According to Ullrich, "Now the Tour really starts and we are ready!"

In celebration of the end to the boring sprinter's segment, I've put together a preview of the mountainous stages to come using my trusty Google Earth. The satellite imagery that it provided for my earlier stage writeups wasn't very exciting, but, now that there's some terrain to behold, I can actually tilt the maps to show you some 3D.

Stage 8 will break the riders in, but they'll have plenty of time to rest up before it's final category 2 climb. Stage 9 and 10 have the first category 1 climbs of the Tour, but I'm most looking forward to the classic Hors Category climbs of Stage 11.

We'll have several good stages to see Armstrong, Vino, and Basso on the move, and maybe Jens Voigt will finally take that breakaway that I've been waiting for. We'll also get to see if the Spanish climbers (Heras, Mayo, Beloki, etc...) have any form this year.

Keep reading on if you want to see the pretty maps (warning: large file sizes ahead)