Rodríguez: I expected more from myself in the Pyrenees

Image 1 of 5

Joaqium Rodríguez (Katusha) sits just inside the Tour de France's top-10 and spent the rest day in a positive mood despite a performance in the Pyrenees that he found personally disappointing.

The Spaniard is ninth overall, 2:31 down on the overall lead of Chris Froome (Sky). In just his second appearance at the Tour, Rodríguez is aiming to better his previous performance of seventh overall in 2010.

Sunday's difficult ninth stage to Bagnères-de-Bigorre saw Rodriguez finish fifth, having stayed protected in the lead bunch.

"Honestly, I can say I expected more from myself during the stages of the Pyrenees," he told EFE. "But on a positive side also feel well, I do not feel particularly tired which is good sign for the rest of the Tour. I imagined that after the first half of the race would have some downtime. The last week will be the hardest for everyone and this Tour anything can happen, we saw that yesterday. I think it will be a great race."

During Monday's rest day, Rodríguez spent an hour on the time trial bike ahead of Wednesday's 33km individual time trial to Mont-Saint-Michel. The 34-year-old has been working on his time trial over the past year with mixed results. At his last hit out before the Tour, Rodríguez lost almost three minutes to Froome.

Having crashed on the sixth stage and suffered a knock to his left hip, the Catalan wanted to ensure there was no lasting effects.

"I recovered well from the fall, but wanted to check that I had no discomfort in the time trial position," he explained.