10 conclusions from the opening phase of the Tour de France

Updated 14/07/2015 at 10:05 GMT

As the dust settles on a particularly brutal opening phase of the Tour de France, Felix Lowe - who, at least spiritually, is always at home in Pau - runs the rule over the race so far.

Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali, Rohan Dennis

Image credit: Eurosport

Three back-to-back(-to-back) summit finishes in the Pyrenees will no doubt shake things up when the action resumes on Tuesday after a much needed rest day. But already some conclusions can be made from an intriguing opening nine stages...

Chris Froome is the red hot favourite. The 2013 champion has had a near-flawless start to the race - so much so that he spoke of his "dream scenario" and "extremely privileged position" to the assembled journalists who managed to make Sky's intentionally tricky 10am press conference on Monday.

To think, when the route was made known it was Froome who threw his Credit Lyonnais cuddly toys out of the Rapha-branded pram because of all those cobbles and the lack of a decent time trial. But Froome (currently 12 seconds ahead of Tejay Van Garderen of BMC) has not only kept out of trouble - largely thanks to the tireless work of Geraint Thomas and his team-mates - he has taken chunks of time off all his rivals.

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His only wobble - besides a far-from-perfect opening time trial - came when Katusha's Jacobo Guarnieri nudged him into the pavement in between cobble segments in stage four. What last year might have felled him this year was shrugged off. A bullish beginning.

Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador are poised to pounce. It is, of course, far from a fait accompli that Froome will top the podium in Paris. Seven summit finishes still await the riders - the kind of terrain that favours the Colombian and the Spaniard more so than the rangy Kenyan-born Brit.

Tinkoff-Saxo rider Alberto Contador of Spain (C) rides in the pack during the 166-km (103.15 miles) second stage of the 102nd Tour de France cycling race from Utrecht to Zeeland, July 5, 2015

Image credit: Reuters

Quintana always expected to lose time in the opening phase but his deficit of 1:59 is the kind of gap he could quite feasibly wipe out in one blistering ascent. As for Contador, it remains to be seen just how fatigued he is after his Giro exertions - but he's done well to keep a low profile and limit his losses to Froome to just over a minute. Offered that prior to the race, he'd probably have bitten your hand off.

And then there were three? Vincenzo Nibali was the rider most people deemed best suited to the opening week of the race - and yet the defending champion finds himself 2:22 down after shipping time in the Dutch crosswinds, at Mûr-de-Bretagne and in the team time trial.

The Sicilian may have taken three mountain-top wins last year - but that was against Jean-Christophe Peraud and none of the other so-called 'galaticos' of cycling. Of the Big Four, Nibali is the least explosive climber and so he will struggle to claw back time in the mountains. Where he excels is in zippy downhill finishes - but by the time the race visits Gap (stage 16) and Saint-Jean-De-Maurienne (stage 18), Nibali could be well out of it.

Mark Cavendish still has what it takes. It was painful to watch Cavendish struggle to get a result against his old foe André Greipel in the opening week. Persistence paid off in the end for the 30-year-old, who ended a near two-year drought on the Tour with a morale-boosting win at Fougères.

Stage winner Great Britain's Mark Cavendish celebrates on the podium after winning the 190.5 km seventh stage of the 102nd edition of the Tour de France cycling race on July 10, 2015, between Livarot and Fougeres, northwestern France (AFP)

Image credit: AFP

Cav would be first to admit that he is no longer the speed king of his glory days - but a win in Valance next Sunday could be capped off with the Etixx-QuickStep sprinter taking back his crown on the Champs-Élysées. That would match Bernard Hinault's tally of 28 Tour stage wins and put Cavendish - out of contract next year - firmly in the shop window.

Etixx-QuickStep's strength in depth eclipses all others. It just goes to show how much Patrick Lefevere's team have to offer if they can simultaneously have an ostensibly shocking opening few days and yet emerge as the most successful team by the end of the week.

No more was this polarisation more apparent than in stage six when Tony Martin, the yellow jersey, crashed out with a broken collarbone while team-mate Zdenek Stybar soloed to success at Le Havre. Two days earlier, Martin had finally taken the yellow jersey after his audacious win over the cobbles at Cambrai having crept gradually closer to the maillot jaune every day since Utrecht.

