Alejandro Valverde has had much bad luck in the Tour de France but will again target the French race in 2014. In an attempt to avoid his many misfortunes, he is likely to do the E3 Harelbeke to prepare for the stage that will pass several of the famous Paris-Roubaix pavés.

Yesterday Alejandro Valverde presented his season schedule while attending the awards ceremony for the 2013 WorldTour. His 2014 season will be more or less identical to the one he had in 2013, with the Ardennes classics, the Tour de France, the Vuelta a Espana and the Worlds again being his main targets.

Valverde has been plagued by enormous amounts of bad luck in the Tour de France ever since he lined up at the race for the first time. On that occasion, he was forced out of the race due to injury after winning a big mountain stage in the Alps and one year later he crashed out of the race in the opening days.

His involvement in the Operacion Puerto saw him miss the 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions of the race and when he returned in 2012, his GC ambitions were again derailed by crashes in the first part of the race. This year he was riding better than ever and seemed destined to end on the podium when an untimely mechanical saw him lose more than 10 minutes on the windy stage to Saint-Armand-Montrond.

In 2014 the race will include a stage with 15,4km of cobblestones spread over nine sectors. Keeping Valverde's string of bad luck in mind, it seems to be almost unavoidable that Valverde will face some kind of incident during the 154km fifth stage.

Valverde has never tackled the pavé in a race. The rough surface was included in the 2004 and 2010 editions of the Tour but Valverde wasn't present those two years and he has never done the cobbled classics.

Earlier this year, Vincenzo Nibali played with the thought of doing the Tour of Flanders to prepare for the stage but has since skipped the idea. However, Valverde plans to do what Lance Armstrong did in 2010: to ride a cobbled classics in preparation of the Tour.

“I’ve never raced on the cobbles before, so with the stage being an important one in the Tour this year, we are planning on racing in Belgium a bit this year,” he told VeloNews. “We’ll probably race Harelbeke, to become more familiar with what to expect.

“On the cobbles, it’s more about luck than anything,” he added. “I’ve had plenty of bad luck at the Tour over the years, so I want to try to avoid it this year. So that’s why we’re going to Belgium, to avoid any surprises.”

Last year Valverde did the Strade Bianche and so had a taste of racing on rough surface. He will again attend the Italian race in 2014.

“I raced last year at Strade Bianche, and I really enjoyed it, but that is on gravel roads, not cobbles,” he said. “The most important is to become more familiar with the cobblestones. Once the race is on, it’s sometimes a question of luck. The idea is to pass this stage without any setbacks.”

Valverde is convinced that he could have ended on the podium in 2013. 2014 may be his final chance to lead Movistar as Nairo Quintana is likely to be given the leadership role in the future, with the Colombian focussing on the Giro in 2014.

“I know I am capable of the podium," he said. "This year’s Tour favors me, especially with the final and only time trial coming on the penultimate stage. That favors less the specialists and more riders who have good form. To beat (Chris) Froome? Well, if he is like he was this year, it will be difficult, but every Tour starts anew. We will aim for the podium and see what happens.”

After riding the Tour, Valverde will do the Clasica San Sebastian, the Vuelta a Espana and his home world championships in Ponferrada. However, he is still undecided about whether to ride for the GC in his home grand tour after finishing in the top 5 in all his participations since 2003. He may simply do it as preparation for the Worlds.

Before making a decision on that matter, he will, however, be fully focussed on the Tour. And for Valverde, the road to France goes over the cobbles in Belgium.