-active Joaquim Rodriguez (who finished 6th today) as well as the long since retired Erik Zabel. Abandoning the day of Valverde's big first win was 35 year old Alex Zulle, the same age that Valverde is now.

The win today wasn't enough to wrestle the Red race leaders jersey off the shoulders of Esteban Chaves (who finished 10th) as the top 25 were all given the same time, strangely, despite seemingly obvious gaps between riders on the line. Still, thanks to a 10 second time-bonus Valverde did jump up to 4th overall and in winning showed he's recovered from that grueling three week Tour in July pretty well as Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana both finished several lengths behind him.

Sagan had clearly been targeting this one and after winning yesterday must have liked his chances of making it two wins on the trot, but the finish appeared to come quicker than he expected and as he fought to get past other riders who were slowing, he failed to keep tight on the wheel of Valverde and ran out of room to get past him before the line arrived.

In fourth place was Team Sky's Nicolas Roche who having also finished third on Sunday's summit finish, has shown he's carrying good form, coming close to winning both stages while keeping a high placing overall. Whether Roche is being given a bit of freedom to bid for GC contention or simply try get a big result in this tough opening first week remains to be seen, but the efforts he has been putting in clearly aren't simply in service of Froome.

And likewise Valverde over his team-leader Nairo Quintana. Can Roche and Valverde keep this form up or will Froome and Quintana answer back and re-assert their dominance? The hill-top finishes thus far have been too short to get any real definitive idea as to who the strongest riders are, highlighted by how tight the GC still is with 13 men within a minute of the lead, but both stages will have served to soften the legs a little and we won't have long to wait long to get a better idea of everyone's form.

Tomorrow is a flat stage but on Thursday they hit hills again with yet another steep finish; this time a 2km drag up to the line after plenty of climbing beforehand.

Result:		Overall:
1. Valverde (MOV) 2. Sagan (TCS) 3. Moreno (KAT) 4. Roche (SKY) 5. Goncalves (CJR) 6. Rodriguez (KAT)	in 5h 7' 30" all ST	1. Chaves (OGE) 2. Dumoulin (TGA) 3. Roche (SKY) 4. Martin (TCG) 5. Valverde (MOV) 6. Rodriguez (KAT)	in 13h 11' 31" @ 5" @ 15" @ 24" @ 28" @ 35"

It took 71 stages but Sagan has finally won again, and expect more

781 days. Or 2 years, 1 month, 19 days since Peter Sagan last won a stage in a Grand Tour. Or, in a more personal perspective, his first GT stage win in the life of my youngest daughter! And it's only because it is Peter Sagan that all of this is so significant as today he broke his Grand Tour barren spell and finally got a win in the third stage of today's Vuelta.

Going two years between stage wins in Grand Tours would be just fine with 90% of riders, but Sagan is a man who is in contention to win almost ever day, and yet somehow has become Mr. Second Place in recent times as victories allude him either because everyone marks him to chase a late move which he doesn't, and which then succeeds, because everyone marks him to chase a late move which he does and they then capitalise on his tired legs, or because it's a flat sprint and he's got those two or three men in the world who as pure sprinters only can out drag him to the line.

Not today though.

Sagan has taken to the start of 71 Grand Tour stages over those 781 days and has likely been in the mix to win about 50 of them, but to no avail, until today. Today, the Slovak, the four-time Green jersey winner, the widely regarded best all-round rider in the sport despite those lack of wins, finally burst clear of his rivals in the drag for the line and held them off to win.

In other circumstances, perhaps for the other 9% that win, or are expected to win more than once every two years, you might think that this result will do wonders for their confidence, but Sagan is in that 1%, perhaps 0.1% as he stands alone, that doesn't suffer from crisis of confidence and who will put himself back in contention to win again the very next day regardless of the outcome.

What the win will do is quell any panic by those not named Peter Sagan that he's lost his winning touch and that the eyes of the marking peloton have ensured he can no longer win. The reminder that is today's win will only enhance the danger to the rest that this isn't likely to be his only win over the next three weeks, but then you won't need to tell Sagan that.

Result:		Overall:
1. Sagan (TCS) 2. Bouhanni (COF) 3. Degenklob (TGA) 4. Drucker (BMC) 5. Richeze (LAM) 6. Sbaragli (MTN)	in 4h 6' 46" all ST	1. Chaves (OGE) 2. Dumoulin (TGA) 3. Roche (SKY) 4. D. Martin (TCG) 5. Rodriguez (KAT) 6. Quintana (MOV)	in 8h 4' 1" @ 5" @ 15" @ 24" @ 35" @ 36"

Nibali DQ'd for taking a tow

It's been a turbulent start to the Vuelta what with a riders complaint about safety leading to the times taken in yesterday's team-time-trial, finishing on a beach in Marbella, not counting to the general classification, and then today, Vincenzo Nibali being disqualified from the race for holding onto his Astana team car after being held up by a crash and losing contact with his rivals.

As a result of the times not counting towards the GC, the team-time-trial was nothing more than a show piece, highlighted by Team Sky coming third-last, more than a minute behind the winner, Team BMC. Thankfully the likes of BMC, Tinkoff-Saxo and Orica GreenEdge, proud competitors in team-time-trials and with an eye on next months World Championships, still took it serious and raced it hard with BMC covering the course in a time of 8min 10sec, a mere second better off than Tinkoff and Orica.

But enough on that. The real action and first attempt at time gains took place on the Sunday and it was no gentle induction into the third Grand Tour of the season. Rather, a stage with hills and a short-sharp summit finish to Caminito del Rey in which Esteban Chaves of Orica GreenEdge timed his attacks to perfection coming in a second up on Tom Dumoulin with the Irish pair of Nicolas Roche and Dan Martin coming in at 9sec and 14sec respectively.

