Tour de France hopefuls Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto), Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne), Carlos Sastre (CSC) and Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) are among the top riders to line up at the Dauphine Libere, starting this Sunday.
The week-long Alpine stage race comprises of Sunday's (June 8) opening prologue followed by six road stages and one time trial.
Traditionally the Dauphine Libere is viewed as a mini-Tour de France, with its structure (prologue followed by flat stages, a time trial, and showdown in the mountains) similar in format to July's more important race. It's also just far enough away time-wise from the Tour for last minute changes to be made to the contenders approach road to the Tour.
The Dauphine's unwritten role of dress rehearsal for the Tour makes it the main contenders first opportunity to see how their rivals are going prior to July. With seven out of the top ten finishers in Paris present in the Dauphine Libere, there's certainly going to be plenty to look at.
Last year's Dauphine winner Christophe Moreau will not be taking part. His Agritubel team have not been invited. That makes the race even more wide open, with French hopes of success largely based on how climber David Moncoutie (Cofidis), back after a long period fighting injuries, can cope with the four Alpine stages.
The action will really hot up from Wednesday's individual time trial - when you can expect to see Evans attempt to stamp his authority on the race - and Thursday's stage four, when the riders hit the Alps proper and the climbers will be testing their form.
There are two unusual ingredients in this year's Dauphine. Firstly the race will not tackle the climbs used in the Tour - the Dauphine is largely based in the northern Alps this year, and the Tour mainly in the south. Secondly, Astana are racing in the Dauphine, led by American Levi Leipheimer (a winner of the race back in 2006), and as is well known the Kazakh squad won't be taking part in the Tour.
Having had barely a week's rest from the Giro d'Italia, Charly Wegelius (Liquigas) is the sole British representative on the official start list, and will be there to provide support in the mountains for his team.
Bradley Wiggins (High Road) won the prologue at last year's event, but has elected to miss the race this year to have a well-earned break after riding the Giro. Seeing how his team-mate and triple World Time Trial champion Mick Rogers gets on after barely racing because of illness this spring will be another interesting feature of this year's Dauphine.
We'll be covering the Dauphine Libere here on www.cyclingweekly.com with daily reports, comment, analysis, blogs and exclusive photography from Sunday.
Caisse d'Epargne (Alejandro Valverde)
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