The 2010 Tour de France was a cracking spectacle. A mix of misfortune, opportunism, humility, hubris, guts, determination and erm.. sheep made for one of the best editions in years. Here are the random, closing thoughts from this armchair fan’s perspective.

The overall race was of course won by Alberto Contador (Astana). Perhaps not quite in the explosive and unmatchable form which he displayed in 2007 and 2009, he nonetheless did enough to take the yellow jersey home for the third time.

There were some fine moments of competitiveness between Contador and his only real rival Andy Schleck (Saxo Bank). Perhaps the defining incident of the Tour was ‘Chaingate’, the incident in the Pyrenees where Schleck’s chain came off (blog video). The moment was instantly seized upon by Contador and two other highly-placed riders, somewhat in contravention of cycling’s unwritten rules of fair play. This topic has been debated endlessly online, so I won’t re-hash it here. What’s certain is that if Schleck had had his brother Frank along for company, the situation would probably not have arisen in the first place – Frank would have immediately given his bike to Andy, so he could continue. But the elder Schleck was back home, nursing a broken collarbone after an accident on the cobbles of stage 3.

The stage up the Tourmalet would prove to be fascinating, if something of an anti-climax. Schleck and Contador – the world best two climbers – grinding up the foggy mountain, with nothing whatsoever between them. Schleck’s performance in the final time trial to Pauillac was exceptional, and for half an hour or so gave Contador a major scare. Ultimately, the Spaniard’s time-trialling skills prevailed, but it’s clear that Schleck had improved enormously.

The Schleck brothers will be back next year, and with Andy maturing and improving every year, we may see a great rivalry with Contador, reminiscent of Lance Armstrong vs. Jann Ullrich from years ago. However, it looks highly unlikely that the two brothers will still be riding with Bjarne Riis’s Saxo Bank team. Strong rumours suggest that a Luxembourg state team is being assembled around the Schleck brothers, and that they may cherry-pick some of Saxo Bank’s best riders to take with them – perhaps the world’s premier time-triallist and all-round workhorse Fabian Cancellara and the finest super-domestique in the world, Jens Voigt. We’ll know more when the transfer market opens at the end of August.

Another new team took part in the Tour for the first time this year – Sky. Ultimately, their Tour was underwhelming. Overall contender Bradley Wiggins was unable to match his 4th place for Garmin in the 2009 Tour, and was admirably frank about it with the press. One diamond in the rough for Sky was the excellent performance by the young Welsh rider Geraint Thomas. Perhaps G’s finest moment with the superb second place behind Fabian Cancellara after the hellish afternoon on the pavé. Thomas will continue to mature and improve in coming years, and is definitely one to watch.

It will be very interesting to keep an eye on Sky’s progress over the next year or so. Their sponsors do seem to have the legs for a long-term commitment without expecting instant success – the budget is variously rumoured at around £35m for three years, but some of that will have been spent on buying out Wiggins’s contract from Garmin. But it’ll be interesting to see whether the very formal, scientific and considered approach favoured by team boss David Brailsford will yield results. His previous success has been in the entirely different and more controlled environment of track cycling. It remains to be seen if the team’s first, faltering steps into the unforgiving world of professional stage racing will lead to measurable success.

The bad-luck award probably went to Garmin-Transitions, a team with a very talented line-up, but which was eaten away by injuries and illness. Team leader Christian van der Velde crashed on stage 2, forcing his retirement that night. The same stage resulted in a fractured wrist for Garmin’s sprinter Tyler Farrar, who managed to hang on for another 12 days before retiring. And team stalwart and fast rouleur David Millar had a dreadful time, ill most of the way around France.

Let’s finally turn to a young Brit who did rather well again this year – Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia). After a lacklustre start to the cycling season, and an uninspired showing in the Tour’s first few sprint finishes, cynics were suggesting that he had lost the mojo that led him to take 4 stage wins in the 2008 Tour, and a staggering 6 stages in the 2009 Tour. But once he took the sprint on stage 5, his confidence returned with a vengeance and he was back to the Cav of the past two years, eventually bagging 5 stage wins.

Even having his lead-out man Mark Renshaw thrown off the Tour on stage 11 for some robust challenging didn’t dent the Manxman’s ability. Whilst he had previously had the luxury of a 9-man lead-out train to sap the opposition’s energy and establish dominance in stage run-ins, Cav proved that he can sprint in the classic Robbie McEwen style, ferreting his way through the bunch, following opponents’ wheels, and picking out his path to the line for himself. And the stage win on the Champs-Elysées finale was so emphatic, that it’s difficult to imagine anyone beating him for sheer speed in the foreseeable future.

That’s enough from me and from these Tour de France fan-blogs. I know from my web statistics that very few people have actually been reading any of these – and let’s face it, there is far better writing out there on the subject from proper journalists. But if you have enjoyed any of this, I’m very grateful. Might do it again next year.

The route of the 2011 Tour will be announced in late October 2010, and the race itself will start in early July 2011. Already, I can’t wait. Vive le Tour! A l’année prochaine!