14 DAY TRIAL // The real battle for Le Maillot Jaune (aka Yellow Jersey) is about to start in Le Tour with today's stage 12 throwing two Hors Categorie climbs and one nasty First Category at the main general classification contenders.
Some hard questions are going to be asked and answered by the likes of Schleck, Contador, Evans, Basso, Jurgen van der Broeck, Samuel Sanchez and Ivan Basso and it remains to be seen who has the team and the legs needed to conquer this stage.
The first half of the race was pretty tame and I put some men on the front in order to bring back as much of the break as possible before the first climb.
This proved to be a rather bad idea as Mauricio Soler jumped out of the peloton and managed to get the points for the first two climbs, while behind the punishing nature of the slopes and the rhythm imposed by the leading teams began to shoot men out of the peloton, starting with the pure sprinters and continuing with the time trialists and various helpers.
A handful of favorites gained some time on the Galibier and I needed to sacrifice two of my men to bring them back and then my leader, Andy Schleck, got caught out on the descent and had to spend precious energy to be with the other favorites at the foot of the climb to Luz-Ardiden.
On the final climb attacks and counterattacks came thick and fast with everybody who is anybody in the peloton trying to do something.
Soler was caught up and the final push was lead by Joaquin Rodriquez, from Katusha (who is not part of the real life race), managing the win.
Despite his efforts to catch up, Andy Schleck managed to be in the top ten and is now the proud wearer of the Maillot Jaune.
Take a look at the three climbs of the stage and evaluate my tactics in this Pro Cycling Manager 2011 video: