I'm trying to remember to what degree Contador was undercooked/off colour/just well beaten in the 2011 and 2013 Tours. As I recall, in 2013, on most mountain stages Porte rode everyone off his wheel, and then Froome jetted off and twisted the knife; then Contador got pissed about missing out on the mountain TT stage by a couple of seconds and blew up trying for an all-out attack on the final mountain stage, slipping to 4th.

I know 2011 doesn't count on the record books, but it's the only time he's done the Tour and Giro in the same year, so it's at least a halfway decent indicator for this year; was it that he was tired after his Giro efforts, did he have bad preparation, did he lose time in the early stages? Without actually going back and watching each stage over again on youtube, I can't really remember what the prevailing wisdom was about why he was that bit off the pace vs the Schlecks, Evans, and even finishing behind Voeckler.