01 Août 2015, 16:52
You have to play the full Tour de France with 21 stages.
Try to gain time on the hill stages attacking climbs close to the finish.
You will only get small gaps but every second counts at the end of the race.
You can start your own attack or wait for Kwiatkowski, Rodriguez etc. to attack and follow them.
Other GC favorites seem to be lost on these stages and rarely do well.
On very short climbs like Mur de Huy on stage 3 you can attack, eat the red energy gel and attack again for a bigger time gap.
On the cobble stage, tell a strong cobble+flat rider on your team to protect your captain and try to keep him in the same group as Nibali and Pinot.
If you are Nibali try to keep the pace on the cobbles as high as possible sending your team in front.
If you are Contador or Froome you will lose time but try to keep it to 1-2 minutes.
The help rider will be a great help if you cannot follow a group as he will still protect from the wind.
The lemon gel will be very useful for the end of the stage.
On mountain stages it is easiest to follow any attacks by Contador, Nibali, Froome and Quintana and sit on their wheel. Do not take relays, try to keep a steady pace with manual effort rather than use the auto-follow as this will drain your energy faster.
If you have lots of energy left in the last few km attack and see what happens.
If you have no energy left slow down and finish at a controlled pace rather than burning out.
You can get a big gap attacking on downhill sections but this will tire you out for the end of the stage and the next stage.
Only try long attacks if you are desperate.
Make sure you finish the descent with full energy as you will need it for the next ascent.
It is always possible to have a random technical failure but generally if you take it easy and ride carefully you will see good results.
