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I think this just highlights the tremendous amount of luck he had during his run. I would like to think he was outworking everyone else too, but the amount of luck involved can’t be overlooked.

Mr. Blonde, I started contemplating exactly that at about the 2nd crash that LA was involved in. He's had plenty of crashes, plenty of punctures, but nothing so bad that he couldn't recover from it. Good support, great teamwork, etc, got him back in the saddle and back up to the front.

'You make your own luck', as they say, which can be looked at as expecting the bad stuff and planning how to ameliorate it with support / teamwork, etc. But even given that, Lance has had a remakably charmed career since returning to the peleton in the late 90s.

Lance got caught today in a perfect storm of ain't-gonna-happen. I think the Cadel / Schleck / Contador camps were going to fight it out no matter what today, not to get LA but to start the eventual fight early. What was thought to be a relatively minor climbing stage turned into a showdown at a pace not anticipated by many. Three relatively minor crashes, maybe some domestiques who weren't up to the challenge today, & a 38-yo body later, and Lance was simply left in the dust.

I disagree. I don't think luck got him those 7 titles. It was talent & legendary hard work. I do think that after time off and @ 38 years old, it's possible his reaction times aren't as good, his instincts have dulled & his saddle sense has atrophied..

And maybe it's also because I never really believed 100% in the first place that he came here this year to win it but perhaps to start getting his baby RS team off to a well-financed, I also disagree that this has to be a sad epilogue to a fantastic career.

Come on, ten years from now, no one will remember he lost one. They'll just know he won seven, seven SEVEN! freaking ones.

In fact, if he provides some spectacular heroics in getting his teammate to a podium position, then the statement he makes by finally paying something back to others on his team & ushering them to glory could be an amazing coda to a career which might restore, glory alleluia, some sense of sportsmanship which has been lost, IMHO, from cycling for a while now.

There is no dishonor in being a domestique! They are the real heros. (Viz: George Hincapie, who's NEVER won a tour but has had an amazing TdF career.) Lance could make everybody appreciate them more & that would be a great thing for the sport.

Maybe he could even teach Alberto something by getting Levi to Paris in yellow.