OTSG’s Best and Worst of the Tour de France 2011

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This year’s Tour was one of the most exciting and entertaining of any in recent years. And it wasn’t just because of the wrecks, I can actually do without those. It was more the spirit by which the racers went about the task of racing. No gifts, all was earned. Thor winning on a mountain stage; Gilbert attacking at some point in every stage; Eddy Boasson Hagen making the winning break two days in a row, and making good on his second attempt; Voeckler making the break that made the Tour. All these things kept me glued to the TV every night. I could go on and on in whirlwind of post Tour analysis and speculation but I’ll keep things simple. I have assembled a small list below of my Best and Worst of the Tour 2011.

Best Podium Shoes – Team Europcar

Best Sprint Call – Stage 10 Happy Norwegians

Best Break – Stage 13 Thor chases down Roy and Moncoutie on a Mountain stage.

Worst Sock/Shoe Combo – Mark Cavendish’s horrific black shoes/white socks. What’s next, a fanny pack?

Best Second Attempt – Stage 17 Eddy Boasson Hagen after being nabbed at the line by The god of Thunder came back the very next stage and got his.

Biggest Surprise – Thomas Voeckler

Best Cape – Cadel Evans

Best Rolling Recovery – Johnny Hoogerland and his battle with barbed wire.

And if you’d like to see some awesome photography from throughout the Tour, I would highly recommend Totally Cool Pix (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3)

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  • Bill

    What a great Tour! Best one in years.

    Thank you for the picture links.

  • older1

    At least Cav’s look isn’t quite as bad as the classic pale-legs/black-socks w/sandals!

    Evans appropriately stood like a victorious superhero!

    By the way, here’s to wishing all the injured a quick recovery…admiring congratulations to all who finished…and a swift kick where it counts to the clueless driver of a certain ‘media car’.

  • Ryan

    Agreed Awesome Tour very fun to watch and I gotta say I am a little sad its all over. Its one of the high lights of summer for me to get up and watch the Tour and this years was very rewarding to watch from Tommy V’s battle to stay in Yellow to the battles in the Alps, Big Thor winning over a Mt stage it had it all. Hope we can have the same next year minus all the crashes and douche bag driver(s)

    • Cameron

      Ryan, July in our house is like no other month of the year.

  • Cameron

    We went the way of live streaming on the nbc sports website, and it was awesome! Continuous coverage, no commercials, live and on demand and in HD if the bandwidth wasn’t being used elsewhere in the house.

    It’s funny, we I was a kid I had to settle for the Sunday recap on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and now between streaming and the Universal Sports channel I can watch all three Grand Tours, and pretty much all the Spring Classics, and other odds and ends throughout the season! Technology is a wonderful thing!

  • Cameron

    Sorry, it was late last night when I posted this and I didn’t double check my links.

    The videos should be working now.

    Please let me know if they’re not.

    Thanks.