When Levi Leipheimer first looked at the course for the 2006 Tour de France he fingered Stage 3 from Esch-sur-Alzette to Valkenburg as the one he would study the most in the first week. Starting in Luxembourg, crossing Belgium and ending in the Netherlands, the 216.5km stage saves its teeth for the end: six categorized climbs and two sprints in the final two hours of racing. And these are not just any old climbs. The first is the Côte de la Haute-Levée, one of the key climbs of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and the last, 2km from the finish, is the infamous Cauberg that concludes another spring classic, the Amstel Gold Race.

In between these two climbs are 80km of hilly roads, often narrow after the race crosses the Belgian-Dutch border in the last 30km. It’s these twisting roads with their traffic-slowing “street furniture” that Leipheimer was most concerned about because unlike most of the other Tour contenders he has never ridden the Amstel Gold Race.

Riders who have raced the Dutch classic and done well in it include this year’s winner Fränk Schleck of CSC and former event champion Michael Boogerd of Rabobank. Others who know all about the Cauberg’s 8-percent average grade include local man Boogerd’s Spanish teammate Oscar Freire, along with UCI ProTour leader Alejandro Valverde of Caisse d’Épargne. These four men should be in the elite group that bids for the stage win, along with sprinters like Stuart O’Grady (CSC), Luca Paolini (Liquigas) and Philippe Gilbert (Française des Jeux) — who should all make it over the Cauberg “hump” with their sprinting legs intact.

Winning a stage of the Tour is the top priority for most of the riders in the peloton, but for the overall contenders simply not losing time is their main goal of this first week. Monday’s stage finish into Esch-sur-Alzette showed how easy it is to lose time, when two crashes — one on an uphill, the other in the narrow streets of Esch — delayed more than half the peloton.

The main victim of the first crash, which came 15km from the finish, was Spanish hope José Gomez Marchante, the Saunier Duval rider who won April’s Tour of the Basque Country. Marchante was banged up in the multiple crash and eventually crossed the line in 150th place, 2:51 down.

The other crash was one that blocked the roadway 2km from the finish. Fortunately for the 80 or so riders involved, a rule change last year meant that they were all given the same time as stage winner Robbie McEwen. The “safety” zone in which you can’t lose time because of a crash or mechanical incident was extended from 1km to 3km following complaints by riders — notably Tyler Hamilton — caught up in a mass fall at the 1km-to-go mark on the stage into Angers in 2004.

It’s possible that smart riders like George Hincapie of Discovery Channel will try to avoid danger on Tuesday by making sure that he is in the front group way before the peloton inevitably splits in the closing kilometers. A smaller group offers less danger of crashing, and also gives strong riders an opportunity of gaining time in a finale like that coming up in stage 3.

It’s possible that the stage into Valkenberg will end in a mass sprint, as McEwen expects. His two top rivals for the green (and currently yellow) jersey agree. Race leader Thor Hushovd — who won his world under-23 time trial title in Valkenburg — told AFP: “[Stage 3] will again be hard. But I can climb the Cauberg okay and keep the yellow jersey.”

World champion Tom Boonen was a little more hesitant. Talking about Monday’s stage 2, he said, “This stage was for me six times harder than the Tour of Flanders, with the time bonuses, the hills and the heat.” Then he added about the climb just before the finish on Tuesday, “The Cauberg should suit me, but if I don’t win tomorrow then it’ll be the next day.”

Boonen thought he was going to take the yellow jersey Monday as he believed that Hushovd wouldn’t take the third-place time bonus after the big Norwegian pulled his foot from the pedal in the closing meters. Hushovd recovered to take the bonus and the jersey, but he may be out of luck Tuesday. All those climbs and tricky roads, coupled with the long distance and continuing heat wave should open up the race and maybe give Hincapie or Valverde the chance to grab yellow.