Best rider overall
William Fotheringham: Geraint Thomas. Effectively won the race for Froome by stymieing Sky’s rivals in the mountains and produced one of the moments of the race on the descent to Gap. To get within two days of finishing fourth overall after the amount of work he had done was an immense achievement. Hard as nails.
Barry Glendenning: It was difficult not to be enthused by the courage and aggression of Peter Sagan, whose relentless good humour in the face of five frustrating second-place stage finishes was little short of heroic. Despite the format of the points classification being changed to give other riders a chance the Slovak rider was a worthy winner of a fourth consecutive green jersey.
Suze Clemitson: Peter Sagan, for his attitude, incredible descending skills, consistency and doing it all without the support of a super-strong team.
Lawrence Ostlere: Chris Froome won his second Tour with a level of control that few had predicted and did it in the face of inevitable cynicism and some ugly abuse. Killed off Vincenzo Nibali and Alberto Contador with a devastating attack at Pierre-Saint-Martin.
Biggest surprise
WF: Movistar and Astana’s failures to follow up on the occasions when they managed to isolate Froome from his team-mates. It beggars belief that teams of their budget and ambition will not gamble and go for the win when the leader is vulnerable.
BG: The introduction on stage 18 of the tight, twisting and picturesque Lacets de Montvernier climb for the first time was a big and pleasant surprise. How have Tour organisers managed to overlook this beauty for so long?
SC: Nairo Quintana not taking the opportunity to attack more often – he’ll be ruing the decision to focus all his efforts on the last two Alpine stages.
LO: Seeing Thomas turn on to the home straight at Gap, Ian Stannard by his side, the pair seemingly without a care just moments after Thomas had gone head over handlebars into a ditch via a telegraph pole. Nibali’s fallibility and Quintana’s passive tactics were also surprising.
Best stage
WF: Mende. I loved stage two with the echelons, and the showdown on l’Alpe d’Huez, but watching Steve Cummings take the win of his life with surgical precision was a joy. A reminder that occasionally nice guys get their reward.
BG: Occasionally apocalyptic weather conditions turned stage two’s spin along the Dutch coast from Utrecht to Zélande into an action-packed belter. Caught in crosswinds, Quintana lost 1min 28sec that would ultimately cost him the Tour.
SC: Cummings on Mandela Day for the little team that could – MTN Qhubeka have had a dream race with Daniel Teklehaimanot in polka dots.
LO: Stage 14 at Mende: as Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet stared down, each daring the other to blink first on the finishing straight, Cummings rounded both to become a stage winner at 34.
Most gruesome moment
WF: No contest, the crash on stage three. Seeing William Bonnet interviewed a couple of weeks later while in a back and neck brace underlined just how horrible it was. Not for those with delicate stomachs or children who race bikes.
BG: The sight of an ashen-faced and dazed maillot jaune Fabian Cancellara gingerly climbing back on his bicycle to continue racing after the crash on stage three that left him with two broken vertebrae. Having sustained similar injuries earlier this year the brave Swiss should not have been allowed to continue.
SC: Thomas’s near-miss with the telephone pole takes some beating but the after-effects of Jean-Christophe Péraud’s calvaire in Rodez were pretty horrible.
LO: The stage three pile-up which left William Bonnet in a neck brace and several riders like Michael Matthews carrying the effects until the very end. Tony Martin’s shoulder-first crash to Earth on the climb into Le Havre was also hard to watch.
Man for the future
WF: Adam Yates and Simon Yates. No point singling out one twin – both rode like seasoned veterans, made it into key breaks on tough stages and they have an immense future ahead of them. That they are not at Sky proves Sir Dave Brailsford is fallible.
BG: The French are always looking for their next great Tour hope and in the 24-year-old AG2R La Mondiale rider Bardet seem to have found a potential contender for the coming years.
SC: Bardet and Pinot responded to adversity like future champions and the Yates twins will be on the podium one day.
LO: Bardet’s descent from Montvernier was Nibali-esque, displaying aggression and grace in equal measure. Louis Meintjes is raw but could be a stage winner of the future, too; he finished fifth on stage 12 despite a late fall.
One thing I’d change
WF: Stop the idealistic mythologising about unwritten rules such as not attacking when the yellow jersey has an issue of any kind. The peloton is a jungle, everyone knows it, so can we please accept that and move on. This is sport not the Eton debating society.
BG: A new classification and coloured jersey for best domestique. Style points could be awarded for various tasks undertaken, including cheeky unpunished tows taken in the comically laboured bidon handovers that take place between team cars and riders, and the greatest number of water bottles carried by a single rider at any one time.
SC: That La Course is run as a proper stage as part of a women’s Tour de France, not a criterium – and the team time trial needs to go.
LO: Lower the maillot blanc cut-off. Maybe it’s Quintana’s wise old features but neither he nor Sagan looked quite right in white. They’ve been around too long to be considered young riders – restrict the classification to those under 23 like the Tour of California or, better still, to debutants.
