Chris Horner of Bend will return to cycling’s grand stage on Saturday for the first of 23 days of bike racing at the 2006 Tour de France.

Horner and nearly 200 other riders representing 22 professional teams will endure more than 2,000 miles of racing around France, as well as parts of Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain.

Horner, who competes on the elite European UCI Tour as a member of the Davitamon-Lotto team, will be part of the team’s nine-man Tour squad.

According to Davitamon-Lotto officials, Horner is expected to be a key player in the team’s strategy to secure stage wins – specifically mountain stages in the Pyrenees and Alps – at the 2006 Tour. Horner is in his first year of a two-year contract with the Belgian-based Davitamon-Lotto team.

Horner, 34, who competed at the Tour de France for the first time in 2005, finished 33rd overall out of 189 riders. He was mere yards last year from winning Stage 13 before being swallowed by the peloton just before the finish line.

According to the Davitamon-Lotto Web site, Horner is chief support rider for Australian cyclist Cadel Evans, who team managers hope will finish among the top five in the race’s general classification. Evans finished eighth overall in GC at the 2005 Tour de France.

”Chris Horner … will be able to help Robbie (McEwen) and especially (Cadel) Evans in the mountain stages,” said the team in a Tour de France roster announcement on its Web site earlier this month.

The only other American on the Belgian team is three-time U.S. Pro Cycling Champion Fred Rodriguez of Emeryville, Calif., who will be the main workhorse for the team’s Aussie sprinter Robbie McEwen (whose credits include three stage victories at the 2005 Tour de France and five career Tour de France stage wins).

Horner’s 2006 season included a Tour of Romandie stage win in Switzerland in April, and an eighth-place finish at the one-day classics race, Liege-Baston-Liege, in Belgium in April.

The California native, who began road racing in 1991 and turned pro in 1996, has called Central Oregon home for six years.