They tire the legs and burn the lungs, but the Tour de France's punishing climbs can't come soon enough for Lance Armstrong.
After an unnerving first week of fast racing, where crashes are a constant risk, Armstrong is looking to the hills and mountains of eastern France to start winnowing out the field of 185 riders left in the three-week race.
Saturday's eighth stage brings the hardest climb so far, the 1,139m Col de la Schlucht. It is not as hard as the monstrous ascents to follow in the Alps and Pyrenees.
But riders who are carrying injuries, who are fatigued and out of form, or who don't have Armstrong's climbing talents could trail.
"The race is about to start. We've made it through the first week, there have not been any major crises, in fact I think it's been a pretty good week," Armstrong said after surviving another hairy, bunched-up finishing sprint Friday as the Tour veered into Germany.
"Of course these stages are always scary, you have to stay out of trouble," he said. "But I'm glad to be one week down, two to go."
Australian sprinter Robbie McEwen, no fan of the mountains but explosively effective in flat finishes, won Friday's seventh stage.
Armstrong retained his overall lead by finishing a safe 53rd in the following pack in the same time as McEwen. He avoided a crash in the closing straightaway that took down two riders.
The American's lead over Discovery Channel teammate George Hincapie stayed unchanged at 55 seconds, with Kazak rival Alexandre Vinokourov still 1 minute, 2 seconds back in third place. Armstrong built up his lead by riding strongly in time trial races against the clock earlier in the week. One of those was a team event that Discovery won.
Saturday's 231.5km run starts in the German town of Pforzheim and leads straight into a series of four climbs.
Tour ascents are rated on a rising scale of difficulty from four upward. The hardest climbs are so difficult they are uncategorized. There are five of those on this year's Tour.
The first four hills on Saturday rate three, or moderately hard.
Riders then have about 130km of flat before the Col de la Schlucht. Its 16.8km ascent rises at an average gradient of 4.4 percent and rates a two. Then follows a downhill run to the finish in Gerardmer, back in eastern France's Vosges region.
The stage should favor all-around riders who can both climb and ride hard on flats, rather than sprinters like McEwen. The route and another six ascents that await on Sunday could provide an early gauge of the climbing form of Armstrong and his challengers heading into the Alps. Those high mountains start Tuesday after riders get a rest day on Monday.
Armstrong is confident that he will be able to head off any challenges.
"I feel certain that my condition is good enough to follow some attacks," he said.
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