that, so I’ll accept responsibility as leader.’ At Catalonia I wanted to play a team role again; Romandie I wanted to win; Dauphiné as well. Those were the goals for the year.
One of the biggest things for us was to move away from the cycling tradition of racing yourself fit, riding races purely as training. So going to those races, and taking the responsibility as leader was part of the process; race practice, you could call it. Paris–Nice, Romandie and Dauphiné are all only five, six or seven days long, so it’s not as if you’ve got to lead for three weeks each time. The idea was to go to those races, perform, treat each one as if it were a Tour de France in miniature, lead the race and get the team around me to do the job as they would in the Tour. When it came to July, getting it right would not be just a matter of being in perfect form; it was as much about leading the team and getting used to leading overall and all that went with it. It was also important not to disrupt the build-up for the Tour; what that meant was that, although I might have only been at Paris–Nice at 95 per cent of the form I went to the Tour in, we still went there as if I was at 100 per cent and raced with that.
At Algarve I won the time trial – by less than a second – from Tony Martin; Richie Porte from Sky won the overall, and I was 3rd. It was key to help the other guys like Richie and Eddie win in their own right. Their sacrifice was going to be a huge part of me winning the Tour de France. The competitive part of me wanted to race for the win in the Algarve but I had to think of the bigger picture. If I said I was in a team role, I had to act like it; my teammates had to realise that if I said I would ride in a certain way, that’s what I would do. I had had a great winter, starting training early on, so I was still in better form than most of my rivals, even though I was still building, gradually, towards the Tour. It’s not as if I was winning those races by minutes – I was winning by a few seconds, certainly at Paris–Nice and the Tour of Romandie. I kept telling people, ‘You don’t realise what’s still to come, this is just the start of it.’
Paris–Nice was more than just a physical test. There were other things that I was worried about more than the climbing and the time trials. The route wasn’t the problem; the issue was that I really struggle in cold weather, and on some days, like the fifth stage to Mende, it didn’t get above zero all day. Simply staying warm enough so that I didn’t crack was a bigger challenge than the physical demands of racing. The cold and wet is something I’ve always struggled with. I’ve no idea why. Some people prefer it but I find it affects my legs more than anything; once they go cold, or they get wet from the rain, they just shut down.
Paris–Nice was everything to me at the time. I was racing for those six or seven days with no thought about the Tour. Once we were in the race there was never any question of thinking, ‘Whatever happens here, if it goes wrong, it doesn’t matter because we’re training for July.’ I wanted to win Paris–Nice that week, and that was that. I thought, ‘All this crap about saving it and not showing your aces too early, you could still be in the same position physically, not show the world how you are, yet you’ve still got to manage that form on the first of July, so why not just race and try to win?’
At Paris–Nice I was in slightly different form compared to the Tour. I was still two or three kilos over the weight I wanted to be in July; that gave me a little more explosiveness, and the weight I was at that time was good for the weather. Having the extra kilos on meant I wasn’t getting as cold and it didn’t matter because we didn’t have to go up climbs for thirty, forty, fifty minutes on end. The Paris–Nice climbs were more explosive, short, 2 or 3km like the one at Mende.
As usual in a stage race, once I’d got
One of the biggest things for us was to move away from the cycling tradition of racing yourself fit, riding races purely as training. So going to those races, and taking the responsibility as leader was part of the process; race practice, you could call it. Paris–Nice, Romandie and Dauphiné are all only five, six or seven days long, so it’s not as if you’ve got to lead for three weeks each time. The idea was to go to those races, perform, treat each one as if it were a Tour de France in miniature, lead the race and get the team around me to do the job as they would in the Tour. When it came to July, getting it right would not be just a matter of being in perfect form; it was as much about leading the team and getting used to leading overall and all that went with it. It was also important not to disrupt the build-up for the Tour; what that meant was that, although I might have only been at Paris–Nice at 95 per cent of the form I went to the Tour in, we still went there as if I was at 100 per cent and raced with that.
At Algarve I won the time trial – by less than a second – from Tony Martin; Richie Porte from Sky won the overall, and I was 3rd. It was key to help the other guys like Richie and Eddie win in their own right. Their sacrifice was going to be a huge part of me winning the Tour de France. The competitive part of me wanted to race for the win in the Algarve but I had to think of the bigger picture. If I said I was in a team role, I had to act like it; my teammates had to realise that if I said I would ride in a certain way, that’s what I would do. I had had a great winter, starting training early on, so I was still in better form than most of my rivals, even though I was still building, gradually, towards the Tour. It’s not as if I was winning those races by minutes – I was winning by a few seconds, certainly at Paris–Nice and the Tour of Romandie. I kept telling people, ‘You don’t realise what’s still to come, this is just the start of it.’
Paris–Nice was more than just a physical test. There were other things that I was worried about more than the climbing and the time trials. The route wasn’t the problem; the issue was that I really struggle in cold weather, and on some days, like the fifth stage to Mende, it didn’t get above zero all day. Simply staying warm enough so that I didn’t crack was a bigger challenge than the physical demands of racing. The cold and wet is something I’ve always struggled with. I’ve no idea why. Some people prefer it but I find it affects my legs more than anything; once they go cold, or they get wet from the rain, they just shut down.
Paris–Nice was everything to me at the time. I was racing for those six or seven days with no thought about the Tour. Once we were in the race there was never any question of thinking, ‘Whatever happens here, if it goes wrong, it doesn’t matter because we’re training for July.’ I wanted to win Paris–Nice that week, and that was that. I thought, ‘All this crap about saving it and not showing your aces too early, you could still be in the same position physically, not show the world how you are, yet you’ve still got to manage that form on the first of July, so why not just race and try to win?’
At Paris–Nice I was in slightly different form compared to the Tour. I was still two or three kilos over the weight I wanted to be in July; that gave me a little more explosiveness, and the weight I was at that time was good for the weather. Having the extra kilos on meant I wasn’t getting as cold and it didn’t matter because we didn’t have to go up climbs for thirty, forty, fifty minutes on end. The Paris–Nice climbs were more explosive, short, 2 or 3km like the one at Mende.
As usual in a stage race, once I’d got
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