Getting in the break was a pre-meditated move for Feillu (pictured left) and he will be delighted with the size of it.

He told Le Tour de France's website before the start of today's stage: "I believe there's the possibility of a big coup for me today. I'm 11 minutes down on GC and I presume they'll let anyone who is beyond 6 minutes go.

"So I'll try for sure. I'd love to be in a bigger breakaway group than those of the past few days. 8 to 12 riders, that would be great."

Image source, Getty Images

Polkadot Jersey
Classification

The break was formed on the first categorised climb of the day, the Col de la Croix de Montvieux. Giovanni Visconti was first to reach the summit of the 8km category three ascent to take two points in the King of the Mountains classification.

Brice Feillu of the Bretagne-Seche team is the highest-ranked rider in the General Classification, 11 minutes, 32 seconds behind race leader Vincenzo Nibali.

The leaders are four minutes clear with 125km remaining.

A group of nine riders have broken clear in the early stages, although there were a few selection issues until the peloton was happy with the make-up of the break-up.

Our nontet are: Giovanni Visconti (Movistar), Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale), Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma - Quick-Step), Blel Kadri (AG2R), Kristjan Durasek (Lampre), Daniel Oss (BMC), Rudy Molard (Cofidis), Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp) and Brice Feillu (Bretagne-Seche).

Image source, Getty Images

The 177 riders left in the race rolled out of Saint Etienne around 90 minutes ago but not before observing a minute's silence in memory of those who lost their lives on Thursday when a Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 295 people crashed in east Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

Belkin Pro Cycling:, external Team Belkin riders will wear black mourning bands today during stage 13 of @letour to honour the victims of the airplane crash. #MH17

Fellow Dutch team Giant-Shimano are wearing black ribbons.

Hello and welcome to live text commentary of stage 13 of the 2014 Tour de France. We are heading into the high mountains for the first time in this year's race with a summit finish at Chamrousse.

Here's what Team Sky rider Geraint Thomas said about today's route in his stage-by-stage guide:

"We are definitely in for a General Classification battle today. There will be no attacks on the descent from Palaquit because the final climb is so long - the last 30km of the stage is predominantly uphill. All the main contenders will be looking at each other on the final ascent and I don't think anyone will be saving anything. A breakaway could succeed but it depends how much time they've got at the bottom of the climb to Chamrousse."

Image source, Tour de France

Image source, Getty Images

Team Sky's Richie Porte says he is "looking forward to the mountains", AG2R rider Romain Bardet has called it "a first real test", and Thibaut Pinot "hopes to have good legs" while race leader Vincenzo Nibali's aim is simply to "try control all the attacks".