The first mountains are now over and we’ve learned quite a bit about the GC contenders and the way their teams will contest the Tour de France. In addition, a couple of possible contenders have now eliminated themselves. Later this week an individual time trial will provide an opportunity for one or two excellent time triallers to put their stamp on the Tour. If they fail, and there’s reason to believe they may, then the last week of the Tour will be a free for all and very fun to watch.

Sunday’s mountain stage was race very conservatively by most of the field with the exception of Michael Rasmussen and Michael Rogers. Rogers was the first contender to eliminate himself, crashing on the tricky descent. Rasmussen was able to get the stage win and a lead that in lieu of subsequent events could prove sufficient to win. The remaining contenders were content to let Moreau do all the work on the final climb and could only watch when Iban Mayo decided to run away and put himself in contention to win.

Tuesday’s mountain stage was also raced conservatively with the contenders all waiting until the final climb to attack and then achieving only modest time gains on each other. With few mountaintop finishes in this Tour, this did much to solidify the lead of Rasmussen. Significantly, Alexandre Vinokourov and Denis Menchov lost enough time to effectively eliminate themselves from contention.

The next major test will be Saturday’s time trial. Among the contenders, the obvious favorites will be Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden. For these two riders, Saturday’s stage is do or die. Neither man can climb with Rasmussen, and this stage will be one of only two chances for them to gain time. Kloden, however, was injured earlier in the week and the tailbone injury may mean he will have difficulty maintaining his time trial position and thus be slow. For Leipheimer, last year’s Tour saw him turn in a bad time trial and he was not particularly strong in the prologue, thus he may not be as strong as suspected. If this is the case, then these two men will eliminate themselves and Rasmussen will only have to beat the other climbers.

Also still in contention are Alejandro Valverde, Iban Mayo, Alberto Contador and Carlos Sastre. These men are not strong time triallers and they can be expected to lose time Saturday to the time triallers. They will have difficulty making up ground on Rasmussen before the Pyrenees unless Rasmussen delivers a horrible race (well within his capabilities).

Finally, Cadel Evans and Christophe Moreau are still lurking. Both men have shown they can climb with everyone except Mayo and Rasmussen, and Moreau has shown he can attack in the mountains. These two men can time trial better than the other climbers and they could very well both be in the top three by the end of Saturday’s stage.

The race for green jersey is now Tom Boonen’s to lose as Robbie McEwen suffered a time elimination and Oscar Freire abandoned. Eric Zabel, Thor Hushovd and Robbie Hunter can be expected to challenge him and the next three days will probably determine the green jersey winner.

For now, it’s a break until Saturday. The time trial will be run in reverse order with the leaders starting last and the time trial lasting a little over an hour for each ride. The riders should start two minutes apart meaning the critical phase will last about an hour and a half. So grab a cup of coffee and tune in Saturday to see some late July fireworks.