Nairo Quintana was the biggest of the big names to show his hand when he attacked but he couldn't sustain it, perhaps evidence of post-Tour rust, though he did gain a psychological 4sec gap on Chris Froome.

But all the drama was reserved for the 2010 Vuelta champion who, perhaps in seeing a second successive Grand Tour go up in smoke when held up by a stage 2 crash, reached for the panic button. Vincenzo Nibali, while at the front of a large chasing group, suddenly grabbed onto his team-car, and within a handful of seconds had gained a huge gap on those with him. The penalty to later disqualify him may have seemed harsh in the moment, given how often we see riders 'taking a tow' behind a team-car following an accident or indeed using the services of a 'sticky bottle', but when helicopter camera footage later emerged showing how blatant the offence was, the decision was obvious.

It's a shame though because it would have been good to see Nibali in the mix with Froome and Quintana, and indeed to have seen how the inter-team rivalry between himself, Aru and Landa would have played out. But we can thank the crash itself for that as much has his own stupidity because even had he not held onto the car its clear he would have lost significant time and likely have put himself out of the running, much like stage 2 at the Tour. Even the 10 minute time-penalty he longed for would have done that.

Nibali later apologised for his actions and said he felt a time-penalty would have sufficed while claiming this stuff happens more than you think before criticising his team for not waiting for him en-mass, but it's hard to feel sorry for him. Perhaps it's understandable why he did it: a moment of desperation, or frustration, that forced his hand, though the better question he might have asked of his team was why, in the heat of the moment, the team-car actually agreed to speed up when he grabbed hold? Either way, the rules are clear and so too was the video footage.

Stage 2 result:		Overall:
1. Chaves (OGE) 2. Dumoulin (TGA) 3. Roche (SKY) 4. D. Martin (TCG) 5. Rodriguez (KAT) 6. Quintana (MOV) --- 7. Froome (SKY) 8. Valverde (MOV) 10. Aru (AST) 12. Landa (AST) 15. Van Garderen (BMC) DSQ. Nibali (AST)	in 3h 57' 25" @ 1" @ 9" @ 14" @ 26" ST @ 30" @ 31" @ 37" ST @ 45" DSQ	1. Chaves (OGE) 2. Dumoulin (TGA) 3. Roche (SKY) 4. D. Martin (TCG) 5. Rodriguez (KAT) 6. Quintana (MOV) TTT results: 1. BMC 2. Tinkoff Saxo 3. Orica GreenEdge 4. Lotto-Jumbo --- 20. Team Sky	in 3h 57' 25" @ 5" @ 15" @ 24" @ 36" ST in 8' 10" @ 1" ST @ 8" @ 1' 11"

A talent filled field come to compete in a wide-open and brutal Vuelta a España

If the Giro is to cycling fans the gateway into summer, then the Vuelta is surely the backdoor out again. Beginning in the height of a mid-late August summer and ending three weeks later in the fading light of a slowly cooling early-mid September. To me it typically signals about four weeks left of my fair-weather-cycling season (which, if truth be told, barely got started in the first place this year) as well as a sign that my October Thanksgiving turkey isn't far away.

Thankfully though, there's three weeks of action before any of that and it's setting up to be a heck of a race even if today the organisors confirmed that the times taken on the race opening team-time-trial would no longer count towards the general classification after riders complained about the dangers of the stage finishing on the beach, literally.

When I seen a picture taken yesterday by Nicolas Roche of his bike tire sinking into the sand, I couldn't help but feel this was surely the most appropriate way to mark the start of a Grand Tour race in Spain, and that perhaps they could have went one step further and had the clock stop only upon the fifth rider on his team lying down on a sunbed. Instead they've gone a step back and disregarded the point of the stage at all except now for show.

Still, let that not take anything away from what's in store for we've a host of big hitters showing up expecting to win it and none more so than Tour champion Chris Froome who will be looking to do what Alberto Contador failed to do at Giro-Tour by completing a single season Grand Tour double win and becoming the first man since Bernard Hinault in 1978 to do the Tour-Vuelta double (or Vuelta-Tour double as it was in Hinault's day).

There's also Froome's Tour nemesis, Nairo Quintana and his sidekick Alejandro Valverde, out to get that dastardly Froome this time, while Astana will roll up with a team loaded with team leaders in the shapes of Vincenzo Nibali (out to make amends for a poor start to his Tour defence and to show his final week form is still there), Fabio Aru (out to go one better than his 2nd at the Giro), and Mikel Landa (out to ignore any team orders to support the other two since he's, likely, joining Sky next season anyway).

So that puts the top four from this years Tour all at the start line in Porto-Banus and they will be joined by TeJay Van Garderen who took ill and abandoned the Tour from 2nd place in the final week, which will see four-fifths of that five-piece boy band that he formed out of the 'fab-four' after the first week of the Tour, going on a re-union Tour of Spain. Does that simply make it a fab-four again with Contador replaced? Or does someone like Fabio Aru jump in, in the roll of Ronnie Wood in the Rolling Stones, as a new member?

Aru certainly deserves to be mentioned in the same category as the Tour's top-four finishers, plus Tejay. They should all be a little tired whereas he has targeted the Vuelta all season. Likewise Landa (3rd at the Giro) and even Domenico Pozzovivo (6th in 2013 Vuelta) will look to take advantage of tired legs.

