The brothers added a French climbing master and Tour stage winner, Brice Feillu, came aboard the team — called the Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project — to assist in mountain stages. Australia’s Will Clarke and Austrian Stefan Denifl also made the switch.

Team Luxembourg also snagged name star Stuart O’Grady this week, joining Jens Voigt on the roster of riders known as supreme team players as well as individual standouts. Both O’Grady and Voigt also have the respect of the peloton, especially Voigt after his stirring comeback from a devastating (and some thought career-ending) face plant on a screaming downhill in the 2009 Tour.

And there’s more: Italian sprint specialist Daniele Bennati gives the team added dimension on flat stages, which will be given an additional huge boost when the locomotive-like Fabian Cancellara meets expectations of joining the Schleck enterprise.

Andy Schleck finished second in this year’s Tour by a mere 38 seconds and may be awarded the crown if winner Alberto Contador’s provisional suspension for doping is made permanent.

More from BicycleNet.

You'll be seeing him in yellow...

Andrew Hood of VeloNews speculates on who may follow the Schlecks and Contador to their new teams.

Thor Hushovd, the God of Thunder, took the stage win in a battered sprint, and Fabian Cancellara reclaimed the yellow jersey with a pounding out of the final kilometers of cobblestones mixed with pavement.

But the day will be remembered most for innumerable bike breakdowns and crashes, including one that left last year’s No. 5, Frank Schleck, writhing on the ground holding his head in pain and apparently a question-mark for continuing. [UPDATE: Schleck withdrew with a broken collarbone.] We wish him the best. And Tyler Farrar as well, who despite a broken wrist continued through today’s punishing stage in hopes of healing on the bike and eventually challenging in sprint stages.

Frank’s brother Andy, a pre-Tour favorite, hooked up with teammate Cancellara, a cobblestone specialist, to provide the day’s drama as Saxo Bank vied for the win.

You have to applaud Ryder Hesjedal as well, the big Canadian who, as a former mountain biker, knows how to handle the cobbles. Ryder (who also possesses the best first name in cycling) did a thrilling breakaway over the cobblestones to put pressure on the peloton and show how a breakaway is done.

Best line of the day: Commentator Paul Sherwen, on Fabian Cancellara’s magnificent pull toward the end: “Let’s hope he has plenty of AAA batteries in his pack for this one!” A puckish reference to the ludicrous controversy over “bike doping” by Cancellara (running a battery-powered motor in his bottom bracket).

Full VeloNews coverage here.

But on a day-to-day, stage-by-stage basis, there was a lot more promise of action than real fireworks. When you think about it, the Tour was decided by a single attack: Contador’s predictable run-up to Verbier, giving him a decided edge. The Schleck brothers’ inspiring attempt to wrest control on Colombiere was heroic, but no one was going to beat Contador this time around. Otherwise the Tour strategy was mostly “defend and stay out of trouble.” Astana “controlled” the peloton, and Contador “controlled” the Schleck brothers. On the rare occasion when Contador did attack, he got criticized for breaking team strategy of a 1-2-3 podium in Paris.

You had to love the Schlecks, whose motto was “we will try till we die.” And they delivered. Their guts brought them no glory and their pain no gain. But their efforts were the standouts of the Tour, and their slogan beat to hell the Contador/Astana strategy of “We will control while we roll.”

I wish I could get behind Contador as a great champion. He certainly deserves it, but something about the guy just doesn’t make you want to stand up and cheer. Maybe it’s just too easy for him, or maybe it isn’t but he just makes it look that way. In any case, the Schleck brothers’ attacks will be the enduring memory for me from 2009. Perhaps because they were underdogs and fought and fought while Alberto just seemed to cruise, they proved themselves champions as much as The Pistol.

In the media and general public’s mind, though, 2009 won’t be remembered as much for any of the racing as for Lance’s comeback. Taking third (assuming the results stick for now and stay stuck in the future, unsullied by drug scandal) and reversing his reputation with the French were both huge triumphs for the Austin powerhouse. I call out Lance a lot for grandstanding about his 7 yellow jerseys and whining about drug testing, but I respect his gutsiness when the cards are down. And you have to love that black helmet and his black socks! There’s something to be said for ridin’ ‘n stylin’!

For all his comeback heroics, Lance never once attacked in the Tour of 2009. On the course, Astana helped him more than the other way around. And in that single fact, I find hope for next year’s Tour.

More than any other factor, team dynamics enervated this year’s edition. Any team with two Tour winners, a two-time runner up and a four-time Top Tenner is going to dominate. The problem is that all those favorites on one team means few or no real individual attacks. The team is going to come first, preventing breakaways by standouts like Contador and Armstrong and Kloeden and Leipheimer. Ditto for the same-team Schlecks: Having to watch out for each other, the brothers never seemed to really cut loose individually. Earlier in the race it was Frank trying to spur Andy on; going up Ventoux it was Andy holding back in hopes brother Frank could breach the gap.

Without these allegiances, the Tour would have been a far different race. Next year, it should be. Lance already has announced a different team. Let’s hope Contador does not follow him onto Radio Shack (he’s saying he won’t). These two make far more exciting rivals than partners. Lance will try to cannibalize other teams as well to surround himself with the best. But as long as AC and the Schlecks and Tony Martin and Bradley Wiggins and whoever else (Christian Vande Velde?) emerges as a potential star stay on different teams, we could have a barn-burner on our hands in 2010. Let’s hope so. A race as grand and glorious as the Tour deserves fiercer competition than we got this year.