Of all the challenges laid before Lance Armstrong in the 2004 Tour de France, he faces the final one tomorrow during the long individual time trial of Stage 18. Considering his current form and his performance against the clock in Stage 16, it should be no surprise I expect Lance to win tomorrow.

The battles between the men currently in the top ten positions on the general classification should provide a great deal of drama tomorrow. Andreas Kloden and Jan Ullrich are stronger time trialists than Ivan Basso. The Italian is going to be hard pressed to stay even with Kloden, and will have to have a very good ride to keep his second place.

Even though Basso’s lead over Ullrich is essentially four minutes, the leader of the T-Mobile team is one of the best time trial riders in the world. He’s won six of them in the Tour de France and was the World Champion in this event. His desire to beat Basso and see two T-Mobile riders on the final podium should drive him to set a blistering pace.

While I believe Lance will still win the stage, he may not win by a lot of time over Ullrich. The German is going to be flying over the course. To make up four minutes in 55 kilometers, Ullrich has to be 4.5 seconds faster than Basso over every kilometer. To give you an idea of what that means, it takes 1:12 to ride one kilometer at 50 kph. If Basso were to average 50kph, Ullrich would have to ride nearly 53.3 kph, covering one kilometer every 67.5 seconds, to overtake him in the general classification.

Lance Armstrong firmly believes the yellow jersey should win the final time trial of the Tour de France, and starting last he’ll have the time splits from Ullrich to help guide his effort. Due to the rolling and circuitous course, I wasn’t expecting to see a new record speed for long time trials set tomorrow. However, considering Ullrich’s motivation to claim second place from Ivan Basso, and Armstrong’s motivation to win his tenth Tour de France time trial, they may get close to breaking David Millar’s 54.361 kph average speed from last year’s 49-kilometer time trial from Pornic to Nantes .