And it's tired legs that will surely play a pivotal roll. The climbing comes early and often -- on just the second stage, which is now the first official stage, the race finishes on the summit of a cat. 3 climb -- and that won't play into the hands of the Tour survivors. Stages 4 and 6 both have short-sharp hill-top finishes to test the field and create time gaps, before the first mountain stage a day later with a cat. 1, 20km at 5% average gradient, summit finish. Then, sandwiched between two flat stages, on stage 9 is another summit finish on a 3.5km, 11% grade leg snapper to complete a hellish first week into the first rest-day. And you thought the first 10 days of the Tour was demanding? How each of the Tour contenders have recovered and who has done it best will be fascinating to see as those who haven't will surely be exposed by now.

The second phase only gets harder with six stages of which four are in the mountains and only one is considered flat. And of those four mountain stages, all four have summit finishes with the first on stage 11 looking a real nightmare with five climbs crammed into just 138km.

There's a fair chance the Vuelta will be won by here and for 98% of entrants it will surely have been lost, but after a second rest day there are five more stages of which we have a bit of everything including rolling roads, medium mountains, a final flat stage, a penultimate day in the mountains (though without a summit finish this time) and, on the day after the rest day, and 38.7km time-trial. You would imagine that this will be to the advantage of Froome from which he will surely believe he can take time out of (or back on) his rivals, but given what has come before, how the legs react by this third week is anyone's guess.

The Vuelta doesn't have the prestige of the Tour but in recent years it has become the race that those with disappointing seasons, by their own high expectations, turn to for salvation as well as a race for those looking to poach some late season glory. Beyond that though it's one brutal race in its own right and for fans everywhere, suffering from a post-Tour hangover and safely located in their armchairs, this is sure to be a brilliant cure.

Le Tour review: In conclusion...

So often the Tour de France is defined by the high mountains. All our memories are built around the big mountain stages when we think back to some of the most magical moments of the Tour. The Alps and the Pyrenees dominate the historic books just as they dominate the horizon when the race approaches. The obvious exception was, perhaps, last year when that epic stage on the cobbles became one of those stages for the ages. And maybe that's fitting because it's only in the most recent of Tours that the race organisation has tried to put more emphasis on stages away from just the mountains.

There's too much love for the suffering and drama of those high Alpine and Pyrenean stages to remove them (though it would be fascinating to see a Tour with just one mountain stage and lots of others like what we seen in the first week or on the transition between the Alps and Pyrenees! Peter Sagan would surely fancy his chances!) but the race organisors have been looking for ways to spice up the first weeks racing in an attempt to make those stages count for something in the grand scheme of the three week race.

And now they have succeeded.

For the first time that I can remember, this Tour might well be remembered most for the first week of racing. Gone for sure are the days of sprinters dominating the first week of racing with the contenders doing little more than avoiding accidents on pan-flat stages while using them as glorified training sessions to find their form ahead of the real stuff in the later two weeks. Once upon a time only a time-trial could sort out the general classification before the mountains. But not this year.

No doubt, the Pyrenean stages were decent, and in the case of the first one to La Pierre-Saint-Martin, decisive as Froome took 1min 14sec (including the time-bonus) out of Nairo Quintana, a mere 2sec more than which he won the Tour by. Likewise the Alps, as two young Frenchman, as well as the reigning champion, took victories to salvage their respective Tours, before Quintana made a last ditch bid for glory and almost pulled it off as Froome began to struggle and we found ourselves on the edges of our seats for the first time in over a week.

All great moments, but lets not kid ourselves, the first week stole the show.

The short individual time-trial in Utrecht in the Netherlands did little to affect the contenders but it seen the fastest time-trial in Tour history, by Rohan Dennis, breaking the record set by Chris Boardman at the 1994 prologue. From there we had three distinctly different classic type stages -- in cross-winds, on the Mur de Huy and on the cobbles -- in which more time was won and lost in a way that twenty years ago would only have been seen on a long time-trial or on the side of an Alpine mountain.

We seen Cancellara take Yellow, then abandon. Then Froome lay down a psychological marker and take the race lead, only for the ever popular Tony Martin to win on the cobbles and overcame three days in which he had missed out on Yellow to three different men by five, then three, then a single second, to finally pull on his career first Maillot Jaune. It didn't last long though, on stage six he too crashed out when he came down and brought three fifths of the 'boy band' of Quintana, Van Garderen and Froome with him. It caused a brief fallout between Nibali and Froome with the former blaming the later and the later storming the team-bus of the former. Their fued would ignite again on stage 19 when Nibali would attack to win the stage while Froome was suffering a mechanical.

There was also the traditional first week crashes, and none so serious as on stage 3 when several riders came down hard, consuming all medical personnel behind the race. The result was the sight of the race being stopped briefly. Several riders abandoned that day including Cancellara who rode the final 50km to the finish with a broken back, while others soldiered on. Adam Hansen separated his shoulder and Michael Matthews broke ribs and while both suffered greatly, both made it to Paris.

The sprinters got their bunch gallops, but only twice in those first nine days as Greipel won his second stage (having survived the cross-winds of stage 2 to win) and Cavendish took what would be his lone win of the Tour.

By the time they had rode up the tough Mûr-de-Bretagne and suffered through a team-time-trial that came so late into the Tour that many teams were already without riders and many riders were already suffering from tired legs, the GC had been blown to bits.

We had witnessed a magical first nine stages in which all the contenders looking to win the Tour in the mountains that still lay ahead had been active almost every day trying not to lose it. It had exhausted them before what they might have perceived as the 'real racing' had even begun. And, as we found out, it took its toll on many legs throughout those mountains.

