This has been a special Tour for me: my first time in the race, and we’ve managed to win it with Chris Froome. It’s been a hard three weeks. Everyone says the Tour is at another level physically to all the other races but when you are in Team Sky and you have the yellow jersey to defend you don’t have a single day when you can be selfish and look after yourself a little bit.

The workload is much higher than if you are just trying to survive and get in the odd break but it’s an honour to be in this team. I know it’s a cliche but riding on the front with the yellow jersey on your wheel is what dreams are made of.

Everything has seemed to fall into place in the past three weeks. Everyone has done their job every day to perfection, but it can all turn on its head quickly if you take your eye off the ball. Since we got the yellow jersey on day four, we’ve had to do a lot of riding on the front. There are days when the break finishes 10 minutes ahead, but even when you let it go to 10 minutes you have to ride pretty hard if there are 20 guys going flat out in front.

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Along with Ian Stannard, one job I’ve been given is to make sure the right break goes up the road at the start of the stage. It means you have to be right on the front row from the gun, and when the riders attack, you watch every one, thinking, ‘Can we let him go? He can’t go, he’s a guy who’s high up on general classification’ – if that’s the case you have to close it down within five or six minutes, so there is a lot of shutting down little gaps. You put in the extra work at the start, that makes it easier later in the stage; if the best guy in the break is at 40 minutes, other teams will have to ride which makes it more relaxed.

As a Classics rider my big role was in the first week, which I was dreading a bit, because I saw what happened at the Tour last year. I had to get up there on the first day, when there were cross-winds, and the cobbled stage was the other big one for me, as I finished eighth at Paris-Roubaix in April so it’s seen as my speciality. I got Chris to the front for the first section, and again on the second section, and then I was exhausted.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Froome joined an elite group to have won two Tour de France races, as the 2015 edition concluded with the traditional procession down the Champs Elysées.

The day that sticks in my mind was stage five, when it rained all day and was a crash-fest with bodies everywhere. It was one of those days when the Tour could be lost so easily. On days like that it’s a matter of positioning, making sure Chris is in front; we’ve probably been in the first 20 of the peloton for the whole race. Physically it’s not easy, and there is a skill side, we’ve done a lot of that; it’s the reason we are where we are now.

The other job I’ve had to do is bottle duty. I’ve seen a statistic that we’ve only had three hours of the race when the temperature has been under 30C, so on a lot of days we’ve been back and forth to the car. My record is carrying 15 bottles. It’s a big peloton – 160 riders in the last week – the distance from the back to the front of the bunch can be 30 seconds, so each time you drop back you have to gain 30sec to get to the front, and if it’s strung out it’s more than that. Three or four times a day of doing that does add up.

We were saying the other day that up to stage 19 we’d never been completely under pressure – the moment when the shit hit the fan hadn’t come yet. The starts are never easy, when you have 160 riders in the race and 120 want to get in the break … we’ve come under pressure there but have coped OK. It’s been relatively smooth sailing, even though it’s going to hit everyone at some point. Luckily we have three or four guys who could lead a Grand Tour team in their own right.

As for Chris, he’s a gem of a leader. When you see him after the finish, he gives you a high five and thanks you for what you’ve done. The phrase I’d use for him is pit bull – when he wants something he’s prepared to ride himself into the ground for it.

The one I remember is at the Vuelta last year. There was one day where he was dropped time after time but kept clawing himself back into it, turning himself inside out. When you have a leader who is prepared to kill himself where other guys would throw in the towel, that’s why you get eight guys prepared to put themselves on the line for him. He’s a pleasure to work for.

Luke Rowe is in his fourth year at Team Sky and this year rode the Tour de France for the first time. Together with Olympic gold medallist Dani King, he is alsopart owner of coaching company Rowe and King