The only certainty with this year’s three-week bicycle race in France is that last year’s winner won’t win this year.

That would be Alberto Contador of the banned Astana team.

Beyond that, I’d say the two big favourites are last year’s runner-up Cadel Evans of Silence Lotto and Dauphine Libere winner Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d’Epargne, but otherwise the field is wide open, more so than at any time since before Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel began their unprecidented tour of success with seven wins by Armstrong and eight wins in nine years by Bruyneel as a director sportif.

The Tour begins in mere hours in Brest, in eastern France, with a tricky 197.5 kilometer stage that features four Category 4 climbs and then is relatively flat to an uphill finish in Plumelec .

For Stage 1, ol’ 10 Speed’s gonna step out on a limb and predict a big day for the two American teams, with a Garmin-Chipotle (Danny Pate perhaps?) rider in the day’s breakaway but with Columbia’s Kim Kirchen winning the stage and wearing the maillot jaune after the first day.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Saunier Duval-Scott’s Ricardo Ricco being there at the end, or perhaps Frank Schleck of CSC-Saxo banque. With Scott and CSC being American companies, both of those teams have American ties.

Valverde’s also a threat with this type of stage, as are Columbia’s Big George Hincapie and CSC-Saxo’s Big Jens Voight.

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