The Vuelta peloton has already covered sixteen stages, so still five to go. From tomorrow on it’s back up to the GC riders in the time trial, followed by three tough stages and a last stage in Madrid. Since the first rest day the GC has become clearer, but it will still be a hard battle for the podium and other top places.

Lotto Soudal has Bart De Clercq in fourteenth place at the moment. After the first rest day he didn’t have a good day due to back problems and he lost a few minutes and places that stage. In the last few stages, the Belgian has always been one of the best fifteen riders uphill.

“I crashed in the eighth stage, but the days after I didn’t have any problems," he said. "It was only after the first rest day that I had a sore back, during the very hard stage in Andorra. I lost about five minutes that day, otherwise I might have been twelfth overall now. Luckily, the next two days were less hard. Since Saturday, I feel good again and you can notice that by looking at my performances. I can follow the best riders quite long on the climbs, but when the top riders start the battle, I have to give up.

“Yesterday, and the day before, I took back time on some riders. Brambilla and Jeandesboz are a few minutes ahead of me on GC, but if I have a good time trial tomorrow I might get closer and who knows, I can still get on the twelfth place in the tough stages afterwards. Maybe I have to take some risks to do that and try to join a breakaway that gets some space. A good result in a stage would be very nice of course too.

"The time trial should suit me, in Poland I already proved it’s going smoothly on the time trial bike. The three stages after that are less hard than what we already had during this Vuelta, but still tough. Each day there is a serious amount of climbing to do, but the mountains are less steep.

“A rest day is of course very welcome. The physical aspect is okay, everyone is tired and in one day you don’t recover from all the efforts. But especially for the mental aspect a rest day is important. You don’t have to get up with four or five hours of concentration and pressure ahead of you, we can sleep longer and do an easy training ride. There doesn’t happen anything special: rest as much as possible, surf on the internet and watch a movie. And at night we have our dinner earlier than usual in the Vuelta.”