Chris Froome exclusive interview

As he prepares for his tilt at a fourth Tour title, Chris Froome talks to Cycling Weekly about race tactics and surveys the crucial stages

Right: Froome is fully focused on the next three weeks

ust two days before

Cycling Weekly spoke to Chris Froome he’d been out on his bike doing a recce of stage eight of this year’s Tour de France. The 187-kilometre day in the Jura mountains finishes with an ascent to the ski resort of Station des Rousses, and is the second of France’s five mountain ranges that the Tour visits this year.

A couple of weeks later Froome was out on his bike again, this time in the Pyrenees, test riding stage 12 and the climb of the Col de Peyresourde. The Col d’izoard — the fearsome and iconic climb that appears on stage 18 of this year’s race — was also on his hitlist to ride before July.

While Team Sky’s directeur sportifs will have been out reconning the Tour route all year, gathering information and data to feed back to their riders, the three-time and defending Tour champion doesn’t like to leave anything to chance.

“I’ve been picking out the key stages that could be decisive in the Tour,” he says, “and I think it’s always important to see those.”

Froome is chasing a fourth victory in the Tour this July, although this year’s route is likely to throw up new challenges for the 31-year-old.

When the Tour’s race director Christian Prudhomme unveiled the route last October he said he wanted to “break the catenaccio [door-bolt]” of recent editions and make it “a more open, less controlled race”.

Mountain menu

While this year’s race visits all the French mountain ranges, just three stages end in summit finishes, compared to five in 2016. There are fewer climbs and many that feature are new or have been rarely climbed in the race before, and most have steep gradients — such as the Mont du Chat on stage nine, which peaks at 15 per cent and hasn’t appeared in the Tour for 43 years.

There is also just 37 kilometres of time trialling, split across two days, a disappointment to an expert like Froome, who has used the tests against the clock previously to open up a strong advantage over his rivals.

Froome won last year’s Tour — making him the first person to secure back-to-back titles since Miguel Indurain in 1995 — by four minutes and five seconds, yet he’s predicting a race that’s a lot closer, “a lot more open”, this time around due to the route.

“Having said that, it might also be a lot more defensive race seeing as there’s only a couple of chances for the GC guys,” he continues. “It’s a lot more possible to put your team on the front and control for longer, with there being a little less climbing this year.

“I’m not sure if they [the organisers] will get the result they are looking for or if it will be a more controlled race — that remains to be seen.”

The 31-year-old admits he and Team Sky are likely to have to change their tactics this time around, particularly when it comes to the days in the mountains. Normally Sky uses the strength of their squad to nullify attacks, with each rider taking their turn to set