the first mountain stage is always a hard one to call. nobody going for the c.g. ever holds back in an individual time trial, but that’s not the case when the roads start to point upwards. the fact that the whole peloton is on the road means that group-think can take hold. how many times have we seen a potential winner become just another finisher because he–and everybody else–spent too much time eyeballing the competition, and not enough time on the attack? if you love cycling, then you love those who go for it in the mountains. most recently armstrong, of course, but also laiseka and sometimes mayo. more historically, chiappucci and rominger. my guess is that we will not see that kind of excitement tomorrow. i hope i’m wrong.

this first stage to jurancon is hard, but not hard enough. as many have pointed out, the only hors categorie climb is in the middle. the hardest stretch is on the marie blanque at the end, but it’s followed by a long descent and run into jurancon. in many ways, this stage is like last year’s stage 11 to briancon, which went over the galibier the hard way, but ended with a tough descent on the narrow side and a flying approach to briancon. by the way, i picked george hincapie to win that stage and was off by only a little: another strong man, vinokourov, took it and george ended up winning four days later on a stage i never could have called for him.

if vino were in this race, i’d call tomorrow’s stage for him or (if he were still in) valverde. the front group of 20-40 will be strung out on the marie blanque, but good descenders and rouleurs will put it all back together on the way to jurancon and the stage will end with a sprint or set of hard attacks and counter-attacks favoring a rider like (darn it, i can’t seem to get around him!) hincapie. tomorrow is george’s best chance to win a stage.

look also for pineau to go early to amass some more easy points toward the maillot pois on the cat. 3 col d’osquich. along with him at some point will be moncoutie and weening, who will get away with some others, only to be reeled in by the select group near the summit of of the marie blanque. rasmussen has to show his face sometime if he wants to defend his jersey, but it won’t be tomorrow. look for the chicken to go solo on thursday when mondo points can be taken by an early attacker over the tourmalet, aspin, and (if still alive) peyresourde. if mayo challenges for the king of the mountains, which he should if he has any sense, then he should duke it out with the chicken on thursday when the race ends in spain–every basque rider’s dream! this will be a preview of their battle on alpe d’huez, where mayo must defend his title and rasmussen, like any king of the mountains worth his salt, would love to win.

but the real issue is how t-mobile is going to handle this stage. there are only seven pinkies in the race, one of them is in yellow, and all of them can get to the end of this stage in decent shape. gonchar can retain the yellow jersey, but logic suggests he will need help from his team. t-mobile has (at least) two riders who would be strong contenders for this kind of stage: mazzoleni and kloden. if they stay with gonchar to provide support, then we could see a team-dominated stage, in which discovery also hangs together as a team, as does phonak (with landis getting help from merckx and a well-rested victor hugo pena). a team dominated mountain stage may provide less obvious drama than individual attacks and counter-attacks, but it can be every bit as exciting. others up for a good day: sastre and totschnig.

so, look for team tactics to dominate, especially the internal dramas of who on t-mobile and discovery will be thrust into the role of team leader. will t-mobile defer to gonchar because he has the yellow jersey? or will they secretly hope he cracks and allows evans and kloden to go for it without guilt? will bruyneel set a strategy favoring one or another rider, or is it really going to be sauve qui peut?

apw.