It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2021 Tour de France racejunkie Awards!

 All right, cycling fans: the Champagne's been quaffed, the adorable moppets have been lofted in their dads' arms on the podium, and the lively debate over whether this year's Tour sucked or rocked has devolved from semi-polite Twitter debate into mild fisticuffs and now into cars on fire, Molotov cocktails, and people sticking blazing flares up their butts.  Oh wait, that's *soccer* fans!  Anyway, for those of you still in deep doldrums from your post-Tour hangover, and the absolute decimation of your fantasy team due to that monstrous all-peloton crash the first week, it's time to reflect and celebrate the good, the bad, and god knows, the ugly with your annual Incredibly Prestigious 2021 Tour de France racejunkie Awards!  Prizes--I swear on Andre Greipel's diplomacy towards Mark Cavendish over that snitty 2013 "shit race" comment I'm still pissed off about--(1) a passel o' handsome racejunkie stickers to deface yer rivals' team bus, teammates, or face; (2) a custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap so you need never get on a podium with a disgraceful baseball cap again; (3) a genuine promotional sportsy statue with yer name and awarded written nicely upon it in impermeable Sharpie if I can't afford the engraving; and (4) best of all, eternal glory, or shame, because the internet never forgets, baby!  So bust out yer berets, hang on tight, and let's get on with the show!

Fan !@#$wit Award: y'know, normally, that eejit who let a renegade umbrella rip right in front of the wheel of the maillot jaune on a sketchy, rainy descent--which, thankfully, the rider was able to dodge--would win this no problem.  But this year, of course, none can be the recipient but the insanely reckless, stupid, and attention-whoring lady in yellow with the ALLEZ OPI-OMI sign that, either that day or in the days thereafter, sent about 20% of the peloton home with gruesome injuries and foreordained the final GC almost right from the get-go. FFS, people--*how* many times can I run that !@#dammed etiquette post from like 2006 before you *listen*?!

Hissy Fit o' the Race: usually, you can count on some sprinter who lost entirely fair and square to unjustly attack the winner, or a little inadvertent argy-bargy to result in a full-on slap-fight and truly vicious post-race-interview slagging. But this year, our peloton was impressively well-behaved.  So, even though it's not quite *in* the race, I'll give it this to Green Jersey champ/Merckx's Impossible Record-Tie-r Mark Cavendish, notoriously dropping the humble-pie bull!@#$ he seemed to have developed just for the Tour and going back to his career-long pissy prima-donna self by going absolutely off on his unlucky mechanic for some minor offense.  I mean, sorry for the mechanic and all (and to his credit, Mark did promptly issue a lengthy apology)--but damn, I was starting to worry our Cav had been replaced by a pod-person there for a minute!

Superdomestique Prize: sure, he's by kilometers (literally!) the best lead out man in the business, and he even had to sit up and brake *twice* to let his charge come around him and actually take the win. So Quick Step's Michael Morkov, this is *almost* for you.  But even better than Morkov's fine work, tragically, was the truly superlative job done collectively by Team Ineos.  Trouble was, it was for deadly rival and final maillot jaune in Paris, UAE's Tadej Pogacar, not their own !@#$ed-up four, then, three, then two, then one-headed hydra.  You're supposed to riding for the fast one in *blue*, kids!

Grumpy Old Man Yells At Clouds Award: at first, he wasn't even remotely concerned.  Then, he was mildly amused. But finally, after Cavendish began to come dangerously close to tying--or heaven forbid, even almost *beating*--his hitherto-breakable Tour de France stage-win record, even the legendary, and truly still untouchable, Eddy Merckx had had enough.  BECAUSE UNLIKE THAT !@#$IN' LOSER ONE-TRICK PONY CAV I'VE WON ALL KINDS OF STAGES NOT JUST SPRINTS AND I'VE WORN THE YELLOW JERSEY MORE DAYS THAN THAT PUNK HAS BEEN ALIVE PLUS I'VE WON THE WHOLE !@#DAMN SHOW 5 TIMES, CAN YOU SAY THAT YOU !@#$IN' AMATEUR?!  In the end, Eddy relented--because he's the Cannibal, and he can--warmly embraced Cav, and ended the race with his stage-win record (if now shared) still intact.  NOW WASH MY FEET YOU WORM!

Shake, Rattle and Roll Award: now, normally it's the armchair peloton jumping all the hell over a wheel suspiciously rotating at high speed several untoward minutes after the bike's actual rider has detached himself from the thing in a crash.  But this year, it was the riders themselves who purportedly claimed to be hearing "unusual" sounds from their rivals' back wheels in the pack--rivals whose performance seemed uncharacteristically strong.  And at least one gent apparently defended any untoward noises by claiming it may perfectly well have been someone's discarded rice-cake wrapper caught in the spokes making all the clatter.  I mean, sure, a rice cake wrapper with wires, magnets, computer chips, and gasoline--but who the heck can reasonably quarrel with that?   

Class Move o' the Race: honestly, even if you're Wout van Aert, you can't ask for much more than to beat the ageless Alejandro Valverde in a mountain stage and have him stagger in after you and graciously congratulate you on your win.  But for my money, this is actually for the three-pack of Slovenians, including winner Tadej Pogacar, parading to Paris with crashed-out countryman and serious maillot jaune contender Primoz Roglic's race number held up between them for the cameras.  Nice move, boys--but enjoy the symbolic thumbs-up, because next year, if all goes well, you'll be fighting the real thing right down to the wire!

Revelation of the Tour: yeah, Pogacar already *did* all that stuff in 2020, so while our tot wonder may still be quite impressive in bagging his second straight overall win and two stages to boot, anyone who expected Jonas Vingegaard--respected and formidable whippersnapper though he is--to step up after Rogla crashed out, stick with the tireless Pogacar for stage upon stage, blast fellow wee climber Carapaz by minutes in the final time trial, and lock in second on the podium by that kind of a margin is just a lying lying liar.  Or just smarter than me--not all that hard, I concede! 

Nice Guys Finish First (Sometimes) Award: he's in damn near every breakaway that ever broke.  He works hard, does his fair share, and rides with class. And this time, he took an early flyer from the breakaway, storming steadily to a smashing win.  Bauke Mollema on Stage 14.  Chapeau!

Optics, People! Prize (Lucky He's Untouchable Edition): now, it's not at all uncommon for a rider to, after a herculean effort, collapse off his bike onto the tarmac, heaving for breath and dangerously close to projectile vomiting on the cameras.  What *is* perhaps a little more uncommon is for said rider to collapse onto the tarmac and appear to be as unbothered and relaxed as if he'd just come off an hour-long massage and a nice mani-pedi at the spa.  And the, um, bug-bite-shaped tiny red dots someone pictured on the back of knee at the start of the final time trial didn't help. Tadej Pogacar on stage 18.  Kid, you may well *be* that incredible, but you oughta at least *look* like you're working for it!

Optics, People! Prize (Now *You* Ain't Untouchable Edition): Your entire squad's hotel has just been raided, and stripped of potentially incriminating evidence, by the narcs.  So what better showing of certain innocence and humble submission to antidoping standards than by immediately taking a gigantic stage win and making the same classic "zip it" omerta gesture as you cross the line that Armstrong used to shut the !@#$ up Simeoni? Damn, Bahrain-Victorious, if you can't keep your boys off the juice, can you at least knock a little *sense* into their heads?

Last But Not Least, Our Punk-!@# Move o' the Race: look, I suppose you can hardly fault the guy--Lance Armstrong pulled the same trick way back in 2001, gasping ostentatiously for the cameras and helplessly struggling up two full mountain passes, only to give Jan Ullrich the infamous "Look" and blow poor Jan away on Mont Ventoux with barely a sweat droplet.  But Richard Carapaz not only mugged for the motos to fake out his rivals, he actually sucked Vingegaard and Pogacar's wheels up the entirety of the Col du Portet, before wankerly blasting around them to take the wi--uh, screwing it up anyway as Pogacar came around him with a smirk and Vingegaard charged back from a near-crack to take second place. With all due respect, Carapaz, Armstrong you ain't--and next time, try at least taking a turn or two before you start pulling that crap! 

Well folks, that about wraps up our golden freakshow. So winners, collect yer prizes, and let's hope more of you manage to stay upright and uninjured, and that we have a *real* battle for GC, in 2022!  

It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2020 Tour de France racejunkie Awards!

Still waking up in the middle of the night scaring the crap out of your partner yelling "Allez! Allez!"? Bereft at the thought of a day without the maillot jaune? Obsessively checking French real estate listings for decaying medieval chateaux-for-sale? Yeah, well normally I'd say me neither, because it's freakin' *September*, but because this is also 2020, the Biggest Cycling %^&*show On Record, here we are.  Still, messed up as this year is, we haven't yet devolved into *total* animals, so tilt yer beret, wave yer croissant, and raise a Champagne toast to Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2020 Tour de France racejunkie Awards!  Prizes--I swear--for anyone desperate and/or craven enough to claim them: (1) a dashing custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap; (2) a passel o' handsome racejunkie stickers to defile yer laptop, yer refrigerator, or yer face; and (3) a custom-ordered random statuary tchotchke because frankly, it's still not safe enough here for me to spend hours rummaging through discarded boy-band action figures and 1000-piece puzzles with 2 pieces missing to find you something inappropriate at a local thrift store.  Oh right, and eternal infamy. So without further ado, let's get moving on our annual Tour de France adieu!

I'm Not Crying, You're Crying Award of 2020 (Oh Hell, I Am Too Crying): Sam Bennett's charmingly halting, weepy post-race inaugural Tour de France stage-win interview, Stage 10. Not only did he grab the sprint, but he took--and never gave back--the coveted Peter Sagan Green Jersey as well.  Close second, except I didn't want to pile on the poor guy any more: Rogla's stunned collapse at the end of the penultimate-day time trial, with his loyal teammates folding consolingly around him like scrawny-but-spiritually-fluffy fleece blankets. Waaaaaaaaaaah! 

Disaster Stage of 2020: of course, as a loyal Landa fan, it's when he lost 1:21 in a !@#$in' crosswind that everyone on Bahrain should've seen coming from a thousand kilometers away !@#dammit. But we officially reached peak 2020 right on Stage 1, where the wet roads turned into skating rinks and half the freakin' field crashed out, including key Landa assist Rafa Valls, reliable stage winner Degenstache, and ever-fighting Philippe Gilbert.  Add poor visibility, a bubble-spewing soap sponsor, and the white lines on the road apparently painted with axle grease, and it just doesn't get any better (or worse) than that.  2021, get a move on already, we're *done* with this !@#$ !

The Fast and The Furious Award: okay, let's get down to brass tacks (but, y'know, hopefully not the kind that assclown threw down on the actual road in front of poor Cadel Evans).   *Every* #$%damn climb, Pogacar or some schmuck is shattering mountain speed records previously achieved only by a team director personally hanging out the car helpfully holding up a drug-stuffed IV running right into some weasel's !@# 6 hours straight for the cameras.  I mean, when you've just smacked down 2003 Alexander Vinokourov, you *know* some !@#$'s going down.  Let's just hope it's merely, well, a nice hearty dinner and a relaxing massage every night!

Fan !@#%wit Award: in an ordinary year, I'd be awarding this to the guardians of a meandering dog or careening toddler, a selfie-stick wielder, or some urine-tossing psychopath.  And I was about to award this collectively to the maskless (or even more incomprehensibly, masked but only *under their mouths and noses*) eejits running screaming alongside terrified riders in the middle of a freakin' *pandemic.* But we actually had to wait til nearly the end this time, when some reckless nutwhack leapt out into the middle of the course past the barriers just meters from the line and seconds away from a charging peloton. Luckily, thanks to some dude who went all Bernard Hinault on his !@#, the eejit was safely dispatched and, miraculously, no spindly rider bodies were broken.  FFS, can we just go back to the eye-blinding camera-whores in their indiscreet neon speedos next year?

