from Bruce Hildenbrand

The Alps were supposed to be about how well the favorites climbed. Unfortunately, it seemed, for some of the contenders, it was also how well they could descend. To be sure, the stages to Prato Nevoso and l'Alpe d'Huez were battle royales by the uphill specialists providing some of the best excitement the Tour has seen in years. Team CSC Saxo Bank put on a bike racing clinic on all three Alpine stages and continued to impress, not only with their bonafide mountain goats, but also how they got such gravitationally-challenged riders as Jens Voigt and Fabian Cancellara over the big climbs and in a position to evoke damage.

But, on the second stage in the Alps, over the massive Col de la Bonnette, the highest continuously paved pass in Europe, it was all about going down and not going up. Two of the favorites for the overall, Garmin-Chipotle's Christian Vandevelde and Rabobank's Denis Menchov crashed on the twisty 5000+' descent to the finish in Jausiers and lost valuable time to their rivals. In Vandevelde's case it was unfortunate as he had ridden valiantly to the top of the Bonnette after being dropped by the leaders with 5 miles to the summit. He limited his losses on the climb to only about 30 seconds only to see his effort erased when he went down on the descent.

Not surprisingly, the final mountain stage of the Alpine trifecta, the finish to l'Alpe d'Huez provided the most competitive and captivating moments of this year's Tour with Team CSC Saxo Bank executing a well-timed attack with Carlos Sastre which was clearly intended to take the yellow jersey all the way to Paris. When the Team CSC car moved from behind the group with the Schlecks and up to Sastre it was clear that CSC has put all their eggs in the Sastre basket. With so much attention being given to the two Luxembourg brothers, it was a superb move as Sastre is probably the best time trialist of the CSC-Saxo Bank trio.

Unfortunately for CSC's plans, after following attacks for the majority of the Alpe, Cadel Evans finally realized that CSC Saxo Bank was pinning all their yellow jersey hopes on Sastre and as the gap climbed to over two minutes, Evans finally went to the front for the first time in this Tour and tried to limit the damage. At the end the gap was 2'18" which translated to just over 1'30" in the overall classification between the yellow-jerseyed Sastre and Evans. Given that the final time trial is 50km, the mild-mannered Spaniard probably needed at least two minutes to hang onto the maillot jaune to the finish.

Stranger things have happened witness Oscar Pereiro's incredible ride when he attempted to defend his yellow jersey against Floyd Landis in 2006. Pereiro rode way above his head and while he faded in the final kilometers it was much closer than the statistics would have predicted.

Garmin-Chipotle rider Christian Vandevelde recovered brilliantly from the double-disappointment of the yesterday's stage to Jausiers and rode himself into a bonafide shot at a podium position come Paris. Christian is clearly capable of taking major time out of everyone save possibly Evans; he seems to get stronger in the third week of a major Tour, hopefully he uncorks a big one and gets to make that walk on the Champs Elysees.

We were expecting major fireworks in the Alps and the Tour did not disappoint. Team CSC Saxo Bank took it to all the favorites setting up some classic battles that will be remembered for a long, long time. All that is left is the final time trial and given all that has transpired to now, the surprises are not over. The final podium in Paris will most likely contain Sastre and Evans, the order has yet to be determined, and a third rider to be named later.