Cyclingnews‘s Robert Millar wrote a very insightful blog about how the Pyrenees and Alps will affect the Tour de France leader.
With Vincenzo Nibali comfortably installed in the yellow jersey and the only one of the three pre-race favourites to make it to the big mountain stages you could be excused for thinking it’s all over in the Tour de France.
That would be doing a disservice to the riders directly behind the Italian because although they might be wondering what they can do against a Nibali in top form they’ll also be wondering how they can ambush each other.
The two Alpine stages will tell us who can still race after two weeks and who seems to be hanging and on hoping for better days but you also need to consider there’ll be some of the top ten GC riders better suited to one set of mountains compared to the later ones, which will undoubtedly decide the race.
It might seem like Nibali doesn’t need to do anything other than control his nearest rivals, namely Richie Porte and Alejandro Valverde but to be truly comfortable before the final time trial he’ll probably want a bigger lead.
Something like five minutes in case he has a bad day so a couple of attacks four kilometres out ought to achieve that, maybe when the squabbling has become serious and the others are frazzled.
Read the full blog here.