Not-A-Crash o' the Tour: fabulously impressive emerging breakaway artist/Tour de France newb EF's Neilson Powless, who, like countless others before him, slightly misjudged a corner on a switchback descent, but, instead of wiping out to near-certain catastrophic bodily injury, smoothly rolled over the grass into a roadside fan's tailgate party, kicked back with a beer and some charcuterie, and continued, unruffled, on his way. Panache!

Where's Peto? Award: c'mon--when he wasn't tattooed into the green jersey this year, and with his front wheel stuck disconsolately to the ground, *you* couldn't pick Sagan outta the peloton in his mere-mortal Bora kit either.  Nine years of total dominance quietly down the sink.  There's always 2021, Peto--if you can get by Bennett first!  Corollary Old Man of the Mountain Prize: the usually hyper-active Alejandro Valverde, adrift without a teammate to bushwhack this year, stealthily ticking his way into 12th place.  But guess who won the Team Classification *again*, beeyotches? 

Class Act o' the Tour: Yep, 2019 Vuelta champ (and did you know he used to be a ski jumper?) Primoz Roglic, unreservedly expressing both his personal devastation and complete happiness for his jailbait last-minute Tour de France-winning countryman, Tadej Pogacar, both immediately after the gut-wrenching decisive individual time trial, and warmly right in front of the cameras on the highest-profile stage in cycling, the Champs-Elysees.  Waaaaaaaaaah!

*That's* Who They !@#damn Busted? Award: So a pack of raging giant Murder Hornets the size of linebackers stomps up the climbs for 21 straight stages in hammering superhuman lockstep at a pace not remotely seen since the relentless Armstrong-era Discovery train, a 21-year old kid who was ordered off the bike for a week because he was training so well shatters the penultimate day's time trial by like a minute and takes the overall win on his first-ever Tour, and who do the crack UCI narcs finally bust?  That's right, this year's equivalent of popping a Master's rider for buying 1st-gen EPO off the internet, Nairo !#$%in' Quintana, who, by Grand Tour winner standards, *sucked* this year.  Yap, doping's bad, yap--but couldn't you have left the wee thing a *little* dignity?

Unsung Sea Change o' 2020: Sure, it was a little harder to tell behind the masks, but didja notice that podium babes now come in *two* genders, albeit one a little more scantily-clad than the other?  Equal opportunity T&A--now *that's* progress!

Nice Try But No Cigar Award: Bahrain's much-derided, if undeniably gutsy, tactics on Stage 17.  Sure, they maybe took off a col too early, and our brave Mikel Landa was left alone and nearly broken at day's end.  But he's an ex- (and ever-) Carrot, dammit, so if you've got a problem with it, even if you're actually correct, you can just !@#$ right off into the sunset.  Aupa (in 2021) Mikeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel! 

Stop! In the Name of Love! (Before You Break Your Face) Prize: Tony Martin's brave, if unsuccessful, arms-wide attempt to slow down the peloton on a dangerous descent, just before Astana went ahead anyway, and, in a related Karma's a !@#$, !@#$ ! Prize, skidding (which was NOT the dear Izagirres' fault) great GC hope Miguel Angel Lopez face-first into a road sign on Stage 1.  Luckily, naught was damaged but his dignity, and the race proceeded just as cautiously as Martin's ill-fated gesture had intended.  Oh Cancellara, where *are* you where the etiquette-disgracing peloton needs you?

Break-Out Star of 2020: look, Powless was amazing. But damned if Marc Hirschi didn't stick it out after a string of heroic near-misses til he finally bagged his win in dramatic solo-break fashion on stage 12.  Keep your eyes on this kid--there's sure to be more where that came from!  

Domestique o' the Race: by any other measure, team Skineos' Tour was a disaster.  With defending champ Egan Bernal going gently into that good night, and all that desperate work for nothing, Michal Kwiatkowski, who spent the entire Tour and then in particular all day Stage 18 diligently hauling backup-GC Richard Carapaz up mountains and down, was justly awarded a well-deserved, arm in arm stage win for his efforts.  Is it me, or is everyone who ever did a hard day's work for Lance Armstrong for barely a thank-you feeling pretty pissed off right now?

