Here are the next 5 teams in our team-by-team preview of this year’s Tour de France. We’re going alphabetically, saving for the end those teams with rosters still unconfirmed at post time.

Be sure to keep coming back daily for more previews, random notes, and reports once the race gets started on Saturday in Monaco.

And in case you missed it yesterday, you can read Part Une of our preview here.

Team Columbia – HTC
Remember when Columbia won 6 out of 9 stages at the Tour de Suisse? Well, look for much of the same here. A double-digit win total is certainly within the realm of possibility as just about every rider on the team’s roster could win an individual stage.

Obviously, Mark Cavendish is the team’s primary focus during the flatter stages. But don’t forget Bernhard Eisel. He showed in the Tour de Suisse that he can win field sprints too and he has the ability to last well into the race’s final days. He’ll be working for Cavvie early on, but he’ll certainly have some chances to play his own hand closer to Paris—perhaps on the Champs-Élysées itself. Bert Grabsch could pull a win in any of the Tour’s time trials–same for Tony Martin, an outside bet to perform well on the GC.

And speaking of time trials, don’t think this team won’t be gunning for the TTT next Tuesday–especially if it means yellow for Cavendish. George Hincapie is never to be forgotten; it would be nice to see him add another stage to his palmares. And keep your eye on Maxime Monfort; he must be talented if earned a spot over André Griepel and 2008 stage winner Marcus Burghardt.

For the GC, Columbia’s putting its hopes in Kim Kirchen and Michael Rogers. Both have the ability for a Top-5 or Top-10 finish, but that might be a stretch in a year with so many favorites. Regardless, it will be a banner July for Columbia—just as it’s been pretty much since the season began.

Euskaltel-Euskadi
For Euskaltel, the Tour will essentially be decided by the end of the first week. In particular, Stages 6 through 9 take place at least partially in Spain (or darn to close to it). Stage 9 from Saint-Gaudens to Tarbes rides through the team’s Basque backyard, climbing over the Col d’Aspin and the Tourmalet in the process. Expect to see the team on the offensive during this period, especially when the road begins to climb.

The team lost its main GC hope when Haimar Zubeldia jumped to Astana. Mikel Astarloza will hope to fill the void; he’s finished in the Top-10 before and rode well to finish 5th in the Dauphiné. Egoi Martinez and the rest will hope for some luck in breakaways, with Igor Anton focused particularly on the mountains. But it can’t be stressed enough: a win in Stages 6 to 9 and the team can spend the rest of the Tour essentially pressure-free. A win in Andorra on Arcalis, and the team can relax for the rest of the season.

Française des Jeux
Like other French teams, FDJ comes to the race hoping for TV exposure when live coverage begins and more importantly, stage wins. Thus, Marc Madiot’s team is well-stocked with rouleurs and escapees.

Anthony Geslin rode a brilliant race to win this spring’s Brabantse Pijl; he’ll be looking for the right breakaway to get him a win in his national tour. The same goes for Sébastien Joly, Benoît Vaugrenard, and Jussi Veikkanen, riders suited to winning races from small groups. Sandy Casar is reportedly the team’s main hope for the GC, but he’s never lit anyone’s fire in that department. Yes, he finished 14th last year, but do you remember it? He stands a better chance gunning for a stage win—he won one in 2007 following a dramatic day of racing.

That said, FDJ’s greatest hope comes from Belorussia in the form of Yauheni Hutarovich, a sprinter with several wins to his name this year. He’s another rider who can win out of breakaways and in field sprints. Look for him especially in the Tour’s final week. If FDJ gets a stage this year, there’s a good chance it will come via this rider.

Garmin-Slipstream
Of all the roster omissions leading up to this Tour, perhaps none has bothered us here at Pavé more than Garmin leaving Will Frishkorn at home. Will was beginning to remind us of Jacky Durand with his fondness for the all-day breakaway. Courage, Will; you’ll get another chance for Tour glory.

