But on Wednesday, Cavendish surged past at least a dozen riders in the final yards to win by the length of a bicycle, ahead of Philippe Gilbert, a Belgian riding for Omega-Lotto.
Timing the event was a marathon unto itself: the same stopwatch held by the judge at the start of the race had to be carried by bicycle, ahead of the runners, to the finish line.
He finished in 4 hours 34 minutes 32 seconds, a bicycle length ahead of Emmanuel Magnien, a Frenchman with La Française des Jeux, and two lengths ahead of Stefano Garzelli, an Italian with Mapei.
Armstrong crossed the line a half a bicycle length ahead, a smile on his face and his arms spread wide.
The second-place finisher on Monday, Wust finished half a bicycle length ahead of another German, Erik Zabel, who rides for Telekom.
Blaze's bike lights work by projecting an easy to discern, green outline of a basic bicycle icon ahead of the bike itself, giving motorists, pedestrians and others sharing the roads an early heads up that there's someone biking in their vicinity.
Some motorcycles and bicycles have a steering damper to dissipate undesirable kinetic energy, and some bicycles have a spring connecting the front fork to the frame to provide a progressive torque that tends to steer the bicycle straight ahead.
The Reys, Jews from Germany, escaped on bicycles from Paris ahead of the Nazis in June 1940 with the "Curious George" manuscript.
Many of them are so ubiquitous, appearing in advertisements and on posters, mugs, and postcards, that they often are no longer identified as his, such as Provence, France, 1955, the image of a man, wearing a beret, riding his bicycle down the road ahead while perched on the back are two long baguettes and a child looking back at the photographer over his shoulder.
I once accidentally surprised one in Pembrokeshire: I was on my bicycle but it sprinted well ahead of me before scuttling under a hedge.
Because there you are, gliding along on your bicycle, just a few feet ahead of me.