Punk-!@# Move o' the Race:  Last but not least: c'mon, a little argy-bargy in the sprints--hell, sometimes all-out fisticuffs--is to be expected. But with those damn barriers with the iron spikes sticking out of the basis increasingly the cause of massive bodily injury, what you *don't* need is some jackwagon veering way off his line at the last possible second, jamming his shoulder into yer bod, and nearly taking you down in a jumble of shattered bikes, bones, and dreams.  Peter Sagan, we *know* you were getting desperate by Stage 11--but for heck's sake, leave Wout van Aert out of it!   

Well fans, them's my picks for this year. Now riders, slap on your masks, start looking ahead to the...Giro?!, and try not to win again next year!

It's Yer Vuelta a Espana Jaysus *Now* What the Hell's Going On Out There Rest Day Dos Roundup!

Whew, were *those* exhausting climbing days--to watch on our end, anyway!  Luckily, we've *all* earned a good day's rest.  So now that we're down to the final push, what's the state of this crazy-!@# race?  This!

1. I don't care *how* many stages they win or who they smack around on GC--Movistar is still one !@#$ed-up squad.  Valverde continues to attack Quintana like antibiotics on sinus infection.  Soler's washed his hands of the whole lot of you bastards, with a brief pause to do Bala a solid, after his public rebuke from his DS.  And your general strategy appears to be Every Man for Himself Because There's a Zombie Apocolypse, with a frisson of Chased By Screaming Human Steroids in Bondage Gear In A Mad Max Movie and a subtle whiff of Holy !@#$ How Many Times Are They Gonna Remake "Halloween" Before They Run Outta Bodies?  Geez, maybe it *is* better Unzue sent Landa over to the Tour of Britain to brush up on gardening tips! Still, with Valverde firmly in second on the podium, and claiming fatigue which you know means he's waiting to bushwhack anyone in his way by this weekend, you can hardly write Movistar's whatever-the-hell-they-call-it off as totally ineffective--and with the commentators uniformly confounded by every half kilometer, you sure can't say it isn't entertaining!

2. (Minor) Celebrity Deathmatch: Ineos' Tao Geoghegan Hart and Katusha's Ruben Guerrero. Okay, so they blew the break and Fuglsang took the day--but what was *that* nasty little slap-fight after the line about?

3. Wolfpack My !@#--yes, that dashing breakaway victory was textbook PhilGil, but as a giant "!@#$ you for screwing me in July!"

4. It's All a Giant Slovenian Conspiracy.  Didn't you see--gasp!--that wily fist-bump between Roglic and Pogacar?  And the only reason everyone's clutching their pearls in horror is because no one *they* want to win has actually gotten their !@#$ together first.  Just because our guys are busy eating their own young doesn't mean those two can't make some sense!

5. Anyone else a little weirded out that Jumbo-Visma is suddenly a GC squad?  'Cause I'm about to start betting on Euskadi-Murias for the sprints!

6. It's Deja-Vu All Over Again: Come on.  I can't be the *only* one who thought Jakob Fuglsang already bagged a bucket o' Grand Tour stage wins!

7. !@#$in' Hell, Froome! Yep, *another* hospital photo op, this one proving that peeling a potato is apparently a slaughterhouse compared to crashing down a descent at rocket speed.  Either go away or get popped once and for all, we can't stand this crap any more!

8. If You're Lookin' To Score...I think the race helicopter guys are gonna be doing a *lot* more random buzzing of rooftops from now on, whether they're on the race course or not!

9. Vinokourov Isn't Done With You Mother!@#$ers Yet.  He's just bagged the Ironman World Championships in France in his age group--you think he doesn't still have a few scores to settle with the *cyclists* who got in his way?

Well, that's yer quickie review.  Tomorrow, it's an officially-classified "flat" stage, which means the sprinters are gonna let the break dangle to the very last millimeter before they decide if they're gonna cause chaos right to the line.  Onwards and (sorry, sprinters) upwards!