Kirby and Kelly provide ideal soundtrack to Froome’s win

It is important to suspend critical analysis in order to savour the Tour de France. The panorama of rolling countryside and mountain peaks offer beguiling backdrops, framing the pinched faces and rictus grimaces of impossibly lean riders, toiling in extreme heat or trying to negotiate safe passage on a road that has become a stream.

There is so much to admire in the breakneck speed of the time trials, the kamikaze instincts of a sprint finish, and hypnotic cadence that inches a cyclist towards those mountaintop finishes.

For the armchair viewer, to thoroughly enjoy the experience, there’s no point in dwelling on who or how many in the peloton are on performance-enhancing drugs.

Those facts will be revealed in a week, month, year or decade later, through the auspices of a whistleblower or a laboratory that has the facility to re-test existing samples somewhere down that road.

People will then roll their eyes and wonder how anyone could be suckered into believing that cycling had mended the drugs controversy that punctured the sport so emphatically and repeatedly over the years.

No, it's better to sit back and enjoy the spectacle and, taken on a superficial level there's plenty to enthuse. British Eurosport's soundtrack to the live pictures reinforces the value of having disparate personalities working in tandem. Carlton Kirby and Sean Kelly are the Odd Couple of cycling commentary.

Kirby polarises opinion with his convoluted, occasionally mixed metaphors and penchant for adding a new word or two to the English language. He once observed that “Quintana, he is a diminutive figure but a big powerhouse and there is a … leprechaunic figure leaping up and down offering him encouragement.”

On another occasion, he announced that “Kenny de Ketele, well he’s off the boil”, as the rider was pictured on the side of the road with a puncture. There is a fan page devoted to his witticisms.

There is no doubting his enthusiasm or the professionalism of his preparation for the subject and Kirby’s energy offers a counterbalance to Kelly’s deadpan delivery, a firehose of unflustered pragmatism that douses a surfeit of superlatives.

The Irish cycling icon brings his huge knowledge and experience of professional cycling to his analysis. The monotone drawl sucks out any animation in tone but not necessarily content. His observations are razor sharp but he doesn’t do hysteria.

Kirby’s shrieking tonsils and a desire to make a col out of a colline creates an upbeat tempo and provides the commentary with a discernible pulse before Kelly’s more temperate interjections: yin and yang.

The only real problem with the 2016 Tour de France was that Chris Froome relegated the race to a procession through his overwhelming dominance of his rivals.

Facilitated by the quality of Team Sky, his third outright victory in the Tour de France was relatively anticlimactic, other than his decision to censure the stupidity of a Colombian supporter with a punch.

Well, that and a couple of accidents.

Froome did provide one of the stranger images when after being involved in a collision with a motorbike, along with two other riders, there followed the sight of him running up the road in his cleats until his replacement bike could be whisked to him.

He also slid off at the bottom of a descent but these were minor blips in the procession. Ireland's Dan Martin and Sam Bennett both acquitted themselves capably for different reasons and indeed Bennett's bravery and determination, to finish the race after a heavy fall or two early on in the three-week race, contrasted sharply with a decision taken by Manxman Mark Cavendish.

The English sprinter won four stages in this year’s Tour before deciding on last Tuesday’s rest day to pull out in order to adequately prepare for the Olympics in Rio.

His overall tally of 30 stage wins in the Tour puts him in second place overall behind the Belgian great Eddie Merckx, who amassed 34 in winning five Tour de Frances. They may appear close numerically in that one specific category but they are light years apart in attitude.

Why should Cavendish be permitted to keep his four stage wins when he did not finish the Tour?

He wasn’t medically invalided out, or failed to finish within the accepted stage timeframe; no, he simply chose to quit to save his legs for Rio.

Where is the credibility in that for the sport and how can his numbers be compared to Merckx?

Cavendish is far from alone in following this route but, as he climbs closer to the summit of accomplishment, he remains in the foothills compared to some of his predecessors’ achievements; a figure here and there won’t change that.

Cavendish rode in the Tour de France in 2016 but he did not cycle the Tour de France.