A word or two about my Sky teammate – and mate – Vasil Kiryienka, who pound for pound must be one of the strongest riders around.

Whenever he rides at the front of the peloton or in any breakaway, the challenge is not just one that he is good at, but one that he loves as well.

You have only to see him race in the Tour de France where, in the last couple of days he has produced some huge rides.

But he'll never let on with his form. Ask him in the morning, ‘How are you ‘Kiry,’?” And he often replies, ‘Not good, not good.’

Then the next thing, he is off attacking. In finishing this Tour, he is probably one of the strongest guys in the team – and healthiest.

However, as hard as nails as the Belarusian is, off the bike he is always laughing or joking. He is a terrific bloke to have around.

But what you may not know is that ‘Kiry’ has a pet Yorkshire terrier that often has ribbons in its hair. He always says his wife did that, but the sight still betrays one of many expectations you have about him.

He has done a lot of work to help me with some of my wins.

In the Paris-Nice stage race that I won last year, he rode the last 50km of one stage, including when 'trains' of the sprinters were coming up the side of him on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice in readiness for the bunch gallop home

‘Kiry’ has a strong pedigree of performances of his own too.

After riding for us in the Tour, he won a stage in last year’s Vuelta a Espana in which he rode away from a chasing peloton, and he has stage wins in the 2008 and 2011 Giro d’Italia to his name.

His ability to ride solo also helped him to win a bronze medal in the 2012 world time trial title.

It would be great to see ‘Kiry’ win a stage here on the Tour before Sunday’s finish in Paris – albeit the options are now few.

Paris is looking a lot closer for all of us now. And by Friday, you can expect there will be a lot of smiling faces in the bunch with Thursday's final mountain stage of the Tour – stage 18,145.5km from Pau to the summit finish at Hautacam – behind us.

These last mountain stages become ever so long days, especially when things haven’t been going your way.

Sometimes, not even having a police escort to speed up your exit from the stage finish to your hotel can really help.

After Wednesday’s 17^th stage and with police leading the way through bumper to bumper traffic, it still took 90 minutes to reach our hotel in Pau.

It made for an epic day; but then that is what the Tour is – a succession of epic days.

As for myself, despite suffering stomach cramps for which I was treated during Wednesday's stage, my all-round health is on the up slightly.

For all that’s happened. I was relatively happy with how I went on Wednesday. I didn’t get dropped until the last kilometre of the second last climb – the Col de Val Louron-Azet.

I finished 7m 38s behind the stage winner, Poland’s Rafa Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) and a little under seven minutes behind Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) who should win this year’s Tour overall – barring unforseen disaster.

Here’s hoping somewhere between now and Sunday’s finish, I can produce a worthy ride.

It may be too late, but certainly having a teammate like ‘Kiry’ around gives you motivation to remain hopeful.