Chris Froome, expected to spend the first week limiting his losses came out in Yellow, while Vincenzo Nibali, expected to make a lot of gains that first week, had been shedding time. And that only continued into the mountains as for a brief time his team management stripped him of team leadership. All before he finally found his legs in the final days in the Alps, though too late to win the Tour, but enough to vault himself back into the top 5.

Beyond that first rest day the race was split into three parts for me: Froome winning the Tour in the Pyranees, Sagan winning the points competition on the transition stages, and the young Frenchmen rescuing their Tours with wins in the Alps.

Sadly though there was a fourth part to this Tour that, along with the first week, done its best to steel who spotlight, and that was the treatment of Chris Froome in the (French) media, on back corners of social media and, worst of all, at the side of the road. The later was clearly influenced by what was said in the media as the likes of Laurent Jalabert began to doubt Froome and pseudo scientists on social media took up the baton with innuendos that led others to outright condemnation. We see this stuff every year now, things took a more sinister twist in 2015 when so-called fans at the side of the road spat at Froome and one so-called human threw a cup of urine in his face.

And all this for a man who has done little more than win. Win in the face of little hard or even circumstantial evidence of any wrong doing. It was fascinating to watch the likes of Alejandro Valverde and Alberto Contador get a free ride (and rightly so in the sense that no fan interference is warranted on any rider, whatever the situation), while Froome bore the brunt. Of course, this is the price to pay when you wear the Yellow jersey, it's nothing new. Merckx seen it because he would dominate the event year-in year-out; Froome is seeing it because the generation before him that won, cheated. And only in the Tour. During his rider to Giro victory Contador got a virtual free ride by comparison to Froome and the later is without history here.

But unlike the generation before in Yellow, say Lance Armstrong seven times, there has been no covered up tests, no back-dated TUE and certainly no disgruntled ex-team-mate looking to sell his story, and we all know there's some disgruntled ex-Sky employees out there.

And yet, Froome handled it with a class that not many could. He'd have been forgiven for losing it in a press conference, certainly with a fan at the side of the road, yet he kept his composure, he maintained his focus, he responded calmly and articulately when questioned and then he got on with racing his bicycle.

In the end, nobody knows 100% that Froome is clean except himself, but at some point in sport, just as in life, we need to give some people the benefit of the doubt. This is a bike race and there is going to be a winner; someone has to win. If the point comes at which I can no longer give anyone the benefit of the doubt by weighing up what I see and how I perceive them, then I wouldn't watch anymore. Why be a hypocrite? Why waste your time watching, or tweeting, or waiting at the side of the road to throw urine when there's so much else to do?

As things stand, Froome is deserving of that benefit of the doubt. I'd prefer to give him the chance and be let down than to condemn and abuse and later find out there was nothing in it. But maybe that's the human being in me. The way in which Froome carries himself as a person on (riding style aside!) and in particular, off the bike is only to be admired. The way he faced the kind of adversity he did, the way he reacted to it, and the way he overcame it to remain on the moral high ground leaves him as the kind of athlete - the kind of person - I'd want my kid to look up to. Dangerous ground you might say, not just with athletes but cyclists too, but sometimes you have to be courageous enough to believe in someone.

Anyway, let not the final words on this years Tour be overshadowed by a subject and incidents that in the end failed to overshadow the race itself. Froome won it in the end and that's what mattered.

And so there goes the 2015 Tour. That first week of winds, Murs, cobbles, grit and exhaustion; that second week of Froome on the first Pyrenean stage and Sagan attacking day after day but without reward of a win; and that third week of French wins, Nibali winning and Quintana making a go of it only to fall short as Froome stood victorious a-top the podium in Paris. Many came in hoping to make their mark on this years Tour, and some did. Some came in hoping to win it but one by one they fell by the wayside, and only one did. It wasn't the greatest Tour ever, perhaps highlighted by the first week being so damn good, but no Tour is bad, none resigned to failure nor worth forgetting.

Le Tour review: Alternative standings - the boy band, the French and the Lanterne Rouge

Back on each rest day I had looked at three alternative, unofficial standings to see how they were playing out. Here then at the end of the Tour is those three categories and who came out on top. Sadly no jerseys awarded!

'The boy band':

1. Chris Froome in 84h 46' 14"

2. Nairo Quintana @ 1' 12"

4. Vincenzo Nibali @ 8' 36"

5. Alberto Contador @ 9' 48"

Well the man who felt they should be known as the five-piece boy-band and not the 'big four' or 'fab-four' as they had been known coming into the Tour, Tejay Van Garderen, was the only one who failed to make it to Paris, falling ill on the first day in the Alps when placed strongly. Vincenzo Nibali muscled his way back in over the same mountain range and ended up ahead of Contador in the pecking order. But as close as they came to fulfilling their prophecy as the 'big four', Alejandro Valverde finished in third overall and replaced the departed Van Garderen in the band of five.

The Frenchmen:

Not just a list of the top Frenchmen, but the Frenchmen many believed might have a crack at a top 10 placing overall before the Tour, in particular those young bucks from last year and Warren Barguil riding his first Tour. At the last time of writing, Barguil was the best of them with Tony Gallopin as the surprise package. On the other hand Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot were struggling to live up to the expectations put on them from last years strong rides. So how did they finish?

