DAX, France ? Now for the hard part.

Having made it through fast and dangerous racing during the opening flat stages of the Tour de France, riders veer today into the Pyrenees for their first encounter with the high mountains.

The steep, long, hard climbs should help separate true contenders to succeed seven-time winner Lance Armstrong from those who can’t make the gradient, offering a little clarity to a race devoid so far of any standout favorite.

The spotlight will move away from sprint specialists like Oscar Freire, winner of Tuesday’s pancake-flat stage nine. Lithe climbers and riders eyeing the overall title, who need to get over the humps well if they are to win in Paris on July 23, will move to the fore.

Freire, a three-time former world champion, flashed past current world champion Tom Boonen and held off a late-surging Robbie McEwen of Australia to triumph in a grouped sprint finish Tuesday at Dax in southwest France. The 105-mile ride started in Bordeaux.

The win was the Spaniard’s second of this Tour – consolation for missing the expected birth of his first child in coming days.

“It’s better to be here winning, while not being at home, than being here losing,” he said.

The Tour de France pack rides through the countryside during the ninth stage. Tuesday's stage went between Bourdeaux and Dax in southwestern France.

Contenders for the overall title did what they nearly always do in flat stages – stay safely out of the sprinters’ way. The gap between race leader Serhiy Honchar of Ukraine and next best overall Floyd Landis of the United States remained unchanged at 1 minute.

American Levi Leipheimer’s bad Tour got worse. He had a tire problem in the final stretch that cost him 26 seconds, adding to the large deficit he built up in the first long time trial last weekend. He is now 6:43 behind Honchar, which could rule him out of the title race.

Landis said riding consistently in the mountains would be key.

“All of the mountain stages can be potentially disastrous if you have a bad day,” he said.

That comment came at a news conference Monday when he announced that he was racing with a painful arthritic hip that would need to be replaced after the three-week Tour, clouding his long-term career prospects.

His friend David Zabriskie, a fellow American riding for a rival team, said he thought Landis would be fine.

“He’s a tough guy, he’ll be all right,” Zabriskie said Tuesday.

Because the race is so open this year, a problem for Landis and other riders is identifying which of their rivals they need to watch closely in the mountains and not let get too far ahead.

Today’s stage from Cambo-les-Bains to Pau has three climbs. The hardest, to the Soudet pass, ascends to more than 5,000 feet and is so tough that it is rated “hors categorie,” or defying classification on the scale the Tour uses to measure the difficulty of ascents.

The cyclists will ride uphill for 9.1 miles at an average gradient of 7.3 percent – far steeper in places – to reach the Soudet pass. They will approach from the west, the first time the pass has been climbed in the Tour from that side.