Andy Richardson: Summer's sports heroes - get a Froome

The middle season brings untold joys. And, for fellas, sport is foremost among them. Okay, so we crashed and burned at the Euros. Quelle surprise.

And we've not been as good at cricket as we'd like to think we'd have been. When we look at the summer of horrors from England's batting line-up, there are times when we really would be better off asking Geoffrey Boycott to take to the crease with his fabled stick of rhubarb. And his mother's pinny would arguably do a better job of catching the ball than Jonny Bairstow's gloves.

There are, however, diamonds in the rough.

Andy 'C'mon Andy' Murray found an implacable coach and inner steel to take his second Wimbledon. Lewis Hamilton has found the fire inside to make up ground on Nico Rosberg and the German's unique, can't-turn-right F1 car.

Best of all, however, is Va Va Froome, the lionheart who has spent the week dressed as a banana while bringing home the bacon for Brits.

Chris Froome is on course to win this year's 103rd Tour de France, one of the toughest sporting challenges on the planet.

OK, so he's not as popular as Sir Bradley Wiggins: he doesn't have Brad's sideburns, clothing range or rockstar friends. When it comes to winning a popularity contest, the great British public always goes for a waggish – or is that Wiggish – mod over a competitor who is polite and charming.

We're Alex Higgins not Steve Davies, Jimmy White not Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan not – actually, scratch the Ronnie simile because he's the best at everything.

Sideburns apart, Chris is a phenomenon. Quiet and dignified, as tough as a Black Country fist and as determined as a Staffordshire bull terrier, he is riding into sporting legend.

While winning anything once is tough; becoming a serial winner is what separates the greats from the good; the Froomes from the Wigginses.

The Tour de France is a race for out-and-out maniacs. Few riders survive without a collision. Shattered collar bones are as likely in cycling as stolen Bics are in an office.

But his success prompts a wave of enthusiasm and as Chris races away with the maillot jaune, our local streets become fuller and fuller of amateur cyclists. Sunday cyclists fill our towpaths, happy riders fill the roads, fair-weather followers in his slipstream.

I am not one of them.

Cycling is a brilliant sport – but it's also as dangerous as being a mouse in a cattery. In the contest between HGV and bike, the truck wins.

I did take to the road once. For a brief moment, I thought it would be a good idea to cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats. On a summer not dissimilar to this, 600 riders clambered onto coaches somewhere near Aberdeen and watched as the weather closed in.

By the time we'd reached John O'Groats, we could see no further than the windows. Rain came down with the ferocity of a Mark Cavendish sprint.

We were turned out into a makeshift village of tents and after an unhappy night's sleep began our 1,000-mile journey. It rained. It rained. It rained.

The nice men from Halfords – though other bike accessory stores are available – were on hand when brakes failed or seats twisted. And gradually, we made it through Scotland and England.

At Shropshire, the home leg, I came unstuck. The gears on my bike weren't sufficiently robust to carry me up a particularly steep section of the Long Mynd.

That's what you get when you visit ebay and spend £350 on a second-hand bike from Cannock.

I was not alone. Of the 600 riders, 540 failed the vertiginous hill – including Olympic champion James Cracknell who was pedalling so hard that he broke his chain.

I ran up the last part of the hill, just like Chris on Mount Ventoux. And while I completed the rest of the challenge, ending at Land's End among the top 100 riders, that nagging sense of failure hasn't left me. I rode John O'Groats to Land's End (almost), I (nearly) cycled from one end of the the UK to the other, I (didn't quite) make it from end to end.

As Chris closes in on a spectacular third triumph, buoyed by a remarkable set of compadres in the ultimate team sport, he'll also find himself flavour of the month for a little while.

His phone will ring, offers will flood in and he'll make the shortlist for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. Not that he's got a chance of ever winning that. He doesn't have the right sideburns.