Missile to Launch Control - Cavendish flies

I was going to keep this blog to a weekly roundup of the Tour this year, but when the Manx Missile Mark Cavendish defied illness to take stage 5 from Cagnes-sur-Mer to Marseille, I was pretty inspired.

Launching a missile is obviously a complex process. Omega-Pharma Quickstep could at least get some outside contractors to keep the breakaway in tow in the form of Orica-Greenedge who, with fast-man Matt Goss as well as Maillot Jaune Simon Gerrans on their team, had every reason to be looked to. Fresh from taking OPQS' scalps be a mere 3/4 of a second in the Team Time Trial the day before, they were obviously full of confidence and so did not shirk round their duties.

Energy saved then for the lead-out of Cavendish you would think. Perhaps not though, because the stage wasn't as straightforward as he might have hoped. The rolling terrain made for a difficult catch of the breakaway which meant Peter Velits, Sylvain Chavanel and Tony Martin - a trio who could have run Greenedge that close in the TTT by themselves - had to be deployed into the chase.

After clearing away the embers of rockets past, setting up the launch pad then fell to Matteo Trentin and the ever-present Gert Steegmans, who place Cavendish perfectly before he pressed to big red button and went. That is in past tense because, well, it happened yesterday; but also because when Mark Cavendish kicks out from an idyllic lead-out like that, the sprint may as well already be over.

The Manx Missile flew as André Greipel and Peter Sagan could only watch as the man in red, white and blue soared off towards the sun - taking Edvald Boassen-Hagen with him to mop up some more Green Jersey points. Save a thought for Matt Goss who was comparatively left in the dressing room putting on his space suit and was beyond nowhere to be seen, despite all his team's work earlier in the day. Well three stage wins in a row would have been greedy.

The ball is rolling. Let's see if that Missile gets painted green.

Why the 2012 Tour de France route was a necessity for faith in cycling

It was a route that has been bombarded with abuse, being named boring and predictable, but could it have actually been a clever plan by Prudhomme and co to restore a little faith in the front line of our sport?

Doping, by it's nature, makes cyclists better. And by being better then surely better performances, more impressive performances, are pulled off? Nobody can forget the scenes of Armstrong dancing up Alpe d'Huez, staring Ullrich in the face as he shoots off into the distance, the German being made to look pedestrian whilst still destroying the rest of the peloton himself. But all these scenes, exciting though they may be, are now utterly unconvincing and ultimately fake.

The 2012 route then was one which certainly highlighted strong time trialists, but still needed gritty and dogged performances in the mountains to pull of a victory. Wiggins and Froome did not ride everybody to oblivion. Their climbing 'dominance' was epitomised on stage 17 where they rode everybody else off their wheels - however they finished no more than 15 seconds ahead of third place overall Vincenzo Nibali. And just 3 seconds over youngest rider in the race Thibaut Pinot. What is especially telling is how this appeared to us - the judgmental public - as a complete trouncing of the field. Compare this though, to the likes of Armstrong claiming 2 minutes over Ullrich on a single assent of Alpe d'Huez in 2001. Or passing Basso on the mountain time trial in 2004. These performances were exciting, magnificent, unreal.

As a result, Wiggins was the only person who ever looked likely to win the Tour because of his supreme time trialling skill, and the whole race perhaps seemed monotonous and easily-predictable. But in the age where the form book tells us everything we need to know, and where races are easy enough to predict anyway, shouldn't this be the case?

Take away the fireworks and you don't get burnt. Prudhomme performed a masterstroke to protect cycling from the fire in an oh so significant year. While talking about Lance and the dirty years of cycling, we need to look at this year's races and believe in clean and honest sport. It may not keep you on the edge of your seat, but it might just save professional cycling altogether.

Click to recap the 2012 Tour de France route and to see what's in store for 2013 when hopefully viewers can watch with renewed faith.