14 DAY TRIAL // The ninth stage of Le Tour takes riders from Gerardmer to Mulhouse and is clearly designed to offer some respite to general classification contenders while giving escape artists with some solid climbing legs a chance to secure a win.
There are six climbs to deal with, but the finale is on the flat, after a serious downhill portion, and this is the kind of course that can create a lot of surprises, even if most of the cyclists taking part will probably be more interested in making plans for their rest day, considering how long they have raced until now.
Downhill attacks used to be a feature of the Grand Tours, based on the idea that a skilled and very daring rider can do down a steep mountain faster than an entire peloton where safety is the primary thought.
Nowadays these kinds of actions tend to take place rarely, and I am a little bit tempted to choose one of my own riders, preferably one who is in shape and can descend well, to try and revive the practice in Pro Cycling Manager 2014.
Other than that, I still have to lick my wounds after the severe problems I had last stage and try to reevaluate my priorities.
I might also try to get one of my secondary climbers, like Jungels or Zoidl, into the days break in order to get more points for the Mountain Jersey, which could make a good objective for the team, now that I have my stage win.
The race was tougher than many were expecting, and only a group of about 40 riders managed to get over all the mountains at the same time in order to contest the sprint.
Simon Gerrans from Orica managed to be better than them all and took the stage and, after being protected by Cancellara for most of the downhill section, Frank Schleck managed to take a rather surprising second, considering that the likes of Voeckler and Valverde, who are usually faster, were also involved.
Sadly, I did not manage to attack on the descents of any of the mountains, mainly because the peloton was riding too fast to allow it, but the good news is that some of the top GC riders are also feeling the stress of the long days of racing and might be ready to crack during the next stage.
Take a look at how stage 9 of Le Tour de France happened in PCM 2014 below.