1. Romain Bardet (9th overall @ 16' 00")

2. Pierre Rolland @ 1' 30" (10th @ 17' 30")

3. Warren Barguil @ 15' 15" (14th @ 31' 15")

4. Thibaut Pinot @ 22' 52" (16th @ 38' 52")

5. Alexis Vuillermoz @ 1h 19' 6" (25th @ 1h 35' 6")

6. Tony Gallopin @ 1h 24' 44" (31st @ 1h 40' 44")

7. Jean-Christophe Peraud @ 2h 19' 10" (58th @ 2h 35' 10")

Well the final week of the Tour was a good one for the young Frenchmen with Bardet riding superbly to win himself a stage and only lose a collective 2min 50sec on Froome over the Alps. He leapt to the top of my 'selective French standings' ahead of Pierre Rolland who himself got in several breaks. Indeed, Rolland was the best of the lot across all the mountains. Beyond the first rest day when the race entered the first high mountains of the Tour, only Nairo Quintana (-47sec) and Alejandro Valverde (3min 35sec) lost (or gained) less time to Chris Froome than Pierre Rolland who over 7 mountain stages and 12 in total conceded just 5min 47sec to the eventual champion. Thibaut Pinot also won himself a stage on Alpe d'Huez though he couldn't quite overhaul Barguil who finished third on this list. Tony Gallopin fell away in the end while Alexis Vuillermoz had a solid Tour to go with his stage win on the first week. As for Jean-Christophe Peraud, after coming second last year, it was a race to forget. He had a bad crash and it left him limping around at the back of the field into Paris.

Lanterne Rouge:

The Lanterne Rouge; the last man in the race. That went to another Frenchman, Sebastian Chavenel, who came home 4hrs 56min 59sec behind Froome. It may seem to an outsider as an (unofficial) award that no man would want, but in cycling there's a honour to it. Sure you were last, but you made it. You suffered on the edge of time elimination through the mountains and survived. 38 others climbed off their bikes between Utrecht and Paris, but you finished it. Indeed, there can even be financial rewards via invites to the post-Tour criterium circuit.

160. Sébastien Chavanel (FDJ) @ 4h 56' 59" to Froome

159. Svein Tuft (OGE) @ 8' 51"

158. Kenneth Van Bilsen (COF) @ 15' 32"

157. Bryan Nauleau (EUC) @ 16' 47"

156. Matthias Brandle (IAM) @ 19' 23"

155. Davide Cimolai (LAM) @ 23' 38"

Sam Bennett who looked on to win this contest, abandoned the Tour on stage 17 passing the Lanterne Rouge to the bike of Sébastien Chavanel. Svein Tuft, previous winner of this contest finished in 2nd, while Bryan Nauleau leapt up into the top 3 come Paris.

Le Tour review: Other official standings

While a lot of my attention tended to be on writing about the battle for the Yellow jersey as well as the stories out on the road of individual stages, there was as ever other jersey prizes up for grabs. Some were won by predictable contestants and another was won by someone who achieved something last done by Eddy Merckx.

Green jersey points classification:

Peter Sagan once again triumphed for a fourth straight year in the Green jersey competition despite the best efforts of a brave Greipel. The German won four stages and for a long time made it a closer contest than it has been for years. Sagan was often beaten in intermediate sprints and on the line, but he kept his nose in and when they hit the mountains he was able to infiltrate breaks that Greipel never could and thus pick up points on the road, and even on the line, without reply.

1. Sagan (TCS) 432pts

2. Greipel (TLS) 366pts

3. Degenklob (TGA) 298pts

4. Cavendish (EQS) 206pts

5. Coquard (EUC) 152pts

6. Froome (SKY) 139pts

Polka-Dot jersey King of the Mountains classification:

Changes to this contest to take it out of the hands of those who snatch up points on the lower classification hills and into the hands of those who feature in the highest of mountains paid off, though it resulted in two men, who were targeting the Yellow jersey, finishing up in first and second of the KOM as a by-product. And in first was Chris Froome who became the first man since Eddy Merckx to win the Yellow jersey and the King of the Mountains title in the same year. It would be fascinating to go through the history of this contest and re-calculate the points awarded to this years standards to see whether outcomes may have changed, though Richard Virenque would prefer that you didn't. It was a shame in a way that someone like Romain Bardet, Thibaut Pinot or Joaquim Rodriguez, who by the second week had turned to targeting the prize, but then again there is no sentiment in the Tour and the jersey is designed to go to the most consistent climber in the highest mountains.

1. Froome (SKY) 119pts

2. Quintana (MOV) 109pts

3. Bardet (ALM) 90pts

4. Pinot (FDJ) 82pts

5. Rodriguez (KAT) 78pts

6. Rolland (EUC) 74pts

White jersey Young Rider classification:

In the young riders contest it was Quintana who triumphed, though the Tour organisors really need to consider making it one for riders 23 years old and younger as Quintana certainly isn't seen by many as one of the young up and coming riders anymore. Given the depth of young talent in the field, a 23 and under contest may have been more appropriate. Had that been the case, Warren Barguil (riding his first Tour) would have come out on top. Expect him, Bardet and the Yates brothers to feature heavily next year.

1. Quintana (MOV) in 84h 47' 26" (age 25)

2. Bardet (ALM) + 14' 48" (age 24)

3. Barguil (TGA) + 30' 3" (age 23)

4. Pinot (FDJ) + 37' 40" (age 25)

5. Jungels (TFR) + 1h 32' 9" (age 22)

6. Sagan (TCS) + 2h 13' 43" (age 25)

Team classification:

The team prize went to Movistar. No surprises given they completed the podium after Froome but they won it though by a staggering 57min 23sec over Sky. It's a bit of a sideshow contest, highlighted by the time-gaps, and I'm not sure how seriously the riders even take it -- especially a team like Sky who were more than happy to sacrifice all their men at the expense of one Chirs Froome winning the Tour -- though I suppose to some teams it is a bargaining chip for sponsorship.

1. Movistar in 255h 24' 24"

2. Sky + 57' 23"

3. Tinkoff-Saxo + 1h 00' 12"

4. Astana + 1h 12' 9"

5. MTN-Qhubeka + 1h 14' 32"

6. AG2R La Mondiale + 1h 24' 22"

Most aggressive rider classification:

The most aggressive rider went to Romain Bardet. Aggressive for sure in this final week as he attempted multiple times to win a stage and finally came good but surprising nonetheless, but perhaps one for the home fans because other riders had spent more time in the break. Peter Sagan was active almost every day in his conquest to win the Green jersey and finished in the top five in 11 of the 21 stages. Or indeed how about Thomas De Gendt who spent the most amount of kilometres off the front in breaks at 679km (or 20% of the race). He highlighted this distance on his own Twitter account after the Tour, reminding us that it came on top of "several days working hard for @AndreGreipel all this with a broken rib. What do i have to do more for the combativite"? What more indeed?

1. Bardet (ALM)

Le Tour review: The Top 10 against my predictions

So the Tour is over and it has been won and lost. What now follow is a collection of articles on a review of the Tour. The winners, the losers and a little bit of analysis. Firstly, a look at the official top 10 (and a few others) followed by a look at my predictions pre-Tour and how wrong I was!

The Final General Classification:

1. Froome (SKY) in 84h 46' 14"
Struggled with illness in the final days and it was the only time he looked beatable, but a superb first week, a dominant display in the Pyrenees, and the strongest team in the race ensured a bad day did not prove costly.

2. Quintana (MOV) @ 1' 12"
A huge talent and without a doubt a future winner. He got stronger as the race went on but on a course in which the Tour was won in each of the three weeks, he was unable to overcome Froome.

3. Valverde (MOV) @ 5' 25"
So much for him fading due to sacrifices in aid of his team-mate. Valverde did help Quintana but he was strong himself and just when you expected it least, he got his first Tour podium.

4. Nibali (AST) @ 8' 36"
A disasterous first week for the reigning champ left him playing catchup throughout. He struggled too in the Pyrenees but came good in the Alps to jump up into the top five, but it was too late, though he did win a stage.

5. Contador (TCS) @ 9' 48"
The Giro-Tour double always seemed like it would be too much for him no matter how sucked into the possibility anyone got. He looked solid through the first week was soon exposed in the mountains and never climbed like his usual self.

6. Gesink (TLJ) @ 10' 47"
A brilliant ride by one of the forgotten young stars of yesteryear. He has faced so much adversity in recent years and so it was great to see him back at the sharp end. Rode extremely well throughout.

7. Mollema (TFR) @ 15 '14"
A consistent top ten. Never featured too much at the front but clearly hung in when others couldn't and achieved his third top 10 finish in-a-row at the Tour.

8. Frank (IAM) @ 15' 39"
Will have been a surprise to many to have finished this high up and for a while it was looking unlikely until on stage 17 to Pra Loup when he got into a break and finished 5min 36sec ahead of the Yellow jersey vaulting himself up from 13th overall to 8th. He rode very well to maintain that placing showing himself as someone who only gets stronger as a three week race goes on.

9. Bardet (ALM) @ 16' 00"
He finished a few places back on last year but this will still be seen a Tour in which the young Frenchman progressed. He had it tough in the first week but came back strong in the mountains, putting on a clinic in descending and winning a mountain stage solo. He was in contention to win the mountains jersey right until the end.

10. Rolland (EUC) @ 17' 30"
Given how well he rode in last years Vuelta perhaps it was unfair to overlook what is still a young rider in favour of the likes of Bardet, Thibaut Pinot and Warren Barguil. Once he knew any hope of a top five was gone he got himself into breaks and tried for stage wins. It didn't work out but he was consistent and deserved the top 10 to remind everyone of his talent.

---
Select other Brits, Canadians, Irish, and Sagan!:
15. Thomas (SKY) @ 31' 39"
16. Pinot (FDJ) @ 38' 52"
35. Roche (SKY) @ 1h 54' 8"
39. D. Martin (TCG) @ 2h 3' 37"
40. Hesjedal (TCG) @ 2h 4' 37"
46. Sagan (TCS) @ 2h 14' 55" wins)
142. Cavendish (EQS) @ 4h 12' 5"
159. Tuft (OGE) @ 4h 48' 8"

And how about my predictions:

1. Chris Froome (Finished: 1st)
2. Vincenzo Nibali (4th)
3. Thinaut Pinot (16th)
4. Nairo Quintana (2nd)
5. Tejay Van Garderen (DNF)
6. Alberto Contador (5th)
7. Romain Bardet (9th)
8. Ryder Hesjedal (40th)
9. Pierre Rolland (10th)
10. Rui Costa (DNF)

Other jerseys:
Green: Peter Sagan (1st)
KOM: Pierre Rolland (6th)
White: Nairo Quintana (1st)

So I was actually correct, for once, on who would win the Tour, though I was hardly sticking my neck out in picking Froome. By stage 10, with that tricky first week behind him, it looked a safe bet.

I also done pretty well with my predictions for Contador, Bardet and Rolland. I felt the Giro-Tour double attempt by Contador would be too much, and it was.

Nibali fell a bit short on my guess, doing worse in the first week than I ever imagined. Quintana on the other hand navigated it better than I thought he might and thus was always on the podium come the mountains.

Tejay Van Garderen and Rui Costa failed to finish though it's unlikely Costa would have achieved a top 10 had he remained in the race. Van Garderen on the other hand...

