14 DAY TRIAL // The Col d'Allos might not be the best-known climb for more recent fans of the Tour de France, but it offers some moments, as already seen this year in a stage in the Criterium de Dauphine, and it starts the final and toughest week of the 2015 race.
The course is a recreation of a moment in 1975, when Bernard Thevenet managed to get the Yellow Jersey from the legendary Eddy Merckx, and there will be pressure on the contenders to deliver solid performances to both honor their performance and to show that they can survive until Paris.
Pra Loup is not a very hard final climb, and that means that the GC contenders might keep their powder dry today in order to use it later in the week.
My own plans are to stay close to the front and react to the moves that others make.
This deep into the race, it's hard to know exactly how other riders are feeling, and both in PCM 2015 and in the real world, sporting directors have a hard time creating and implementing strategies before the race.
Prediction: Quintana and Froome will battle for the win both in the game and in the real world.
The rest day brings a huge element of unpredictability to the stage, as the energy levels of most riders are unclear.
A good, not great day for Trek
I thought that I managed the race pretty well during this stage, carefully protecting my leader through all the climbs, while also making sure that a solid escape group did not get too far ahead, with some help from Movistar.
Contador and Rodriguez jumped ahead relatively early, and I decided to catch up on the descent, but Mollema, even with help from Zubeldia, moved far too slow to keep up with Contador, who managed to take the win by sprinting for the last few meters.
I took sixth, managing to come in ahead of both Nibali and Froome, two riders that are far better in terms of core stats and also have solid teams to help them.
The problem is that I am running out of energy for my teammates and might end up isolated and alone on the coming mountains.
This is how the stage progressed in PCM 2015:
