Armstrong makes no secret of the fact that the only race that matters is the Tour de France. Simon Bruty/SI

"If you sit back and really analyze it," Armstrong told me that night, "I suppose I haven't raced enough this year [to win] a race like this." Take Ventoux, he said. "OK, I've done a lot of climbs like that in training, but I haven't raced up the thing. For me to get to the top 30 seconds behind the leaders, when it hasn't been a priority -- it's hard to be devastated by that."

A few days after the Dauphiné, Armstrong and some teammates were headed back into the Alps for a training camp. In other words, racing up those peaks is about to become a priority -- which is bad news for his rivals. As he proved last year -- after being humbled in the Dauphiné, then dominating the Tour de France -- no one improves more in these final, critical weeks.

He resisted handicapping the other top teams -- "Do we have to?" -- pointing out that the outcome will depend more on Discovery's preparation. "Not to make it about us, but we just need to focus on us."

Let's do that, then. Armstrong's selfless aide-de-camp, George Hincapie, who lost Paris-Roubaix by the width of his front tire, has sustained his splendid form from early spring, winning the first and final stages of the Dauphiné. While his ascending has improved markedly in past seasons, the Big Hink (as he was nicknamed by the dailypeloton.com) earns the bulk of his salary in the first 10 days of the Tour, keeping Armstrong toward the front of the bunch, out of the wind and harm's way. Hincapie admits to being "a little bit worried" about how he'll discharge those unglamorous duties this year, without help from Viatcheslav Ekimov, who has started and finished an incredible 14 Tours, but who fractured his sternum on a training ride earlier this spring and will sit this one out.

Picking up the slack in the flat stages will be Pavel Padrnos and Benjamin Noval, who had a forgettable debut in the '04 Tour, crashing frequently, then getting dropped (the trauma of which reduced him to tears) on the team time trial. "Noval will be more important" in '05, director Johan Bruyneel told me. "Last year he was he wasn't very useful in the first week, because of his inexperience, and because he was always on the ground. But this year, you can feel he's more confident."

It's worth noting here that the T-Mobiles, with Vino, Kloden and Jan Ullrich -- whom Armstrong insists is his most fearsome foe -- are openly discussing their hopes of launching multiple attacks on the defending champ, hoping to isolate him in the climbs.

After having this scenario spelled out for him, Armstrong worked hard to suppress a yawn. The truth is, the Discovery boys could do the same. In past Tours, Armstrong has blown races open by attacking on the final climb. It would almost be worth seeing him fall behind this year, in order to watch Bruyneel shake up his tactics. The director could send such mountain goats as Chechu Rubiera, Manuel (Triki) Beltran, Jose (Ace) Azevedo and newly acquired Paolo (il Falco) Salvodelli on solo attacks, reducing the front of the race to anarchy before springing Armstrong.

But seriously, Lance -- what about T-Mobile's triple threat? "I've said it before," he says. "I would be uncomfortable being on the team where there's more than one guy that thinks he can win the Tour de France. That's not beneficial for the team."

Unlike in April, he is close to having his "Tour face" -- hollowed out and hawk-like. (I mistakenly reported in this week's cover story that he is weighing in at 77.5 kilos. His actual weight is 75.5 kilos -- nearly 5 pounds less). As he rode on the trainer outside the team bus last Wednesday, preparing for the time trial around Roanne, the beams of sun filtering through the boughs overhead highlighted more than a few filaments of gray in his brown crew cut. "It may be going gray," Armstrong allows with a smile, "but at least I'm not losing it!"

He has earned every one of those gray hairs. While he admits it will feel odd to be out of bike racing, "I'm OK with it," he says. "It's hard to suffer like that all the time."

He pauses, then adds this: "Having said that, I'm happy to suffer for six more weeks."