As for the riders in the race, Garmin has selected—again—a team full of rouleurs and time trialists. He might be a punk, but Cavendish isn’t that off-base: this is a team for the TTT. On paper, only Daniel Martin appears to be a liability against the clock, so clearly, Garmin’s the 3rd entry in a 3-horse race in the Tour’s time trials (along with Astana and Columbia). In fact, except for Saxo’s Fabian Cancellara, I bet you’ll see every Top-10 spot in the each of the Tour’s TT’s occupied by a rider from these 3 teams.

For the GC, Garmin says Christian Vande Velde’s 4th place in 2008 was no fluke. Luckily, VDV’s Giro tumble is just the excuse they’ll need if he struggles to score a similar result. For the sprints? Tyler Farrar is talented, but he lacks the top-end power and the team necessary to beat Cavendish, Boonen, and Hushovd head-to-head. But don’t rule him out later in the race—maybe on the Champs-Élysées?

Were we running this team, we’d abandon any serious GC aspirations and go for breakaway stage wins (Ryder Hesjedal will do Will F. proud), the time trials, and field sprints once the big sprinters go home. We’d also let Daniel Martin ride his own race, following wheels in the mountains to see what he can do. And of course, we’d—cautiously—hope for the Yellow Jersey following the Prologue or TTT.

Then we’d go for hunting for a legitimate captain for the GC in next year’s race.

Team Katusha
Katusha has also been unable to avoid a bit of Pre-Tour scandal. Asking the riders to sign a new clause in their contracts giving the team 5-times their annual salary should they be found positive for doping produced mixed results. Kenny Dehaes has already left the team for Silence-Lotto and Geert Steegmans has been declared “inactive”, thus leaving him out of the Tour roster. Couple this with Robbie McEwen’s absence due to a fall earlier in the season and you have a Katusha roster much less potent than originally planned.

As a result, the team comes to the Tour looking for stage wins. Filippo Pozzato is the new Italian Champion; he’ll be eager to show-off the tricolore. Sergei Ivanov, Alexandre Botcharov, and Mikhail Ignatiev are also capable of scoring breakaway stage wins.

Vladimir Karpets takes the line in Monaco as Katusha’s lone GC threat, but it’s hard to see him doing anything more than maybe finishing just inside the Top-10. He’s adequate both uphill and against the clock, but has yet to show the top talent necessary to hang with the big guns on a consistent basis.

That’s it for Part Deux. Come back tomorrow for more!

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And as always, we welcome your comments below.

Sorry Mark, it’s not your year…

What would the Tour be without the surprising and unexpected?

Here are Pavé’s 5 “Indefensible” Claims for this year’s Tour:

1. This year’s Tour will be free of any doping controversy.

Okay, Thomas Dekker and the latest rumors of several more positives might have already debunked this claim, but we’re sticking to our guns: from the Prologue to Paris we’ll have a clean race.

Naive? Perhaps. But while we think the sport is still years away from teams not signing riders they suspect are doped, we have entered a phase (maybe?) where teams at least leave suspected dopes off their rosters for the sport’s biggest races. Teams just don’t seem willing to take the risk of having a rider test positive at events on a world stage anymore. The UCI’s Biological Passport makes it easier for them to make educated guesses, and this year could be the first where the results—or lack thereof—speak for themselves.

2. Mark Cavendish will win one individual stage and one stage only.

This year, Mark Cavendish won’t find it as easy as it was last year to win sprint stages. The reason?

Well, its initials are TB, it now wears a tri-color jersey, and it likes rocks…er…stones…um…cobbles.

Tom Boonen’s back, ladies and gentlemen, and he’s ready to show the world that he’s still one of the fastest men in the world—on a bike. But it’s too simple to say just one rider’s presence is enough to thwart Cavendish’s bid for sprint dominance. And it isn’t.

Last year, Cavendish came to the race with everyone thinking he would win a stage, but not certain as to how many. This year he arrives with the pressure of repeating and perhaps surpassing his indomitable performance.

