14 DAY TRIAL // Looking at the stage that takes Le Tour de France from Gap to Pinerolo, you have to wonder what the race directors were thinking when putting it together as it's neither a mountain stage nor a hilly one with one big mountain smack in the middle and a small one about 15 kilometers before the finish.
One good thing about Pro Cycling Manager is that it allows fan to create a lot of extra content for it, from extra stages to new rider jerseys and databases with new teams and a number of revised stats for the existing ones.
But it takes time for all this extra stuff to be created and the serious mods tend to appear about 2 to 3 months after the release of the game, so for this Tour simulation I am only using a database which corrects the names of riders and team and slightly changes the stats.
Despite the rather weird profile, stage 17 is a good time to try and attack again and maybe regain that Yellow Jersey from Alberto Contador.
And that's what I managed to do after combining the power of both Schleck brothers and attacking on the last climb of the day with older brother Frank sacrificing himself to allow Andy to get as far away as possible from Contador.
I managed to attack at the right moment, leading my main rivals behind, and then I negotiated the descent well, with Andy taking first and Frank second.
I was a bit surprised that riders like Kloden, Contador, Gesink, Scarponi, Vinokurov and Rodriguez, despite working together, did not have the power needed to keep up with my leaders, but that could be just a sign of tired legs after close to three weeks of racing.
I now hold a 1 minute and 27 seconds lead in the Yellow Jersey classification.
Take a look at how the stage played out in my simulated Tour: