Sometimes, just sometimes, in the biggest bike race on earth the script gets ripped up from the word go?
When was the last time a Tour de France favorite loped out of the pack on an Alpine stage with 62 kilometres to go? To win? Or that on the first day, the outstanding favorite lost nearly two minutes?
This was the Tour 2011, a race where Andy Schleck singlehandedly rolled back the years with a spectacular long-distance mountain breakaway - and where three-times defending champion Alberto Contador was in serious trouble from day one.
The Tour 2011: where an avalanche of horrific crashes blighted the first two weeks; where US team Garmin took their first ever Tour victory, and then could not stop winning; where France discovered its most courageous cycling hero since Laurent Fignon; and where America's Tyler Farrar netted the biggest victory of his life - for his best friend.
The Tour 2011: a race where for three spellbinding weeks, each and every stage was steeped in uncertainty and saw favorites hopes raised and dashed and raised again. The Tour 2011: our only regret is that it couldn't have been longer.