The parcours also does him no favors. The mountains come a bit earlier than in years past, and Cavendish could struggle to make it over them while maintaining his sprint speed. He’ll also miss the presence of Marcus Burghardt, one of his most trusted lead-out men.

Plus, there’s the chance factor. Crashes, mechanicals, and blown lead-outs all factor into even the best sprinters’ plans from time to time. Cavendish might not get away so easily this time around.

3. French riders or riders from French teams will win more stages than any other country, making it a banner year for the “home équipe”.

It’s become apparent that we could have used Mad Libs to preview the 5 French teams in this year’s Tour. Here’s what they have in common: few serious GC candidates; no top-tier field sprinters capable of seriously threatening Boonen, Cavendish, Hushovd, and the like; and no climbers able to stay with the GC favorites in the mountains on a consistent basis.

We wish no disrespect for these teams; it’s just the reality of the situation right now. But it does mean—as we’ve been saying all week—that these teams come to the Tour with rosters full of men eager to attack, animate, and make the race aggressive as possible—particularly on days when the GC teams would be more content to just ride doucement.

This year, riders like Roman Feillu, Vladimir Efimkin, Thomas Voeckler, David Moncoutié, Yauheni Hutarovich, and the like will launch themselves off the front of every stage, gunning for victory. The odds will be in their favor on several stages.

Thus, with so many talented opportunists and so much to gain, we predict a banner year for French riders and French teams. If the 2009 Tour goes down as one of the most exciting in history, it won’t only be due to the over-abundance of GC favorites (those battles are always exciting, regardless of the year), it will be due to the efforts of men like these.

And we’ll all be saying, merci!

4. Lance Armstrong Won’t Finish the Race.

This claim has more to do with luck and less to do with fitness. Throughout his 7 Tour de France wins, Lance’s ability to avoid mishaps has been surprisingly underrated. While it’s certainly not as important as his other race-winning attributes, it must warrant consideration.

However, this year, Lance’s string of good luck seems to be coming to an end. He’s crashed. He’s broken a collarbone. He almost fell afoul of the UCI/WADA on an out of competition drug-testing technicality. His team almost lost its sponsorship a month before the race and comes to the the Tour with two leaders. And now, there’s rumors he might leave all together when the race ends.

One will never know just how much this weigh’s on Lance; he’s a master at keeping his emotions veiled. But it can certainly be specualted–maybe even assumed–that this has not been the ideal build-up for the 37-year old’s comeback bid.

The constellations don’t appear to be aligning in the way they used to for Big Tex. Sometime during the second week, he’ll make his exit. Then he’ll announce the creation of his new Bruyneel-led team and tell Vino to go BLEEP-himself.

And a whole new era begins.

5. Roman Kreuzinger will win the 2009 Tour de France.

A year too soon? Perhaps.

Too many other favorites? Maybe.

But while those are two compelling arguments against the claim, the list ends there. Kreuzinger’s won some pretty big races against some top competition in his young career. He’s finished well in the Tour and comes to the race this year with a better idea of what to expect. He also has a solid team behind him of capable riders able to support him in the race’s difficult moments.

But the biggest thing going for him might just be the two things working against him. The fact that no one seems to consider him a serious contender for the win—this year—could enable him to pull a surprise. Maybe he has a stellar Prologue, losing only seconds to the bigger GC favorites. Maybe he rides away from the lead group and gains some time in the Pyrenees because the “bigger” favorites are too busy looking at one another’s poker faces. Maybe he attacks and takes yellow in the Alps, defends it in the ITT, and then lets it all hang-out on Ventoux to take the jersey to Paris.

Stranger things have happened.

No matter what happens though, this year’s race is a sure bet to be one of the most exciting in years. We hope you’ll come back often for reports, opinions (no matter how outrageous), and more.

And please, share your thoughts with the rest of us below.

And for 5 more bold predictions, check-out our friends at Euro Peloton.