2009 Cog Award: Ride of the Year
As the year comes to a close, I find myself thinking back to the most memorable moments of the 2009 professional racing season. Overall, it was a pretty good season with some of my favorite races were won by my favorite riders; Liege was won in magnificent fashion by my boy Andy while a few weeks earlier, Tom Boonen had shown how the strongest rider makes the race in Roubaix by riding over the stones so fast that everyone else fell off. Heinrich Haussler staged a legendary ride through all kinds of weather to win Stage 13 of the Tour. And, while he didn’t manage to win any stages, Robert Gesink showed incredible climbing skills over the steep slopes of the Vuelta – in particular on Stage 12 – and provided the most exciting racing of that particular Tour. Of course, we shouldn’t forget about Cadel Evans bringing on the surprise of the season by winning the World Championship road race.
All those great races aside, I think it’s been a long time since we’ve had two brothers capable of winning nearly any race, being Pro at the same time, and racing together on the same team. And, while the season is littered with examples of where the Schlecks worked together to allow one or the other to win a race, I have never seen a better example of brotherly teamwork than the stage to Bourg Saint Maurice. The image of Frank on the front, pulling up the big passes with only his brother and the Yellow Jersey in tow is one I will not soon forget. Thus, the 2009 Cog Award has to go to Frank Schleck for this ride on Stage 17 of the Tour de France.
As for my hopes of next year, I’d love to see more Schleck awesomeness (perhaps in the form of a yellow jersey), Boonen pulling off a fourth Roubaix, and more women’s racing coverage.
Here here. Watching Boonen et al. in the last 30km of Paris-Roubaix was great. Watching the finish of Milan-San Remo on a poor DSL video feed was even great. Hausseler riding away with the TdF stage 13 rainy victory was awesomeness incarnate. He is a tough monkey and I reckon we will see more from that half German/half Aussi. The Worlds road race was also great, at least the last lap. Spartacus will continue to delight through 2010. He is da man.
DiLuca, Rebellin, Schumacher should all be banned for life because they are massive tools. And publicly humiliated somehow, I’m working on this in 2010.
@john
I wish we could have given the Cog to Voigt for his grinta, but unfortunately he didn’t manage to stage one of spectacular kamakazi wins this year. Here’s to him taking out Liege this year!
Jens could have gotten the cog just for man’n up after that horific face crash. Jeebus that was hard to watch. Great list though. And although I’m not a fan, i think the Manx Mouth deserves a nod for tearing it up at MsR and le Tour. For 2010, I’d love to see Boonen equal Mr. Paris-Roubaix with number four and my boy Thor take a spring win in a classic and keep Cav out of green again. Riders I’ll be watching in addition to Haussler- Thomas Lovkvist and Baosson Hagen, skol!
@Marko
Well said, well said. That face crash was awful. Great goals for 2010; Thor took Het Volk (or whateverthefuck it’s called now) but that’s more like a quasi-classic. He’s a big danger for Roubaix, that’s for sure, but I’m also gunnin’ for Boonen there. I’d love to see Haussler pull of the MsR win and we’ll have to see how your Swedes do. Movitz!
A couple of later entries, but Tour rides I remember from last year (as I prep for this year’s edition): Thor collecting sprint points on a solo breakaway and Cancellara’s chasing descent in yellow on Stage 7. Two tire changes: the first was a puncture, so he raced back to the pack only to stop because the new wheel wasn’t yellow so he had to change it out. Classic. Then there was the protruding rock, which almost took his head off.