The world’s best cyclists have been battling one another in the Tour de France since late June. But the Tour is won in the high mountains. And the highest mountains are just ahead.

The Pyrenees and the Alps stand in the way of the July 21 finish in Nice, and the two prerace favorites are right where they were expected to be: near the front of the pack.

Jonas Vingegaard, the Danish two-time defending champion, and Tadej Pogacar, the 2020 and 2021 winner from Slovenia, are joined by the Belgian cyclist Remco Evenepoel for now. But Vingegaard, 27, and Pogacar, 25, are expected to resume their two-man race for the yellow jersey when a traverse of the Pyrenees begins on Saturday.

Pogacar leads the field by about one minute after success in the race’s first pass through the Alps. But Vingegaard seems to be recovered from an injury he suffered earlier this year and could have the wherewithal to land a third straight Tour.

There’s already been a record and historic firsts.

Much of this three-week-long race has been flat so far. When there are no challenging mountains to break up the field, the riders stay bunched, and a different type of athlete, a sprinter, often wins the day.

And this year, the flat stretches of the Tour have produced notable moments.

On July 1, the speedy Biniam Girmay of Eritrea became the first Black African to win a stage of the Tour. A crash about a mile before the finish sowed chaos in the field, but Girmay was able to stay safe and pull away.