Key events
141km to go: Those three escapees have been caught and we’ve got a front group of 34 riders. The Côte de Corps is the next climb, but it’s downhill for a time before that.
143km to go: Steff Cras is the highest-placed on GC in the riders up front, and he’s 32min behind our race leader, Pogacar.
144km to go: A group with Mark Cavendish in it is 1min 35sec behind the peloton. The front three have 22sec on the chasers.
145km to go: Carapaz, Hindley and Lazkano are now out front on their own. Carapaz really fancies two in two … They don’t have much of an advantage just yet as they fly down the descent.
147km to go: Campanaerts, Juul-Jensen, Carapaz, Meintjes, Pacher, Poels, Kwiato are all up front … the front group has 42sec.
148km to go: It’s still not certain this big group will be allowed to stay away. Their lead has fallen to 35sec. The race is over the top of the first climb.
149km to go: The front group is 34 riders and they have 51sec. Pogacar, having a drink back in the peloton, looks happy to let this go.
149km to go: Could Carapaz make it two wins out of two? Maybe it will come down to how much champagne he drank last night. His form is certainly there, I mean, obviously.
150km to go: Kwiatkowski, Poels, Carapaz and Skujins are in another big group that has forged an advantage at the front. The telly timing says they’ve got 30sec.
151km to go: “It would be great if Stuyven can be in the break, because the final suits him really well,” says Steven de Jongh (Lidl-Trek) from the team car.
151.5km to go: Well that didn’t last long. The break is shut down.
152km to go: An 18-rider breakaway has formed and they have 20sec. The likes of Hindley, Thomas, Van Aert, Madouas, Geschke and Skujins are in it. Let’s see if it settles down and I’ll then do a full list.
153km to go: “I’m going to cover a break, I just hope the one I cover doesn’t get away,” is apparently what Geraint “G” Thomas said before the start.
154km to go: Now the race is going uphill, the average speed has fallen, but not by much. It’s 43.7km/h now.
155km to go: The peloton just headed through a road tunnel. Must have been a nice break from the heat.
155km to go: “It’s the last opportunity for many today,” said Christian Knees of Ineos Grenadiers before the stage start.
157km to go: Michael Matthews (Jayco–AlUla) and Jai Hindley (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) are both up top at the moment, but the situation is fluid.
158km to go: Stuyven is caught. The peloton is strung out. The road is kicking up. And the pain in the legs will be severe for these riders, it being the third week of the Tour.
158km to go: Looks like the EF Education–EasyPost family had a nice time celebrating Carapaz’s win last night:
160km to go: The gap for Stuyven is down to 10sec, and he’ll be caught before too long, it looks like. The peloton is hitting the foot of the first climb now. Will we see an elite group head off up the road on this first climb, the Col du Festre?
163km to go: Clement Russo (Groupama-FDJ) tried to get across to Stuyven, but he gave up, which was probably sensible.
Commentator Rob Hatch says it’s 38C on the road. That is unpleasantly hot.
164km to go: Stuyven now has 35sec.
Richard Carapaz, yesterday’s victor, is prominent up at the front of the bunch, working for his EF Education–EasyPost teammate Rui Costa. Costa is 37 now, and I sort of struggle to believe he’s still racing.
167km to go: Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) powers off the front on his own.
He’s got 20sec. This is a huge effort to escape a peloton moving at such a pace, although they may have slowed up a bit now.
The average speed today is 47.2km/h.
168km to go: “We’re doing 70km/h,” says Adam Blythe on the Eurosport motorbike.
“Tadej Pogacar is about 20 from the back of the peloton, he’s completely relaxed.”
169km to go: A few moments ago, the helicopter’s telly camera treated us to a shot of two brave mountain bikers negotiating a narrow path halfway up a cliff.
“My God,” says Kelly. “That looks scary.”
He just tells it the way it is, doesn’t he?
170km to go: The peloton is moving at 66km/h. !!
Mind you, it is a bit downhill.
172km to go: The five category-three climbs today are as follows: Col du Festre, Cote de Corps, Col de Manse, Côte de Saint-Apollinaire, and the Côte des Demoiselles Coiffées.
There is a downhill section now leading into the Col du Festre, which is 3.9km long with an average 6.3% gradient.
173km to go: Is it possible that the day’s decisive break forms after the intermediate sprint, that arrives with 95.2km to go?
174km to go: Ryan Gibbons (Lidl-Trek) catapults himself out of the peloton. He’s immediately shut down by four or five other riders.
174km to go: We’re all together. I say we. I mean they, the riders in the Tour de France. “The scenery is fabulous but the riders aren’t going to get much opportunity to see it,” says Kelly.
175km to go: Ben Turner (Ineos) and Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ) are two of the other riders prominent at the front. But no break has formed yet.
176km to go: “This is a real difficult start,” observes Kelly.
A real, real difficult one? I think so.
It’s boiling hot in France, by the way. 31.9C is the temperature advertised on the official site.
177km to go: Neilands (Israel Premier Tech) and Kung (Groupama–FDJ) have now clipped off the front. But it doesn’t look like they are really trying to mount a two-man break either.
177.5km to go: Kung, Cort, Neilands and Matthews are all up front with Van der Poel. But they haven’t managed to break away.
178km to go: Perhaps unsurprisingly, it looks like this big group with MvDP in it is going to get closed down. Wout van Aert, in fact, is pulling on the front of the second group to bring it back together.
179km to go: Attacks from the start. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin Deceuninck), who knows a thing or two about a long-distance breakaway, is up there.
Racing on Stage 18!
Allez!
We’re past KM0 but the flag is yet to drop.
“It’s going to be a real battle here,” says Sean Kelly on commentary. “Today’s a guaranteed battle for the breakaway. It’s going to be an important one, an interesting one. How soon will the break get away?”
“Interested to see what they describe as a “hilly” day,” emails Jeremy. “Probably one that would have most of us on our knees and somewhat off the pace they will be going.”
Yes, I thought exactly the same thing.
“Pogi? Bad day? Your having a laugh.”
Yes, I thought exactly the same thing.
Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) and his “bluestache” at today’s start. He vowed to dye his moustache blue if he hit 200l Insta followers. What a marketing masterstroke.
“Just think to yourself,” McEwen tells his ‘team’. “I can suffer more than everybody else in here.”
That’s exactly the attitude I’ll be taking into today’s live blog.
Here we go then. The riders are on the road and rolling along behind the race director’s car.
Robbie McEwen is doing one of his slightly awkward “team briefings” on Eurosport.
Essentially, everyone needs to ride their bike as fast as possible today.
Time for you to read Jeremy Whittle’s report from yesterday before today’s neutralised roll out, scheduled for 12pm BST:
Preamble
Tadej Pogacar hammered home his advantage in the overall race yesterday, on stage 17, while Remco Evenepoel snatched a few seconds back from second-placed Jonas Vingegaard. Truth is, though, the top of the GC looks firmly settled: Pogacar is 3min 11 sec in front of the Dane, Vingegaard, and 5min 09sec up on the Belgian Evenepoel.
Which leaves us, realistically, to think about the battle for the points classification and the daily dust-up for stage wins. (Pogacar also leads the KOM classification by 19 points from Vingegaard.) Today’s 179.5km route between Gap and Barcelonnette ranks as “Hilly” on the official route map, with five category-three climbs to negotiate, along with one sprint point that comes after the first two climbs.
Plenty of intrigue to be found in all the races within the race, then, and who knows, perhaps Pogacar may yet suffer a bad day …
Neutralised stage stage: 12pm BST
