WHEN Australian Simon Gerrans signed with another French team for this season, one of the deal-breakers that got him to commit was a supposedly guaranteed start in the Tour de France.
The trouble is, when it comes to guarantees for foreigners on French teams for a race such as Le Tour, there aren't any - if it means a French rider misses out. Gerrans, 28, was aware of that at 6.30pm last Sunday. It was only then did the Victorian get the call from Serge Beucherie, the sports director on the Credit Agricole team and a former professional cyclist, to finally confirm his place on the team for the Tour that starts on Saturday.
"I finally received the phone call I was waiting for. I was relieved to get the news," Gerrans said on his website of his fourth call-up for the Tour after finishes for the Ag2r team in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
The nail-biting wait endured by Gerrans was not his alone, though. Many non-European riders must wait until the weekend before the Tour starts before knowing if they are in or out of their teams, because it is on that weekend that the Europeans hold their national road titles.
It is often those performances that determine who gets the remaining berths in many of the 20 nine-man teams that will line up for the Tour.
That Gerrans and fellow Australian Mark Renshaw - who also rides for Credit Agricole - will be among their team's Tour roster is testimony to how well they have ridden this season.
As it is, there will be nine Australians and an Australian-born German on this year's Tour. Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) will be protected like never before as he tries to become Australia's first Tour winner, going one better than his second place last year.
And Queenslander Robbie McEwen (Silence-Lotto) has carte blanche to try to win a fourth green jersey as best sprinter, as may Victorian Baden Cooke (Barloworld), who won it in 2003.
But for the other Australians - Gerrans, Renshaw, Stuart O'Grady (CSC), Brett Lancaster (Milram), Adam Hansen (Team Columbia), and Trent Lowe (Garmin-Chipotle-H30) - and NSW-born Heinrich Haussler (Gerolsteiner), most of the three-week, 3500-kilometre Tour that finishes on July 27 will be spent racing as worker bees for team leaders, or snaring opportunities to enjoy victory.
As Saturday's first of 21 stages gets under way - a 197.5km leg through Brittany from Brest to an uphill finish at Plumelec - many French riders will be left at home believing they were dudded by foreigners. Until last Sunday, Gerrans's fear was that he had compromised his place - or opened the door for a French rider to claim it - at the Dauphine Libere race in France, one of the last Tour lead-up events.
"I had been a little worried following the Dauphine Libere, when I didn't perform as well as the team would have liked," Gerrans said.
This was despite having ridden well in the first half of the season, including the Criterium Internationale in France, when he won stage two and took out the climbers' category. But after the Dauphine Libere, Gerrans knew that he had to perform well in his last pre-Tour race - the Route de Sud in France. He did, winning stage one and holding on to place fourth overall.
With Gerrans's start secure, the pressure is on him, Renshaw and their team to impress in the Tour. Without an overall contender to ride for, Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd will be leading their charge in the hotly contested battle for the green jersey that Hushovd won in 2005.
However, with Credit Agricole's 20 wins this year coming from 12 riders, Hushovd may not become their only stage winner. As Gerrans said: "We intend to keep the vibe going at the Tour de France."