Richie Porte's diary: I cannot be complacent

For all that I may be able – and hope – to do in this year’s Tour de France, one thing I can’t do is to become complacent.

This time last year in the Tour, Chris Froome was first and I was second after we finished one-two on stage eight in the Pyrenees. Then the next day, on stage nine, I had an absolute disaster and found myself out of overall reckoning.

But there are different circumstances this year. The Tour has been someone else’s race to control – Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), the 2013 Giro d’Italia winner who still leads overall heading into Sunday’s ninth stage.

And as Spaniard Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) showed on Saturday’s stage, his team will be willing to take it up and challenge Nibali at any opportunity, rather than gift him an easy ride.

So it should be too ... and I’d like to think that we at Sky will be having a say in that.

But as much as people may think we should have certain opportunities targeted, in a race as long and complex as the Tour, the most well thought out plans can go wrong.

Because things can change so drastically and so quickly at the Tour, forecasting can be tricky. You hear it so many times, but you have to take the Tour one day at a time.

But there is no denying that the picture for all of us on the Tour will be a lot clearer come the end of Monday’s 10th stage from Mulhouse to La Planche des Belles Filles.

There is no denying how hard the climb to that finish is, with a steepest gradient of 20 per cent coming right at the end. It is a hard, hard finish.

But the last time we did it, it wasn’t really a hard stage until we did the last climb. This year it is up and down all day

But I really can’t worry about all that until we get to the foot of that 5.9 kilometre climb.

A lot of kilometres exist in the Vosges between now and then; although I am happy with how I have gone and the position I am in following Saturday’s first mountain stage.

After Contador and Nibali got several seconds' extra lead on me on Saturday, some may have thought I might be disappointed, even though I moved up to third place overall.

But I was happy with my finish, even if I was not really looking forward to it.

I said on Saturday while  cooling down on the home trainer that I don’t mind the longer climbs like those we will face in the Alps and Pyrenees in the next two weeks, but that shorter sharp stuff like what we rode up to Saturday’s finish is not really my thing.

Those steeper, shorter climbs are for the punchy riders and I am not one of them really.

But Saturday wasn’t just about Contador’s punch near the end. It was a result also owing to the ride by his Tinkoff-Saxo teammates, who rode from the front when it mattered and, with their high tempo, shed riders as the last climb to the finish neared.

After the stage I said that it was as if Tinkoff-Saxo were riding as Sky used to race; but to be clear, it’s not as if Sky invented that style of riding – although it worked.

What opportunities come our way, and how we will seize them, is still an unknown.

But what is certain is that if we – or anyone – wants to beat Nibali, with his time margin after week one, it will be up to all of us hovering to put our necks out there and dare.