Tour de France week one was crazy but I managed to survive unscathed

Well, what a first week of the Tour de France that was. I’ll be honest, I was right at the back for most of it keeping out of trouble, but further up the peloton it was about as action-packed as you get.

Crosswinds, cobbles, crashes, rain, two race leaders abandoning - it seemed like something major happened every day.

I didn't manage to stay completely safe because I came off in that huge crash on stage three - the one that took out Fabian Cancellara when he was in the yellow jersey.

I had been at the back just trying to take it easy, but then I decided to move forward because the speed was up and, as the old saying goes, it's safer at the front.

Typical, then, that once I got further up, there was a crash just off the nose of the bunch. I was on the side of the road where it happened and I had nowhere to go. I was over the handlebars before I knew it.

Fortunately, I wasn't one of those guys who ended up piled up against the lamppost - I was already past that point - and even more fortunately, I escaped relatively uninjured. In fact, I went on to finish eighth that day, which, in the circumstances, was a pretty decent result.

Next up was the cobbled fourth stage and I finished a strong 138th there. Let's just say I wouldn't put a fiver on me at Paris-Roubaix next year.

I'm not actually too bad on the cobbles - I rode them a lot in the under-23s and I don't mind them - but it was all about staying safe, so I just picked my way over.

We also had the crosswinds, which for a rider of my build is not exactly a speciality, and then we had the team time trial yesterday, where my Orica-GreenEdge team only had six men due to the fact we lost Simon Gerrans, Daryl Impey and Michael Albasini to crashes earlier in the race.

We were never going to pull up any trees with three men missing and none of us are challenging on the general classification, so there was no point burning unnecessary energy and instead it was just about bringing it home.

And then today has been the rest day, although it hasn't quite gone to plan because I woke up this morning with a sore throat, which is not good news.

It’s déjà vu, actually, because exactly the same thing happened last year and I had to leave the race early as a result, so I'm hoping this one won't be as bad.

I skipped our little training ride earlier today just to avoid making things worse and I've pretty much spent the day sleeping and eating instead.

I had a late breakfast, then just relaxed while the guys were out on the ride, then had a bit of lunch, then headed off to a press conference, then had a massage and now I'm writing this. I'll get an early night and hopefully I'll feel better in the morning.

I'm not getting too stressed about it. The race effectively starts now for me because we're heading into the mountains and I'm a climber targeting stage wins out of breakaways, but tomorrow's stage doesn't look to have much potential for a breakaway winner, so I don't think it would have been a day for me anyway.

Plus, there are plenty more opportunities in the remaining 12 stages. Only stage 21 into Paris is a definite sprint day, and the rest are either mountainous or intermediate rolling stages.

We don't have a concrete plan of attack. It all depends on how your legs feel on the day and I've also got to hope this throat doesn't get any worse, but my goals at this Tour remain the same and hopefully I can achieve them.

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