14 DAY TRIAL // The previous two Tour de France stages featured some big climbs, but the peloton at least could be happy with the fact that they were relatively short, at 167 kilometers, but for the third major day in a row where mountains are on the menu, the organizers are ready to deliver even more pain.
Riders start in Lannemezan and they will then tackle two category-one mountains, which are well suited for a breakaway that includes the Polka Dot jersey before they reach the Plateau de Beille Hors Category climb.
The fact that the stage is over 190 kilometers and the final challenge is close to 16 km long means that there's a chance that bigger gaps than before will open up and the General Classification contenders need to be ready to put in some big efforts.
I have not tried to exploit breakaways so far and that means I will give Zoidl the day off from protecting my leader and will try to send him ahead, see if he can make a move stick with some other quality climbers.
Prediction: Contador will take both the real world and the PCM 2015 stages.
Yesterday, Majka did a great job in France and got a win from a breakaway, something that happens relatively rarely in the Cyanide-made video game.
Third place after a grueling day
The succession of climbs means that a breakaway stayed away for most of the time, with the peloton playing it cautiously and trying to make sure that it had as much energy as possible when the final climb hit.
The favorites, including Quintana and Contador, have a tendency to attack in PCM 2015 earlier than they would do in the real world, and with higher speeds, which makes countering them directly relatively hard.
So I decided to once again hang back as long as possible and rely on teammates to set a solid pace, and I then launched a counterattack that took Mollema over the line in a respectable third.
Froome, who is leading the real world Tour de France, has failed once again to deliver a solid result and only came home in tenth.
This is how the action in PCM 2015 looked:
