Make sure that Cavendish is fit and that he is protected during the race. Additionally, you should move the three riders to the front of the peloton before the peloton is at full speed.
Obviously such a train does not work if the road on the last 10 kms is going up.
Hi I've been playing this game a while and have found some tactics that work really well for me. Also these tactics I've only tested in career mode, I don't think they're very effective in single stage to warn you !
Forcing a peleton slow on narrow moutains
This is really useful for the giro where lots of the stages in all variants have narrow roads up steep moutains. So here's what to do, pick a good moutain stage with some good climbs that use narrow roads and make sure the breakaway has defintely formed for the day and got a moderate gap. Now you take a moutain in the middle 3rd of stage with a narrow road and position all your important riders right towards the front of the peleton (by front they should be in the top 10 at least!) but they must be sitting there on the hold position command. Next take a climbing domestique (moutain of 75-77 depending on difficulty) and put him to 85% relay.
After a kilometer or two the weak riders of other teams who were riding at the front before this fast pace now blow up causing a break in the peleton. A very small group with your leader will come off the front which often does not contain many of the other GC contenders as they are not positioned that well so early on. At this point a few things can happen, one of which is the peleton will drastically slow up can lose 8-15 minutes no matter what GC contenders are in the front group and who is left behind, the AI teams just refuse to ride. Sometimes they will just ride normally though or even chase you down immediately but if you try this a few times you get the hang of when is the best time to force the slow.
Tire out the AI riders
This one is simple, on a good climb or hill towards the middle-end of a stage (but not right at the end !) have your best domestiques ride at the front at 99%. Have your leader on the dot at a lower pace (say 70%) so he slides from the front to the back of the peleton not putting in much effort while all the other AI riders try to follow your domestiques and lose lots of energy. Once your domestiques tire out the pace slows and your leader moves back to the front again. Repeat as necessary. Just make sure you dont drop your own leader !
The middle stage attack
This is one of the most effective ways of having a 75/76 Mountain rider competing with those 83/84's in GT's (as long as the rider is not leading the race at the time!) Ok so simple again take a stage with lots of moutains (preferably just before a rest day) and have your 75/76 attack with around 130K-100K depending on the length of the stage. I should note here it's best to attack on a flat section and quickly change to dot once you have a gap so as to use as litte energy as possible. They will let your rider go even if he is maybe 4th in the GC because he is not a favourite for the stage. Put him on somewhere between 60-62% on dot and watch him open up a large gap before the peleton decide to chase the breakaway! On downhills and flats increase to 80% and 70-75% respectively and also increase so he runs out of yellow at the top of the final climb if it is a MTF. Often your rider can win the stage and stay high up in the GC. With practice you can see which are good stages to do this on (for example the finish on Cotobello in the Vuelta is very good but the finish on the Tourmalet stage in the TDF is often a disaster and you will lose a lot of time).
Most of your "stragegies" are cheap because they have nothing to do with real cycling, also you need to tell us what difficulty you are playing because most of the cheaper strategies do not work on harder difficulties.