As for Ryder Hesjedal. Well, given his big effort in the Giro, I should have known better. He spent the first week 'chilling' at the back of the peloton. It cost him time and he lost more in the Pyrenees. He was clearly he was setting himself up for a stage win and he came very close with a second place on Alpe d'Huez.

As for the other jersey's: Sagan was as safe a bet as there was in the race, Rolland never really put his nose out for this contest and while I listed Bardet as the white jersey winner (due to me picking him to finish 7th overall) I did so because I failed to realise Quintana was still eligible for it. Had I known, I'd have obviously picked him given I had him at 4th overall, so I'll take that one!

Greipel makes it four while Froome makes his win official

Stage 21: Sèvres > Paris Champs-Elysees, 109.5km

The final stage into Paris is always a procession, at least until they get to the Champs-Elysees, though this year they took that procession to a new level, rolling along at speeds that your granny could muster as the driving rain combined with tired legs from the 20 devastating stages that had come before left nobody with the desire to move quickly until they had to. And then, when push came to shove, André Greipel moved quickest of them all, again.

That driving rain was so bad that race officials decided the times towards the general classification would be taken on the first trip over the finishing line, leaving the circuit racing up and down the Champs-Elysees to those wanting to risk their necks and fight for the stage win in what is the unofficial sprinters world championship. As it turns out they all raced those laps anyway, despite the fear for the absurd sight of everyone, baring a handful of sprinters teams, sliding off the back and touring their way around Paris until they had concluded their quota of laps.

And everyone made it to the first passage over that finishing line before the pace began to hot up, though Chris Froome of all people was the one who almost ran into disaster. During the usual rigmarole of pictures of Froome holding champagne, pictures of the jersey winners riding at the front together, and pictures of the winners team riding arm in arm, Froome was almost brought down when team-mate Richie Porte, who had proven so valuable to him the day before, almost lost his balance when attempting to ride with no hands in order to pose for that team picture.

Disaster averted and onto the Champs-Elysees, Froome was safe and only a couple of mechanical issues -- one of which seen a bag trapped in his real wheel forcing a bike change -- got in his way, though the official time had already been accounted for. Another moment of madness came on the final lap when a protester took to the route and stood with his arms out stretched as the on rushing peloton swept around him. Miraculously nobody hit him and everyone got home safely.

So it was over to the sprinters to decide the stage, once a couple of forlorn hopes had made their attempt to spoil the fun only to be reeled in, and who else should take the win but Greipel? Far and away the best sprinter in this years Tour, taking his fourth stage win. He beat Brian Coquard into second and the strong Alexander Kristoff into third. Peter Sagan never got close enough and an ill Mark Cavendish was way back in sixth on what used to be his stage.

A minute or so behind, though unofficially, came the Sky team, once again arm in arm but this time with a more secure looking Richie Porte. And in the middle...Chris Froome. In his Yellow jersey and as champion for the second time; the first British man to win the Tour on two occasions after Sir Bradley Wiggins had become the first Brit to win it just three years ago.

So after a savage 3,360.3km raced at brutal 39.64km/h in which just 16 men finished within an hour of the race winner Froome, all that was left was the pomp and ceremony on the podiums and then the after party. As he stood on the top step with the Champs-Elysees sweeping up to the Arc de Triomphe behind him, Froome gave a short but poignant speech. "This is a beautiful country and it hosts the biggest annual sporting event on the planet. To win the 100th edition is an honour", he said after thanking numerous people from his team-mates to his family. "This is one yellow jersey that will stand the test of time." It was all he needed to say and it highlighted once more the class of the man to show such grace given what he had gone through on the road to winning this 2015 Tour de France.

This is a beautiful country and it hosts the biggest annual sporting event on the planet. To win the 100th edition is an honour... this is one yellow jersey that will stand the test of time,” he said from the podium.

Result:	Final classement:
1. Greipel (TLS) in 2h 49' 41" 2. Coquard (EUC) 3. Kristoff (KAT) 4. Boasson Hagen (MTN) 5. Demare (FDJ) 6. Cavendish (EQS) all s.t.	1. Froome (SKY) in 84h 46' 14" 2. Quintana (MOV) + 1' 12" 3. Valverde (MOV) + 5' 25" 4. Nibali (AST) + 8' 36" 5. Contador (TCS) + 9' 48" 6. Gesink (TLJ) + 10' 47"

Froome goes to the limit to win the Tour...Pinot rescues his Tour on the most iconic of mountains

Stage 20: Modane > Alpe d'Huez, 110.5km

It was a stage of two parts. Not a split stage like those from the 1980s, but rather a stage in which two stories were written. The first was the very sudden realisation that perhaps this Tour was not over and that at last the Yellow jersey appeared to be in trouble, with a seemingly won and lost Tour up for grabs on the most iconic climb in the race and the final climb at that. The second was the race to actually win on that iconic climb as a young Frenchman timed his moment of redemption on this years Tour to perfection, much to the joy of his adoring home nation.

When Thibaut Pinot was seen standing on the cobbles of northern France almost three weeks ago, throwing his arms in the air in frustration that a mechanical was sending his Tour dreams up with the dust that surrounded him, it looked as though he might just quit there and then. It might have been the easy thing to do. Likewise on stage 17 when, having long since turned to hunting for stage wins, he crashed on the descent of the Col d'Allos. A younger version of himself might well have folded and rode anonymously into Paris but last years high finish has clearly given him a deep belief in his ability and the 25 year old Frenchman gutted it out and continued to hunt, until today, when on the grandest stage of all at Alpe d'Huez, he got his win.

