14 DAY TRIAL // This is the last time trial of the 100th edition of Le Tour de France and it’s a good occasion to try and get another win for Radioshack Leopard using either my specialist, Cancellara, or Andreas Kloden.
They will face tough competition from the likes of Contador and Froome, with Valverde also having an outside chance at doing well.
This time trial, from Embrun to Chorges, has two climbs and it is better suited to riders who have the big engine required for this discipline but can also climb efficiently for a short while.
Oddly, this might be an advantage for Andy Schleck, who is a weak time trialist but can climb with the best of them even as he continues his recovery from a fall that happened in 2012.
This time around, I pay more attention to the course and use few different settings on my first starters in order to get a feeling of exactly how to approach the race.
Cancellara is my first important cyclist to start and I use him to set record times at all the chrono points, managing to take 50 seconds of the best time by the end.
I like my performance quite a bit and try to replicate it with both Kloden and Schleck, who manage to take first and second place.
There are another eight riders finishing after my leader completes the course and I am fairly confident at this point that I have a stage win and also take some time back from the other favorites.
Unfortunately, both Contador and Froome are riding almost perfect races and the pair manages to beat Kloden by a few seconds to once again relegate me to the last position on the podium.
Tomorrow we go to L’Alpe D’Huez, a stage I really want to try to win.
