Ivan Basso has improved his time-trialing skills immensely over the past few years, but he still says he expects to lose two to four minutes in the Tour de France to time trial powerhouse Jan Ullrich. Basso lost a mere 28 seconds to Ullrich during May’s Giro d’Italia, which Basso went on to win handily, but Ullrich was using the Giro for training purposes and so wasn’t even close to his top form.

Basso said he expects to pick up lost time in the time trials in the challenging mountain stages. Ullrich, however, is no slouch in the climbing department, either, and Basso’s quite aware of that. “If Jan is strong in the mountains,” he said, “that might be too much.”

Basso also knows that he’d be a fool to underestimate Ullrich, who won the Tour in 1997 and has never finished the race lower than fourth on GC.

“He’s won a Tour de France and he could win again,” Basso acknowledged. “He’s always ready in July.”