I am ditching my stars ratings for the moment, having royally messed up the start time and missed all but the last 5km. Not that it was so terrible: as predicted, the Mur de Huy did all the essential spirit-lifting and dream-crushing on its own. But of course races are at least somewhat made in the last 50km or so, which means my superficial understanding of the results is just that.
I will confess to placing too much emphasis in my predictions on climbers who can sprint. A better way to look at la Fleche is the simplest: who's strongest at the end? Kim Kirchen didn't sprint to victory, he powered his way there with a grinding surge in the last 200 meters. And any race where Cadel Evans takes second clearly has nothing to do with quick acceleration. Were the Mur shorter or flatter, those accelerations would come back into play and Cunego would stand a chance of moving up a step or two on the podium. But no dice.
Anyway, lovely race as always, and thanks to so many of you for holding down the fort while I struggled (once again) to translate from GMT to Pacific time.