Landis awaits mountain test

The American and the rest of the field get a day of rest today.
LORIENT, France (AP) -- Tour de France riders get to put their feet up today, their first rest day. They'll need it.
Looming ahead are brutal ascents in the Pyrenees, which American Floyd Landis will need to climb strongly to confirm his status as favorite to succeed his former teammate, seven-time winner Lance Armstrong.
Landis is exactly 1 minute behind overall race leader Serhiy Honchar after nine days of racing in the three-week race.
But the Ukrainian may have trouble holding onto the leader's yellow jersey when the roads start heading sharply uphill.
As a teammate to Armstrong, who retired last year, Landis showed that he can climb, particularly when he came close to winning the hardest Alpine stage of the 2004 Tour.
Facing big test
But whether the Lancaster, Pa., native, now leader of the Swiss squad Phonak, can truly impose himself on the steep gradients of the Pyrenees and Alps will be one of the big questions of weeks two and three.
"The mountains will tell us more, but so far, it's fine. I have a good team, and so far we've been fortunate -- we haven't had any bad incidents. Till now, everything's good," Landis said Sunday at the start of stage eight, which he finished safely in the middle of the trailing pack in 37th place.
Honchar finished 100th Sunday, but also was in that pack -- which was 2 minutes, 15 seconds behind stage winner Sylvain Calzati.
After the rest day, when sleep, massages and a light ride are in order, the Tour gets going again with a flat and likely fast stage from Bordeaux to Dax in the southwest. Then, on Wednesday, comes the first of two hard climbing days in the Pyrenees.
For riders who fared poorly -- and there were many -- in the first long time trial of the Tour Saturday, the mountains could offer a chance to make amends.
Need to make up time
American George Hincapie and other riders from Discovery Channel, which was Armstrong's squad, as well as American Levi Leipheimer of Gerolsteiner, are among those who need to make up time they lost in the against-the-clock race.
"We are definitely not in the position we want to be," said Discovery race manager Johan Bruyneel. "But a bad day, you have to put it behind as soon as you can and look to the opportunities you have. We actually have a lot of people who have the same interest as us, which means being aggressive, especially in the Pyrenees."
Hincapie well back
Hincapie is 2:30 -- a sizeable margin in the Tour -- behind Honchar, a time-trial expert who dominated the field in Saturday's stage.
Discovery's best-placed rider is Paolo Savoldelli, a two-time winner of the Tour of Italy, who is 2:10 behind Honchar.
The Ukrainian, the first rider from his country to wear the yellow jersey, has eight top-10 finishes in the Italian tour and was runner-up in 2004.
But while that race has hard climbs, the Tour de France is a level above, with greater pressure and tougher competition.
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