If you ask six different experts who is going to win the 2006 Tour de France, you get six different answers. No one knows. Not even the athletes or their team officials know which rider is going to emerge in the mountains to take command.

T-Mobile would appear to have the advantage with four riders in the first six, including yellow jersey Sergei Gontchar, but even the German squad has no real idea.

Asked if his team will operate in the mountains like Lance Armstrong’s did for seven years, T-Mobile team manager Olaf Ludwig told VeloNews, “No, we don’t do the same as Discovery Channel or U.S. Postal. We are only with seven riders in the Tour and we have a very good situation with [six] riders in the first 15, and so we can wait for the attacks from another team.”

Regarding his view on the Tour’s likely strongest rider when the Tour enters the mountains on Wednesday, Ludwig said, “For me, it is [Floyd] Landis. He has a very strong team … eight riders work for him. I think he is the favorite. [For others], I look to [Denis] Menchov or [Vladimir] Karpets or [Cadel] Evans — but [their teams] have two or three guys going for sprints or attacks, so it’s not the same situation as Team Phonak.”

As for the riders in his own team, Ludwig pointed out that Gontchar finished second at the Giro behind Damiano Cunego in 2003 — “and the Giro’s not flat.” The T-Mobile chief also said he has confidence in the climbing strength of Michael Rogers (third on GC) and Andreas Klöden (fifth).

A look ahead: What’s going to happen in the Pyrenees?

Coming up on Wednesday is the easier of two Pyrenean stages. But, Ludwig’s favorite, Landis, said it wouldn’t be that easy. “The first mountain stage already has two demanding tests, the Col de Soudet and the Marie-Blanque,” Landis said. “But I think, because the second mountain is 40km from the finish, there could be a large group going for the win.”

Chris Horner, Landis’s teammate at Mercury in 2000 and 2001, didn’t agree completely with that assessment of Wednesday’s stage 10. “You take your top 10 or 15 GC favorites, those guys will finish in the group together,” he said. “It’ll probably be a decent-sized group, but there’s going to be a break that stays off, and then someone in that break that’s outside the top 15 favorites is gonna be in there who takes the jersey.”

Horner’s bold prediction may not be as crazy as it sounds. On stage 10 from Bayonne to Pau in 1966, in a similar course through the Pyrenees, a 20-rider break finished nine minutes ahead of the main pack. In that break were men regarded as second-tier favorites, Lucien Aimar (a teammate of race favorite Jacques Anquetil) and Jan Janssen (regarded as a classics rider after winning the world title two years earlier). Altig and Janssen finished 1-2 in Paris.

At this year’s wild Tour, perhaps a similar situation could develop, especially as T-Mobile hasn’t specified who its leader will be. Horner observed, “If there’s a break [Wednesday] there will most likely be a T-Mobile guy in it. If not, then we’re gonna see who they’re really gonna ride for, which is the big question. Because they have the race leader, with Gontchar, but are they really gonna ride for Gontchar? I would say no. I’d say right now with the results I’ve seen and what I’ve seen in the past I don’t see them riding for Gontchar at all.

“But at some point they’ve got to ride. I don’t think that’ll be tomorrow. You’ve got a guy like [Giuseppe] Guerini [35th on GC at 4:30] that could be top 10 on GC … but if you let him go in the break and get 10 minutes maybe he can win. If you let any of those T-Mobile guys get in a break and get 10 minutes they might win the Tour.”

As for his own duties in stage 10, Horner said, “My job is to stay with Cadel [Evans] tomorrow, and help out the team in covering moves. And if I happen to get in [a break] then I’m not going to drop out of it, but I won’t use a lot of energy up to put myself in the move.”

Looking down the current top 20 on the GC list before stage 10, the men who should stay near the top include Landis, Rogers, Klöden, Karpets (Caisse d’Épargne), Evans (Davitamon-Lotto), Marcus Fothen (Gerolsteiner), Paolo Savoldelli (Discovery Channel), Menchov (Rabobank), Eddy Mazzoleni (T-Mobile), Carlos Sastre (CSC), George Hincapie (Discovery Channel) and Oscar Pereiro (Caisse d’Épargne).

As for climbers who can emerge, especially in a breakaway, they include Georg Totschnig (Gerolsteiner), José Rujano (Quick Step), Gilberto Simoni (Saunier Duval), Stefano Garzelli (Liquigas), Iban Mayo (Euskaltel), Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) and José Gomez Marchante (Saunier Duval).

Stage 10 will be raced in partly cloudy weather, with temperatures in the 70s on the climbs and 80s at the finish in Pau. There’s a chance of mist or a short rain shower on the last climb, the very steep Marie-Blanque. In other words, perfect conditions for a keenly anticipated stage that should provide some clues into who will win this mysterious Tour. At the very least, it will tell us who isn’t going to win.