I usually try to only have a tiny bit of yellow bar left by the finish. Is this a good idea?
Also this means that I usually dot on 90-95% at the end. Would it be better to move to dot earlier on the mountain at a steady 75 and then only increase it to 85?

I haven't experienced with the yellow bar, but my initial thought is that it is optimal to have as much left in both green, yellow and red bar.

But to answer your other question I would say that is depends on the strategy you want to apply on the mountain – if you want to be the one who sets the pace from the start of the mountain, then I think a long painful move with a stable effort 75 is very useful. Typically I set effort to 80 or simply start with a real small attack to create the hole to the pack, but as soon as I have created a gap, I set my effort to 70-75 depending on the slope and length of the mountain – that way you keep your rhythm and your competitors will use up all their energy trying to close the gap – and they would have to use a greater effort than you, i.e. 80 or so – and then they won’t last long on the mountain.

If you base your strategy on being able to go 90-95 effort in the end, I am thinking of a strategy where you sit on the wheel of your main competitor up the mountain and then attack at the very end / top of the mountain. That strategy will definitely help you save energy, but requires a bit more cool from you and if you have several strong competitors you could end up using more energy counterattacking them on the mountain.

I tried riding the Tour (Stage Race mode) on hard difficulty with TST and Contador with the 2013 variant (PCM12). On my first attempt I was 1:30 behind Froome after Mount Ventoux and loosing a little bit of time on every climb. I caught up with him on the mountain TT, but in Alpe D'Huez he took close to 4 min. He was unbeatable after that.

I tried once more a few days later and this time I beat Froome with +3 min. I think the difference was that Contador had 92 fitness vs 89 on my first try. I assume Froome had worse fitness.. It's the only thing that makes sense to me, cos my tactics didn't change.

I'm glad I found this thread. I've been playing this game for a couple of weeks,I'm at the Giro in my career. This being my first go at I took Sky as my team. I kept getting beat in the mountains by Nibali. Read this thread and just demolished him on stage 19. Road Porte up the first big climb then Uran the second. Took off with 10km to go and beat Nibali by a minute and a half.Brilliant stuff