The moment of truth has arrived. After almost a week of following wheels, sheltered in the peloton, all the yellow-jersey favorites are racing “alone and unassisted” on Saturday. That expression was coined in Britain, where road time trials were invented in the late 19th century, to overcome police restrictions on packs of cyclists “riding furiously” and scaring the horses pulling carts and carriages.

More than 100 years later — and 71 years after individual time trials were introduced to the Tour — the Brits and their English-speaking brethren are still teaching the Continentals how to race against the clock. Stage 6 of this year’s Tour has a whole brigade of Anglo contenders for the stage podium: Americans Bobby Julich (CSC), Floyd Landis (Phonak), Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), George Hincapie (Discovery Channel) and Dave Zabriskie (CSC); Australians Cadel Evans (Davitamon-Lotto) and Mick Rogers (T-Mobile); and Brit David Millar (Saunier Duval-Prodir).

Facing these specialists, who have all won time trials at the top level in pro cycling, are Russia’s Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Vladimir Karpets (Caisse d’Épargne-Illes Balears); Ukraine’s Sergei Gontchar (T-Mobile) and Yaroslav Popovych (Discovery Channel); Spain’s Carlos Sastre (CSC); Germany’s Andreas Klöden (T-Mobile); and Italy’s Marzio Bruseghin (Lampre-Fondital).

Saturday’s 52km course contains a mixture of challenges: narrow, hilly back roads from the start to the first time check in Gévezé at 16.5km; less curvy, wider roads exposed to likely cross and head winds for the following 16.5km to the second split at L’Hermitage; and long, straight flat highways into the modern streets of Rennes over the final 15.5km.

Few riders have scouted the counterclockwise loop through the Brittany countryside and its regional capital. All the top contenders are starting within an hour of each other when the forecast south winds will be at their strongest.

When Rennes was the terminus of a Tour stage in 1989, the stage winner was American Greg LeMond, who used clip-on aero’ bars for the first time to win the 73km TT from Dinard by 24 seconds over Spain’s Pedro Delgado (who raced in more favorable conditions). LeMond raced through a thunderstorm to beat Laurent Fignon, the third-place finisher and his chief rival, by 56 seconds.

That was one American giving it to the Continentals. Now there’s a whole armada. It should be an epic stage.