It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious 2018 Tour de France racejunkie Awards!

All right folks. If you're anything like me, you could barely stand to watch the Tour because of all the Froome !@#$. But because we're cycling fans, even we scornful cynics put half an eyeball on it *occasionally*, so it's time yet again to reward the good, the bad, and the unspeakably ugly! Prizes, if anyone is so degraded, desperate, or self-Googling as to claim them--and I swear, I'm good for 'em--a bitchin' custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling cap, a passel o' dashing racejunkie stickers to advertise yer shame, and some kinda shiny random trophy tchotchke I'll wrangle up from somewhere. So winners, either step on up, or hide like a weenie in yer team bus--whichever fits!

Captain Obvious Award: hey, I like a good political protest as much as anyone. But it *ought* to go without saying in that dispersing said protest, one ought not to pepper spray the entire freakin' (and non-protesting) peloton. Oh, for the days when Bernard Hinault could handle these problems with a single tackle!

Crash o' the Race (Fan !@#$wit Edition): Y'know, bad enough some assclown thinks it's a great idea to inject a forest-fire's worth of smoke flares into gasping riders' lungs. And it's rather a crapshoot when some overenthusiastic drunkard crams a giant flapping flag cringingly close to a struggling rider's wheelset. But it triply sucks when some ejjit decides--after multiple, caught-on-tape Tour de France-screwing episodes of similar problems with various loop-things--that a !@#$ing *camera strap* is just *awesome* when it's suddenly wrapped around a GC contender's handlebars. Thanks, Nameless Scourge o' Nibali, for the fractured vertebra, and crashing out the only guy with a *possible* hope of livening up the race--now next year, stay the !@#$ home!

Crash o' the Race (Ow, !@#$! Edition): Philippe Gilbert can handle a bike. What's even more impressive is that after dodging what appeared to be something in the road in a whipping descent and flying over a stone wall into a crevasse, he managed (with the help of a neutral service car denizen) to climb right back out, give a thumbs-up, and finish the stage within the time cut with a busted kneecap. Undaunted, Gilbert promptly posted sweet hospital-bedside photos with the (still dearly missed) Tom Boonen. Come back soon Phil--the Tour owes you a stage win next year!

Crash o' the Race (Calm Down Everybody He's Going to Be Fine): look, it was terrifying when normally stellar master-o-his-machine green jersey/world champ/winner of everything else on earth Peter Sagan flew off the road, into the woods, and, as he poetically put it, landed on his !@# on a big rock. But not only did he seemingly not fracture that, he didn't touch his dreamboat face, either, and our hero managed to both gingerly finish the stage *and* hold his green jersey all the way into Paris. Now heal up Peter--your fans seemed to have been more traumatized than you were!

Dumb-!@# Race Organizer Move of 2018: Seriously, ASO? Putting 18 hors categorie climbs into a single stage, then not adjusting the time cut so every damn sprinter left got tossed out of the race before the Champs-Elysees? What kind of fun is *that*--forget making the final stage a snoozefest, you could've tormented those poor guys for *days* more!

Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz, Oh What a Relief It Is Prize: now, not to put a paranoid conspiracy theorist tinfoil-hat motive on everything Team Sky does--but c'mon, am I the *only* person to think that it looked a *whole* lot better for Team Sky to have Geraint Thomas take this Tour instead of Chris Froome, again? Somewhere, the hopeless antidoping authorities are toasting that win *twice* as much as Thomas himself!

Punk-!@# Move of the Race: I know, normally this goes to Alejandro Valverde for, oh, bushwhacking his teammate or something. But our wily Movistarlet was inexplicably quiet this Tour, and repeat racist/slap-happy dimwit Gianni Moscon -classily took his rightful place by, for no discernible reason, suddenly sucker-punching Fortuneo's harmless Elie Gesbert on stage 15, getting him promptly kicked out of the race. Team Sky, of course, immediately leapt into action, having Moscon robotically read a brief apology for the cameras and promising to deal with it *just* *as* *soon* *as* *they* *can.* Oh my, are you guys going to give him another "Young Rider" accolade on your website like after he flung a slur at Kevin Reza? *That'll* learn him--that you won't do anything about his behavior as long as he's useful, anyway!

