Alejandro Valverde went into the Tour de France with the aim of finally finishing on the podium in the world's biggest bike race and on the first rest day he finds himself in a good position, sitting in third overall. Despite Chris Froome's and Alberto Contador' withdrawal, however, the Spaniard refuses to raise the bar and target the overall victory.

The first rest day of the 2014 Tour de France awaited for the Movistar Team riders in Besançon today. The race will resume from the Franche-Comté's capital in 24 hours' time to tackle two lumpy stages before the second mountainous block, the Alps, starts on Friday.

The telephone squad's leader, Alejandro Valverde, spoke to the media next to the team's vehicles before taking a short recovery ride with his team-mates. The Spaniard's agenda for the day will be completed by a Q&A with fans around the world, who can send their support and ask questions to him via the hashtag #AllezValverde, until 17.00h. 

“My goal remains the podium at the moment," he said. "Should we be able to gain some time and target something else, we won't rule it our and we won't stay content with what we got.

"I feel great, my legs are doing really well - I always say my body functions mostly by how I feel, and if the forecast is correct and good weather shows up for the remainder of the race, theoretically, I should be stronger with sun and good temperatures. I felt well in these last days, but those are conditions I don't like at all.

"After Liège, I only had five days of racing: three in the Route du Sud, then the Spanish Championships - if not improving it, my form should stay the same until the end of the Tour.

"There's still all the Alps, all the Pyrenees left... in short, all the big mountains, though not all hard stages, because we have already had some. Any stage could be good to gain or lose time.

"Leaving aside Wednesday and Thursday, which should be more suited for breakaways, we will have stages where anybody can 'collapse' and lose all chances. We'll try to attack, but always will always keep our minds cold - if one of our rivals is not weak, we won't do it. Attacking for the sake of attacking is nonsense. We must do it when we can hurt our rivals.

"Nibali? He's not unbeatable, of course, but he's proving to be really strong at the moment, and up to date he enjoyed weather conditions which suit him perfectly; he's the one who suffers the least with rain of all of us up-front.

"The rest, Porte, Pinot, Bardet - all of them up-and-coming youngsters who are doing really well - all of them are dangerous and worry us. I always feel responsible for my team's success, wherever I ride. But we will stay calm. We got through very important and difficult days so far in this Tour and our moment to feel more comfortable on the road and profit from it should come now. Let's hope it happens.”