Chris Froome has likened the first nine stages of this year's Tour de France to a series of one-day Classic races and suggested the scramble to the podium will not begin in earnest until it enters the mountains in the south of France.

The 2013 winner is currently fine-tuning last-minute preparations for next Saturday’s Grand Départ from the Dutch city of Utrecht, for a Tour many are expecting to be the most closely fought for years.

Along with his fellow Grand Tour winners Vincenzo Nibali, Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador, the Sky leader is among the favourites who will need to negotiate and survive a series of largely flat but extremely tricky stages through the Netherlands, Belgium and the north of France if they are to remain in contention for victory in La Grande Boucle before the peloton hits the Pyrenees.

“That first week really is going to be crucial: the first nine days, until we get up into the mountains,” said Froome, referring to stages in which none of the main general classification contenders will win the Tour but any number of them could lose it in coastal crosswinds, on treacherous pavé or through the kind of wretched luck that forced the Sky team leader to abandon last year.

“In my mind, it’s almost like each one of those nine days is like a Classics race in its own right, so it’s almost like we’ve got to do nine one-day Classics before then starting the [General Classification] race up in the mountains,” said Froome.

“It’s going to be hugely crucial, but I think we’ve got a potentially very strong Classics orientation in our Tour de France squad.”

Having been forced out of last year’s Tour through injury, after two crashes on stage five, Froome is excited by the prospect of wrestling the yellow jersey back from the Astana rider Nibali.

The Italian’s celebrations in Paris last year were rendered somewhat hollow by the withdrawal through injury of Froome, who on Wednesday admitted to missing a drugs test while on holiday this year, and Contador, not to mention Quintana’s decision to sit out the Tour after winning his first Giro.

“It feels great to be here now,” said Froome, fresh from winning this year’s Tour warm-up, the Critérium du Dauphiné.

“The Tour is just over a week away, things are looking good personally, my condition feels good and I think the whole team is buzzing after winning the Dauphiné. I think that’s lifted everyone’s morale. I think for myself personally, I feel as if I’ve come into the race with a lot less pressure on my shoulders.

“I feel a lot more relaxed this time around, not coming in as the defending champion. I’ve got a really strong team around me. The way the Tour is structured this year, I think it’s really building up to be such an epic battle between the big rivals, the big GC contenders; probably the biggest battle we’ve seen for years in the Tour de France. It’s exciting; really exciting and we can’t wait to get the show on the road.”

A sizeable obstacle was removed from his path on Thursday when the Col du Galibier climb was taken off the schedule for the 20th stage due to landslides. However another was swiftly put in its place when the route from Modane to Alpe d’Huez was diverted over the Col de la Croix de Fer.

One show Sky will not be getting on the road is the motor home Froome had been hoping to sleep in each night, after the UCI put a stop to their wheeze of having their team leader avoid hotels designated by the race organisers.

“I think it’s unfortunate they’ve taken that decision,” said Froome. “I think it was purely just from a performance point of view. I could only see it as being a good thing to be able to control those factors, where you get into some of those race hotels and one night you’re on a hard bed, one night you’re on a soft bed and you wake up with a sore back. Some of the rooms without air conditioning in mid-July in France . . . you’re just going to be sweating for 10 hours.”

Froome will need all the good sleep he can get, as his uninterrupted nights of rest are numbered – the cyclist looked chuffed to announce that he and his wife Michelle are expecting their first child at the end of this year.

(Guardian service)