Sunday’s stage is another hilly route, 164.5 kilometers from Auray north to Saint-Brieuc, with three category 4 climbs and a category 3 — Cote de Mur de Bretagne, about 90 kilometers in.

Again, I’m looking for a Garmin-Chipotle rider to get into the day’s breakaway, perhaps Danny Pate, but again, so early in the tour I doubt that a breakaway will be successful.

It’ll be interesting to see how much work Caisse d’Epargne does at the front of the peloton in pulling back the breakaway to protect Alejandro Valverde’s maillot jaune. Valverde is gunning for the overall Tour victory, but I don’t think Caisse d’Epargne has a deep enough team to protect the lead for three entire weeks of the race around France. Not even the strong U.S. Postal teams in the Lance Armstrong era attempted to hold the yellow throughout the race.

The second stage could play out much like Stage 1 did, with Columbia trying to set up Kirchen again and contenders such as Ricardo Ricco of Saunier Duval-Scott or the Schleck boys of CSC-Saxo trying to get a stage win and send a message to the other contenders. Sprinters such as Mark Cavendish, Thor Hushovd and Robbie McEwen would be the favourites if the stage finishes in a bunch sprint.

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