French Dressing (Down) Award: Sure, it's rude. Heck, even indecorous. But is Dave Brailsford seriously suggesting that "French culture" is the reason behind the incessant 21 day 247 booing smacking Team Marginal Gains and their presumptive leader Chris Froome? Leaving aside the obvious fact that *every* culture was booing, j'accuse, jerkface--now you got your Tour anyway, so quit yer whining!

Cripes, Maybe It *Is* the French Award: Bad enough the poor guy had to ditch his yellow jersey dreams to some punk domestique--adding insult to injury (or more accurately, injury to insult), as Froome-dawg descended from the stage 17 finish off the Col d'Portet to the team bus, a gendarme, apparently mistaking him for a mere loser fan in his discreet giant flapping grey jacket, bodily jerked the 4-time Tour de France champ off his bike and onto the tarmac. Fortunately, after a brief discussion involving the words "!@#$ you!", "lawsuit!" and "bloody wanker," understanding and harmony was reached by all, but not, fortunately, without the entire humiliation being recorded for posterity on an iPhone. Here, we wouldn't want to relive that injustice, now would we?

Total Crushing Disappointment of the Race: oh, Mikel Landa. I *told* you not to go to Movistar! Would you just *promise* to stick it Nairo in August at the Vuelta, *please*?

Stupid !@#$ing Strategy of the Tour: in a related award--congrats, Movistar, on your idiot strategy of letting your three leaders blow all their energy infighting--it really paid off with the top step in Paris! Well, in the team competition anyway...

Hardman o' the Tour: as a wise man from Spinal Tap once said, "It's a fine line between clever and stupid." And we can debate EF's decision to let a shoulder-snapped Lawson Craddock continue in the race after a brutal fall all day. But stay in he did--and used the 20 consecutive days of following suffering to raise over $100,000 to restore his home velodrome, benefiting generations of local cyclists to come. You made it home to Paris, Lawson--now get that kid some champagne, his Lanterne Rouge, and a medic!

SuperDuperDomestique(s) Award: and, in sort of a two-fer, while Sky wunderkind Egan Bernal's smashing and relentless work for his captain(s) drove cycling into a frenzy over its Next Great Grand Tour Hope, EF's Simon Clarke and his teammates, to a bit less hype, carefully shepherded the severely-dented, yet undaunted, Lawson Craddock, to the line each day. That was really lovely. Oh, bite me, you cynics--even I get to get maudlin once in a while!

Best Stage of 2018: remember when Geraint Thomas took th--no, me either, frankly, because the one day "La Course by Tour de France" patronizing nod to the women was actually the most exciting, nail-biting day of the entire men's Tour de France. Annemiek Van Vleuten, *just* pipping an almost-triumphant Anna van der Breggen at the line. Agony!

Weeper o' the Race: I don't know what the hell the organizers were thinking except "carnage = ratings", but there was in fact a Paris-Roubaix stage this year, and when the rocks were conquered, the dust cleared, and the miniscule climbers pried out from the spaces between the cobblestones, John Degenstache--whose return to dominance was seriously in doubt after he almost had his finger severed in his (and his team's) horrific 2016 training crash by a careening head-on driver--took the honors, the day, and the Most Touching Post Race Interview Ever. Shut up, I'm not crying, *you're* crying--now give me those Kleenex!

Oh, Snap! Tweet o' the Tour: from Michael Rasmussen, who knows from dodgy performances: "According to Froome, Egan Bernal reminds him of himself when he was 21. The only similarity I can find is that both were riding bikes--not at the same level though." Sing it Michael--'cause the rest of us have no cred!

And Finally, the Bad-!@#ses of 2018: every damn day before the menfolk raced, and a day ahead of the guys, the thirteen intrepid, unofficial, under-supported women of Donnons des Elles au Velo J-1 rode the entire Tour de France--without the accolades, roadside circus, road closures, podium babes, prize money, or credit--because y'know, they *can*, and ASO's failure to have a full-fledged women's Tour de France is *bull!@#$.* Cyclists, we salute you--and ASO, fix this already you backwards jackwagons!

Well, folks, we're mercifully done with the Tour de France til next year. On the glorious Vuelta--and I mean it, Mikel, don't blow this, we believe in you!