Montpellier Men's Singles -

Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility), Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto Intermarché), Xabier Mikel Azparren (Pinarello Q36.5), Joris Delbove (Total Energies) and Warren Barguil (Picnic PostNL). 44kph for the first 5km.

The Lotto Intermarche rider hits out early, and quickly establishes a gap with a rainbow of riders, including Warren Barguil. Ten seconds is fine for now, but it will all change as soon as they hit the slopes of the Croix de fer.

With Jayco, Picnic, Uno-X and Total Energies riders hot on his tail.

After Paul Seixas receives a new radio from his team, and makes his way back to the bunch, Christian Prudhomme emerges from his red Skoda for the penultimate time, the last in the mountains, to provide the instructions and release the warriors.

The stage is gently uphill for the first seven kilometers, which will favour the attackers, those who have enough in the legs to do so, and then it's right onto the Col de la Croix de Fer.

There are a lot of long faces in the bunch. More of them than not will surely be looking forward to the end. Allez.

Just 7km of neutral today, after which it will be full gas racing. It's not quite all or nothing, because tomorrow in Paris matters, but plenty of teams will be throwing everything at wall today.