Richie Porte Tour de France Ready for battle: Australian cyclist Richie Porte is gunning for a strong time-trial ride. While Richie Porte has seen his hopes of a podium finish in the Tour de France dashed, he will still race as hard as he can in Wednesday's stage 11 time trial. Porte's Sky team want him to throw his all into the time trial on an undulating 33 kilometre course from Avranches to Mont Saint-Michel. A good result will do wonders for the Australian's morale following his massive time loss suffered in Sunday's second stage in the Pyrenees from Saint Girons to Bagneres de Bigorre. In the space of a day, the 28-year-old Tasmanian plummeted from second place overall at 51 seconds to Froome, to 33rd at 18 minutes, 30 seconds. I think it's hard for him to go slow, so I think he'll go fast. It's good for his morale. If you consider that if he hadn't of lost time on Sunday then he'd need to do this time trial full gas. So he's training for this. Plus, it's hard to tell him, 'Richie, go slow'," Sky sports director Nicolas Portal said before Tuesday's 197km 10th stage from Saint Gildas des Bois to Saint Malo, won in a sprint by German Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) from compatriot Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) and Briton Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) who collided with Kittel's lead-out man Dutchman Tom Veelers who crashed with 200m to go. Secondly, a top result by Porte in Wednesday's time trial, in which he usually excels, would provide Froome, with whom he trains, with important reference times. He asked me. He said, 'Nico, I want to go full gas.' He can also give time checks to Chris and gain morale," Porte said. Froome leads the Tour. He has 1.25 on second placed Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and 1.44 on Dutchman Bauke Mollema (Belkin) who is third. For Australia, Cadel Evans (BMC) is 16th at 4.36 while Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff) is 17th at 6.14. Evans, who enjoyed a stronger ride on Sunday than he did on Saturday, was surprised by the Sky team's sudden reversal of fortune that left Froome islolated. It was a real strange situation seeing the yellow jersey isolated after 27km. It certainly wasn't what we were expecting," Evans said before Tuesday's stage, adding that Wednesday's time trial would show how much - or if - Froome's teammates, including Porte, have recovered. Whether they recover from that or return to their level or whatever, we will see - not so much today [stage 10] but [on Wednesday] in the time trial. Evans says it will show the condition of the whole peloton half-way into the Tour: "It will be a real test to see how people have recovered from the first half. It's a race of truth ... it always is. It doesn't matter whether you are good or bad, or can stay on the wheel, in the time trial you just need the legs. Jim Ochowicz, the BMC team president, agrees with the Australian that winning the Tour from where he is placed is an unrealistic goal. But he has not discounted a high overall placing, pending the time trial. "Cadel is moving up, but to take 15 guys down is going to be pretty hard to do," Ochowicz said. I think he will do a good time trial. That will tell us something. I don't think the general classification will change a lot, but it will add a little movement to it. It's not a good gauge for [what to expect in the] second time trial [stage 17 - 32km from Embrun to Chorges] though because the two are so much different to each other - with [the second time trial] being in the third week, plus there is a lot of up and down on it. Wednesday's course is not without difficulty, said Valerio Piva, the sports director of Rodriguez - named as a dark horse by Evans last week. "We saw the [course] a few days after Liege-Bastogne-Liege [in April]," Piva said. It is not as easy as it looks. The first part is constantly up and down. Joaquim will lose time. In the Criterium du Dauphine [in June], he lost a lot of time, but there he had problems with his bike and SRM [computer that reads wattage]. If Joaquim loses two minutes, I will be content. That means that in 'GC' we will be four minutes behind Froome. Froome is super strong. We look more to guys like Valverde and Contador. If he loses 30 seconds on Valverde and Contador, it will have been a good time trial. Contador, meanwhile, was not so optimistic about his chances of leaving an impression on his time deficit, saying: "Froome starts the time trial with an advantage. The course suits him more than me. It's not good for me. I will give it 100 per cent and try to lose the minimum possible.