The first week of the Tour de France is like the appetizers before a four-course meal: lots of color, neat little surprises that elicit a few oohs and aahs, but nothing of real substance in the end.

The entrée arrived yesterday, which Cadel Evans served to great fanfare on a balmy Bastille Day in Southwest France. The Tour favorite edged out budding rival Frank Schleck by a mere second at the summit of the Hautacam, one of two hors catégorie climbs — climbs so hard they go beyond the difficulty scale — on a particularly punishing day.

The Australian’s steady performance and rise up the ranks illustrated the sort of competition the chefs of this 95th edition had in mind when they whipped up a mountain-heavy course. Now, after two days in the Pyrenees, the contenders have started to emerge. Three other prerace favorites, Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov, and America’s great hope this year, Christian Vande Velde, all sit in the top 10 overall, fewer than two minutes behind Evans.

A fifth favorite, Alejandro Valverde, slipped to 14th place after he was dropped by the chase group on the final switchbacks up the Hautacam.

He is a long shot for the podium, and even though his team manager counted him out yesterday, it is not an impossibility.

A two-time winner of the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic with a resting heart rate of 36 beats a minute, Valverde has exhibited impressive climbing skills in the past few years. More importantly, he is backed by one of the stronger teams in the field. The Spaniard will lean heavily on Caisse d’Epargne teammate and countryman Oscar Pereiro, who won the 2006 Tour after Floyd Landis was disqualified.

In that edition, Landis roared back from an eight-minute gap in a single Alpine stage. Valverde’s four-minute, 41-second deficit could likely slim down considerably when the Tour heads back uphill this weekend.

With the Astana team removed from this year’s Tour after positive drug tests — and with it, the reigning champ Alberto Contador and American standout Levi Leipheimer — the strongest group this year might be Team CSC. They are captained by Andy Schleck, led in the standings by his brother Frank, and anchored by the veteran Sastre, 33, who finished third in 2006 and no lower than 21st since 2001. Each of them remains a threat.

Menchov, 30, is the other elder statesman of this Tour, and this year he will likely give his rival Evans a good run for the jersey.

The Russian has had a series of disappointing Tours and simultaneous successes in the Vuelta a España. In 2005, he suffered from a cold in the latter stages of the Tour and had a miserable finish, but he bounced back to take the Vuelta title after Roberto Heras was disqualified for doping. In 2006, he faltered in the Alps and had to settle for a fifth-place finish. Last year, Menchov withdrew after his team captain Michael Rasmussen tested positive for doping and then went on to win the Vuelta. This year, Menchov decided to train exclusively for the Tour, and many are bullish about his chances.

Vande Velde is another journeyman who spent his years in a leader’s shadow. From 1998 until 2004, he helped bring water up to Lance Armstrong. For the past two years, he supported Sastre on Team CSC. In 2008, he joined Team Slipstream, which under new sponsorship rides as Garmin/Chipotle. With team captain David Millar buried in 48th place, Vande Velde is, at last, in the driver’s seat.

For the moment, though, this is Evans’s race to lose. Bouncing back from a metal-twisting crash on Sunday that left his helmet cracked and his jersey torn, the Australian mounted an impressive comeback yesterday, churning his pedals against the clock to beat out Schleck and his CSC riders.

It is unlikely that Evans will hold on to that lead, although every other rider in history who took the yellow jersey on the Hautacam wore it all the way to Paris.

The difference here is the size of the lead and the depth of the team. With just a one-second margin and the entire Alps in front of him — and apparently without anyone from his Silence-Lotto team who can keep up his pace in the hills — the Australian said that he suspects CSC will make a successful bid for the lead in the coming days.

Either way, Evans believes he has already accomplished something big. This is his first time wearing yellow.

“Yesterday I was at, what’s been for me, my Tour low,” he said after the stage. “And today, up until this point it’s been my Tour high. It’s been an emotional roller coaster to say the least.”

jmoretti@nysun.com