It was a superb ride by Pinot. He shook off the rest of his breakaway companions, the last of which was the always gritty, always strong Ryder Hesjedal, and soloed to a win by 18sec over a fast charging man on a mission, Nairo Quintana.

From the top of the first mountain of the Tour to the foot of the last, Chris Froome winning this years Tour de France has seemed a foregone conclusion with everyone else either fighting to maintain a podium place or a position in the top ten. Either they seemed incapable of distancing the Sky rider or, dare I say, unwilling to attempt it at the risk of blowing their own position.

Nairo Quintana, who had entered the mountain stages nearly two minutes behind Froome and then lost more time on that first mountain stage, had spent the better part of the past week making small attempts to shake Froome only to find himself consolidating his podium position by dropping most others but with Froome always close by.

That isn't to say there were signs that Froome was beginning to look tired; no longer was he initiating the major moves, but even yesterday Quintana only managed to pull back a mere 30sec when he finally shed himself of Froome, leaving Froome still 2min 38sec to the good with just this final stage to go. But nobody wins the Tour without some kind of adversity, and while Froome has faced a lot of his from the actions of some idiot fans, on the bike he was, at last, about to get a taste of adversity courtesy of the little Colombian.

There was only two climbs here and the first on the Col de la Croix de Fer was too far out as Quintana found out when he briefly attacked only to sit up on the descent. With a long ride along the valley to the Alpe, it would have been madness for Quintana to push on. It appeared too late for Quintana, just as it had been each time a day ticked by with Froome still in a commanding lead, and so with only the Alpe remaining, focus was already fully upon who from the early break off the front might win the stage itself.

In the end it was too late, but for a short while, Froome appeared to be in real trouble. Quintana attacked early on the Alpe and nobody reacted. Froome watched him go, but this time there was no holding his power threshold and slowly bridging back across. This time the gap continued to open until which times Quintana was no longer on the same stretch of road between hairpin bends.

The gap grew to 30 seconds and it held around there for a while as Froome sat on the wheels of his super domestique, turned bodyguards, Wout Poels and Richie Porte. The last act of Porte in service to his captain before moving away from Sky at the end of the season would be to try and save the Yellow jersey for the Sky leader.

As the crowds swarmed and the threat of attack loomed, the Sky duo in front of Froome powered their way through, the crowds moving back just in time as the clock on the top of our TV screens continued to tick upwards and up over a minute. Froome was in trouble, with several kilomtres still remaining, the Tour appeared to be slipping away.

Everyone was scrambling to do the maths in their heads. How much could Froome afford to lose now and how many kilometres were left? Was he keeping something in the bag...riding to a level he knew he could maintain without losing enough time? Or was he on his limit...starting to panic as the time gap continued to rise and the legs refused to react? He wasn't looking any stronger as the hairpin bends were counted off, and what if he suddenly cracked?

Behind the Team Sky bus paced Sir Dave Brailsford, going through all these emotions with the sane side of his brain telling him that the allowable gap versus the distance remaining left a power requirement of Froome that he could surely manage. The other side of his brain was remining him (and all of us) of the human element of the Tour in which sometimes power numbers, data, stats and everything else could become irrelevant when troubles come and all that stood between you and the glory was the desire to suffer that little bit more, to find the strength to hang on.

Into the final kilometre and Brislford could begin to relax. Quintana hadn't gained enough. That moment in which it looked like we were witnessing one of the greatest comebacks/collapses in Tour history was fading. Quintana finished and 1min 20sec later, so to did Froome. He looked to the clock, a look of a man that didn't have it all under control after all, but took note that he had won the Tour by a mere 1min 12sec; a figure nobody could have imagined his lead dropping to when the day began.

Quintana will surely question his bad timing today. A little too late to overhaul Froome for the Tour win and a little too late to overhaul Pinot for the stage win and he will head home as the winner of the young rider competition, but empty handed without a stage victory unlike those two men who got in his way overall and for the stage. That said, he will win stages and should win himself a Tour one day, and what he did perhaps do was prove himself as the finest climber in the world, one who stays strong over the course of a three week race. It will have left him and his fans wondering what if regarding that treacherous first week where on stage two in the cross-winds he lost 1min 28sec to Froome, more than which he has now lost the Tour by.

Of course, for Froome he has proven to have timed this Tour to perfection. You can say 'what if' there had been another mountain today, or another mountain stage tomorrow, but there wasn't and there isn't and Froome stands in Yellow. And while Quintana can say he lost the Tour in the winds of Holland, Froome could also point to that first mountain stage to La Pierre-Saint-Martin where, with the stage win, he put 1min 14sec (including the 10sec time bonus) into Quintana, 2sec more than that he won the Tour by.

In the end though, the best man always wears Yellow in Paris and Froome has proven himself to be the best across the entire three weeks of the route that was put in front of them and not just the four days in the Alps. He'll ride into Paris tomorrow and baring some kind of unforeseen disaster will win his second Tour in three years and Sky's third in four.

Result:	Classement:
1. Pinot (FDJ) in 3h 17' 21" 2. Quintana (MOV) +18" 3. Hesjedal (TCG) +41" 4. Valverde (MOV) +1' 38" 5. Froome (SKY) s.t. 6. Rolland (EUC) +1' 41" --- 15. Nibali (AST) +3' 30" 16. Contador (TCS) s.t.	1. Froome (SKY) in 81h 56' 33" 2. Quintana (MOV) +1' 12" 3. Valverde (MOV) +5' 25" 4. Nibali (AST) +8' 36" 5. Contador (TCS) +9' 48" 6. Gesink (TLJ) +10' 47"