When Cavendish finally broke his hoodoo and won in Fougères, the image of him slowing up to allow Fabian Cancellara take yellow and inadvertently deny Martin his moment of glory, was long forgotten. Throw in (for now) a world champion in Michal Kwiatkowski and the new silent assassin, under-the-radar Rigoberto Uran (perfectly poised on GC in sixth place) and that's quite a fine roster.

Rohan Dennis right to leave Garmin. Who's to know what the Australian might have achieved had he stayed chez Jonathan Vaughters and not made a rare mid-season transfer to BMC last August. But you can be sure - he'll have no regrets.

Since rejoining his mentor Allan Peiper, Dennis has helped BMC to the world time trial championships, won the Tour Down Under, broken the hour record and now secured a Tour time trial double: a week after he set a new average speed record for a Tour ITT with his victory in Utrecht (55.446kp/h since you ask), Dennis was the fulcrum in BMC's narrow TTT win over Sky at Plumelec.

After his team's stage nine success, Tejay Van Garderen - second in the overall standings and perhaps ready to assume Nibali's mantle in the Big Four - singled out Dennis' role, claiming the Aussie youngster (still only 25) was the key. By contrast, Cannondale-Garmin (at which Dennis would not have been guaranteed a contract after last winter's merger) laboured to 12th place 1:29 down.

Peter Sagan still the favourite for green. The rule changes in the points competition were designed to favour stage winners - and it looked like that was the case when André Greipel secured the first green jersey of his career thanks to his brace of wins.

Slovakia's Peter Sagan celebrates his green jersey of best sprinter on the podium at the end of the 181.5 km eighth stage of the 102nd edition of the Tour de France cycling race on July 11, 2015, between Rennes and Mur-de-Bretagne, western France

Image credit: AFP

But once again, consistency is proving key with Sagan moving into green thanks to three seconds, two thirds and two fourths. In fact, the Slovakian has yet to finish lower than 27th - and with seven top tens so far, he's on course to match last year's tally of 11. His ability to pick up intermediate points in the mountains should see him to a fourth consecutive green jersey in Paris.

Competition for the polka dot jersey will be fierce. Daniel Teklehaimanot becoming the first African rider to don the famous polka dot jersey was one of the most uplifting subplots of an unforgiving first week of racing. But don't expect to see MTN-Qhubeka's rangy Eritrean in the red spots for much longer.

Seven summit finishes are on the horizon - and with the likes of Pierre Rolland, Thibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet and Joaquim Rodriguez already quite far down on the overall standings, there could well be some stellar climbers in the mix for those polka dots. And who's to say Quintana can't win the jersey by default simply by being the best climber - as he proved two years ago.

Alexis Vuillermoz is saving France's blushes. After his victory on the Mûr-de-Bretagne on Friday the former mountain biker received a tweet of congratulations from President François Hollande - who took time out from his summer holiday in Greece to praise the "panache" of the Ag2R-La Mondiale puncheur.

There's not much more for Hollande to write home about: besides Tony Gallopin's consistency and Bryan Coquard's tenacity, Nacer Bouhanni has crashed out while Pinot, Bardet, Peraud and Rolland have all seen their hopes of a high finish in Paris somewhat dashed by poor performances, misfortune or circumstance.

Of course, Tuesday's stage on Bastille Day will bring renewed hope of a first French win on 14th July for a decade. But last year's French-flavoured podium looks a distant memory when glancing at the current top ten and its distinct lack of red, white and blue vertical stripes.

Cyclists are among the toughest figures in sport. Fabian Cancellara rode for 60km with a broken back while Tony Martin finished a stage despite a compound fracture of the collarbone. These guys - two yellow jerseys, incidentally - are just the tip of the iceberg. Australians Michael Matthews and Adam Hansen soldier on despite grim injuries, while Michael Albasini rode more than 100km with a broken arm.

Fabian Cancellara

Image credit: Reuters

The context was very different, but Nibali's words ring true: "We're not footballers, we're cyclists."

And finally... there are far more important things in life that cycling. The rest day was marred by news that Ivan Basso has testicular cancer and needed to return home to Italy for immediate treatment. The veteran Italian told a press room just two hours after finding out with a tearful Alberto Contador promising to see him in Paris with the yellow jersey. Everyone at Eurosport wishes Basso the very best - Forza Ivan!