This just in: Pretty Boy will attack Super Spaniard on the Col du Tourmalet.

Well, like, duh. That’s like calling a press conference to announce that Lennard Zinn is tall, or that Senate Repuglicans are assholes. Some things are self-evident.

I don’t have a dog in this fight. Still, tomorrow’s stage should be amusing. There’s talk of evil weather, which always enhances the pleasure of watching skinny leg-shavers scale and descend two Cat. 1 mountains before tackling the off-the-charts Tourmalet. And eight seconds is not much of a lead, unless you happen to be Greg LeMond gleefully watching The Professor ride into Paris.

I’ll be up and plugged in early on behalf of VeloNews.com, and here’s hoping they fed the server-farm hamsters well this evening. All you cube farmers put a lot of stress on their wheel when you pop round for the word on who’s doing what to whom, and sometimes they get cranky and bonk.

Whaddaya think? I’m guessing Saxo Bank and Astana bring the pain from the get-go, trying to croak as many people as possible over the Col de Marie-Blanque and Col du Soulor before the survivors eat each other alive on the Tourmalet. If it’s done right, it should make the Donner party look like a Napa Valley wine-tasting.

If it’s not — say, if everyone rides piano until the Tourmalet — then we’ll feel the pain common to fans of American football, who learn over and over again that the Super Bowl is almost always the worst fucking game of the season.

• Editor’s note: Incidentally, we’ll be tuning up for the stage this evening by watching “Lewis Black: Stark Raving Black.” He’s a big softy, like Your Humble Narrator, and always puts me in a good mood.