Christophe Ena / AP

Christian Vande Velde was in third place in the Tour de France entering the weekend.

What’s ahead
This weekend’s racing puts the riders in the French Alps, with a run through the foothills on Saturday’s Stage 14 that’s pretty mild, and shouldn’t see any shake-ups on the overall standings.

Sunday is tough, with a big hors categorie (beyond categorization) climb that summits 36 miles into the 114-mile stage that features a tough category 1 ascent to the finish. There aren’t any pure climbers in overall contention, but if anyone’s feeling especially strong they’ll probably try to take some time out of front-runner Cadel Evans.

Tuesday and Wednesday feature horribly tough course profiles. If anyone’s feeling a little off it’s going to show here, on Tuesday’s two hors categorie climbs and especially on Wednesday’s trio of hors categorie summits, including the mountaintop finish at legendary L’Alpe d’Huez. But Vande Velde climbed comfortably well in last week’s mountain stages, and unless he’s lost form he’s not going to drop time here.

Vande Velde and his team will have to mark the favorites in the Alps, riding defensively to keep him with the leaders. Without any pure climbers in the hunt there probably won’t be any big shakeups on the overall, but if anyone shows weakness the hammer will surely drop. And if that happens, the resulting chaos could leave our X-factor team in prime position.

Next Saturday is the big one — the final individual time trial, and the stage that’s likely to determine the overall winner. Evans is favored to win this 33-mile race against the clock (he took fourth in this Tour’s only other time trial stage).

For Vande Velde to have a crack at the top slot, he’s going to need a serious time buffer. He lost 10 seconds to Evans in Stage 4’s 18-mile time trial, so figure he stands to lose 20 seconds on this longer time trial. That means Vande Velde would have to pick up nearly a minute on Evans before Saturday’s time trial. That’s a lot. But not impossible.

Can Vande Velde win the title?
There isn’t much opportunity for a team to give its leader much of a time advantage over the next few climbing days. But a good team can limit the losses, and capitalize on another team’s missteps.

Garmin-Chipotle is the most underrated team in the field. And Vaughters — whose nickname in the peloton was the Professor — is one of the shrewdest race observers on the planet. If anyone can capitalize on a situation it’s Vande Velde’s team, the ones nobody saw coming.