The first mountain stage of the Tour will be a complete contrast to the opening week and is was always going to be a different sort of rider who excels on the road to La Planche des Belles Filles. The peloton has been ravaged by crashes in recent days, especially the carnage that wiped out so many riders on the road to Metz. Still, some of the big pre-race favorites all survived the chaos and Wiggins, Evans, Menchov and Nibali are all still in contention for the podiumin Paris. Still many may have to accept that a win could now be out of reach. That might be the case for Fränk Schleck, Alejandro Valverde, Robert Gesink and Michele Scarponi – who were all casualties of the crash near the end of stage six. They now only have one solution to put themselves back in contention: attack!
Fabian Cancellara recognizes that his time in the yellow jersey is due to come to an end but some of the potential winners of stage seven are loathe to inherit the leader's color too soon. Evans timed his race into yellow perfectly last year, taking the lead with only one day to race. And he'll be satisfied if he manages it that way again this year. This is the stage when we're going to see who is able to keep dreaming of the top step of the Parisian podium.