14 DAY TRIAL // Traditionally, the third week of The Tour is the hardest, with mountain top finishes and a time trial that can make a decisive difference and show the public who the best rider in the race is.
The sixteenth stage starts off with a relatively easy ride that ends on a sharp descent where plenty of riders have suffered accidents, especially on wet roads.
For the 100th edition of the competition, the sun is shining and I plan to once more put in a late attack and see whether I can get anything out of it.
The stage is an interesting one because it forces all the big teams to be on their toes, ready to deal with attacks and trying to force up the pace in order to put their rivals in a difficult position.
There are enough climbs in the coming days to change the overall winner and Contador, Valverde and Froome are only separated by a handful of seconds.
Racing was pretty nervous for the entire day and I could not accurately evaluate the form of my rivals in order to refine by attack plans.
So Schleck once again tried something on the last climb but was unable to take advantage of the descent and failed to take back significant time from the favorites.
With the benefit of hindsight, I now believe that I needed to focus more on deciding on a leader after the first climbing stage, to Ax 3 Domains, instead of switching based on their daily form.
Unfortunately, conditions and my own indecisions mean that Le Tour is now beyond my reach and my team is pretty tired, which will make it even harder to get a solid result in the coming days.
I have also failed to contest the other main jerseys: green, white, or polka dot.
