Hitting the mountains at midpoint of 2006 Tour de France

Finally, some killer terrain! Here we are at the midpoint of the Tour de France on Wednesday, and we're finally seeing some mountains… the Pyrenees to be exact.

Sprinters, it's been nice, but it's time for the teams that want to put their guy on the podium in Paris to take over this race. Expect a lot of attacks. Remember, there really aren't any favorites. Plenty of cyclists have a shot to win.

Some of them are on the Discovery team. As the Disco favorites finished last week's time trial in a whimper, team manager Johan Bruyneel told CyclingNews that his team is going to attack in the mountains.

“And there is only one way to make up for lost time — attack and ignite the race so that no team should be able to be in control. There will be attacks from the first stage in the Pyrenees. Even if the stage does not end at a summit, there will be a lot of possibilities. We have to adopt an aggressive attitude. The wait-and-see attitude is not an option for us anymore.” 

And what team is Discovery — which finds itself with zero riders in the top 10 — going to target? T-Mobile, of course, which has 4 in the top 10.

Who would benefit by successful Discovery attacks? Paolo Savoldelli, winner of the 2005 Giro d'Italia, is in 11th place 2-minutes-10 behind. Further back, 17th, is American George Hincapie, 2-minutes-30 behind. Further back still, 23rd, is Yaroslav Popovych, last year's Best Young Rider who is 3-minutes-27 back.

What are these two big mountains? The one at midway is Col du Soudet, which climbs for an average 7.3% gradient for 9 miles. The second one — Col de Marie Blanque — is shorter (5.7 miles) but steeper (7.7%).

Those are rough looking climbs, but look at that long downhill into Pau. The first ones over Col de Marie Blanque could be caught by the time they reach the finish.

So many cyclists have so much to gain or lose here. It's should be an interesting stage, with more to come. Thursday's stage looks harder, with a finish atop Pla-de-Beret in Spain. Then a few transition days, a rest day, and then the Alps.