I was of the opinion that he was sandbagging, too. Then about 1/3 through the tour I got OLN and saw the video of his ITT. That was not acting, he worked hard for this years victory, and next year will be harder.
I partially agree with FLY02's assessment. I'd expect there'd be an awful lot of mental baggage from riding a TdF... mostly related to the self-inflicted amount of physical pain. Year after year it would accumulate.