“Well, at the moment I’m in terrible condition,” he told Karen Tso, anchor of European Squawk Box. “This is our month off, generally a month to six weeks where it can just be normal again, you can have a burger, have a beer, but the rest of the year, from November onwards it pretty much is ten months of living a very much full on lifestyle to get ready for the Tour de France again.

“Bookies have me down as a favourite for next year’s Tour but I try not to think too much about the past, I try not to think too much about last year, I mean it’s been a fantastic season for me, winning the Tour de France but the real challenge is going in and backing it up.

“I’ve won two Tours now but certainly after winning the Tour de France, it is harder to go back and do it again.

“You have a lot more pressure on your shoulders, you’re being pulled left and right over the winter doing different appearances and I think a lot of the responsibility there, for me personally, is to try and limit the amount of engagements that I do have and try and focus on what I’m meant to do, which is riding my bike.”

Froome has, however, been here before. Back in 2014 he kick-started the season on the back of his Tour de France win and quickly recaptured his form – only for injuries and crashes to blight his season and ultimately curtail his Tour in the first week.

But, while he is focusing on the future, the 30-year-old is keen to take the lessons he learned in 2014 to help him going into the 2016 season.

“You’ve got to take those opportunities to be able to learn from them,” he said. “If I look back at the 2014 Tour de France, I’d won the Tour in 2013, I felt as if my preparations and everything had been perfect leading up until the 2014 tour… and a careless moment, a careless crash, basically ended my Tour de France completely.

“I think being able to pick yourself up from the disappointments, and to be able to learn from them and just ask yourself the question, what could I have done better to avoid that situation, certainly is useful going forward.”

Froome has been given a boost after the course for next year’s Tour was unveiled, with a route well-suited to his characteristics as a rider – on paper, at least.

Froome has already suggested it will take a ‘complete cyclist’ to win next year and told CNBC he believes he fits the billing.

“If I look at my strengths as a professional cyclist, I think I’m quite well rounded, I’m able to time trial relatively well compared to the pure climbers who I’m up against in a lot of the Tour de France and this past Tour basically had zero time trial kilometres. We had a prologue right at the beginning but apart from that there was no time trialling.

“Next year’s course definitely does have a lot more time trialling and in that sense it’s going to be a much more balanced race and it’s going to be that balance of who can hang on the time trials and still climb at the top level.

“I go home and I analyse why things went wrong and I really feel as if that gives me a lot of motivation to come back even stronger the next opportunity I get.

“I think what’s more tricky is coming in and trying to stay motivated and even trying to improve when things have gone well for you.

“I think it’s quite easy to fall in to that trap, becoming complacent, and OK, I’ve won the Tour de France, well I’ll just go in next year and try and do the same thing again – it doesn’t work like that.

“I’m going to have to try and be better next year – I’ve got to look at everything I’m doing, every factor of my nutrition, my training, everything to be ready for the Tour de France and try and do it even better than I’ve done in the past.”

In order to do exactly that, Froome says he will be looking to build momentum from the word go in 2016.

“Certainly motivation is a bit part of racing. I mean winning a race like the Tour de France, it’s not possible for me to just show up in July in fantastic conduction and take on the Tour de France.

“I think it is critical for me to win at least one or two races, even if they’re smaller events, before the Tour de France just to build that momentum [and] to build the trust among my colleagues and my team-mates so that I really do have the buy-in 100 per cent from everyone going in to the Tour de France, so that they know that if they give it their all, that I’m going to be just as up for it and I’m going to give it absolutely everything to try and finish off the job for them.”