An Astana rider is furious with someone in the Movistar team. Plenty of arm waving going on.

Cofidis ignore all that and sneak to the front, bringing Nacer Bouhanni to the fore. Dimension Data alongside them. Luke Rowe leading Team Sky on the opposite side of the road with Geraint Thomas two behind him.

Steve Cummings, the British national champion, is also pulling for Cav. The Dimension Data line is alongside Sky, with Astana, Movistar and Katusha also dominating the front of the peloton.

Bora Hansgrohe are not quite on the front but Peter Sagan is on the wheel of his brother Juraj. Peter could fancy this slightly uphill drag to the line.

It's all looking a little too organised out there at the moment. The lead-out trains are all neatly arranged.

Bernie Eisel of the Dimension Data team is up near the front. He will be riding for Mark Cavendish. Cav will also be looking for the wheel of Kittel or Greipel to try and surf his way to the line.

Team Sky are down the right-hand side, which is a shame for Geraint Thomas because there is a Welsh flag on the left of the road that he will have had no chance of seeing.

Astana are moving their riders up to the front. They won't be bothered about the sprint, more about keeping Fabio Aru and Jakob Fuglsang out of bother.

The road is wide enough for about six teams to be spread out in trains.

Poor old Guillaume goes backwards through the peloton and quickly finds himself right at the back. He's going to have to work mightily hard just to stay in that position.

The pace is high at the front. Katusha, Movistar, Lotto, FDJ and Bora are all manouevering their riders into position.

Guillaume van Keirsbulck. Chapeau to you my good man. It would have been easy 185km or so ago for him to sit up and wait for another rider or two to try and break clear but he pushed on alone and will deserve the combativity prize as the day's most aggressive rider.

His arms are resting on the handlbars and he keeps looking over his shoulder at the pack chasing him down.

Another swig and he makes a gesture with his hand to say, that's it, I'm done.

And the catch is made with around 17km remaining. It's sprint time...

The lead is down under one minute as the pulsating mass of the peloton sweeps left round a tight bend.

GvK is back at his team car. I wonder how that conversation went...

"Come on G. Final push. 20km left."

"Just give me a bottle."

"Don't be like that G. We're here for you."

"If you ever order me into the break again."

"They are miles behind you G. You're going to win. Just two more corners."

"I still need a wee."

Image source, AFP

Rob Hayles
Former GB cyclist on Radio 5 live sports extra

Mark Cavendish has missed a big chunk of the season with glandular fever. He has 30 Tour stage wins, just four behind all-time leader Eddy Merckx.

"My concern is that Mark's a year older and in his early 30s. My fear is that actually it’s going to get on top of him and he’s going to fatigue more in this Tour. We may have seen the best of him. Normally with Mark he recovers really really quickly and that is certainly the hope, particularly by the end of the first week. The signs that we’ve seen are that there could be one or two stage wins for him.

"Under normal circumstances, this finish would suit him well."

Guillaume van Keirsbulck is putting everything he has into this final 25km but his 90-second lead is going to start coming down soon.

The lead motobike sidles up to him and the timing lady in her yellow suit and helmet has the chalkboard telling him he is 100 seconds clear. Either she's a little out, or the timing on the screen is.

Either way, it's going to be the longest 25km of his life.

"Let him fry," says Rob Hayles on commentary. Poor lad.

Rob Hayles
Former GB cyclist on Radio 5 live sports extra

The way the race has evolved over the last couple of days is it’s really gone into the favour of Team Sky as they’ve not had to do too much at the front.

Kat S‏, external: Foot wouldn't go in clip, tried to stop to get foot in clip, fell over. Bruise the size of my hand on my leg.

Bart‏, external: First time cleats. Fell over in front of really hard looking geordie bloke. Expected laughter got "are ye all reet bonny lad".

stupöt‏, external: First time in cleats. Stopped outside chip shop for dinner. Forgot to unclip, headfirst into railings outside in front of queue #bbccycling, external

And all that means that Marcel Kittel leads the way on 77 points, ahead of Arnaud Demare on 74 and Peter Sagan on 65.

The first 15 riders over the finish in Vittel will pick up more points with 50 for first and then 30, 20, 18,16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1.

All to ride for then. Just 30km remaining today.

It's finally in...(the TdF website is calling him Kurt. Kurt?)

1. Kurt Van Keirsbulck, 20 points,

At 2.40:

2. Arnaud Demare, 17

3. Peter Sagan, 15

4. André Greipel, 13

5. Marcel Kittel, 11

6. Michael Matthews, 10

7. Ben Swift, 9

8. Maciej Bodnar, 8

9. Mark Cavendish, 7

10. Sonny Colbrelli, 6

11. Rüdiger Selig, 5

12. Jack Bauer, 4

13. Thomas De Gendt, 3

14. Matteo Trentin, 2

15. Ramon Sinkeldam, 1

Guillaume van Keirsbulck has crested the summit to win a King of the Mountains point. He takes a look behind him but the riders are still 90 seconds back down the road.

Simon Brotherton on race commentary suggests he may well be relieved when he is finally caught. Rob Hayles says he should be well pleased with his efforts.

Image source, AFP

Katusha-Alpecin have sent a rider to the front of the peloton. He is joined by Thomas de Gendt of Lotto-Soudal and Julien Vermote of Quick-Step Floors - the two strong men of their teams, who spend kilo after kilo on the front doing the hard work in chasing down breaks to set up the sprint.

Rob and Simon have been discussing family links to the sport on 5 live commentary because many of the riders from mainland Europe have come from cycling dynasties. Our leader's grandad is a former world champion don't forget.

"In the UK there are so many more first generation bike riders because it’s trendy and cool to be a bike rider these days," Rob says. "All the fashion shops have bikes in the windows; that wasn’t the case when I was trying to get girlfriends back in school with shaved legs!"

Our leader continues to get plenty of encouragement as he reaches the bottom of today's climb. How are the legs G? He is immediately out of the saddle and then quickly back in it.

The boy looks exhausted. His lead is disappearing quicker than the liquid in his bidon though. Just under two minutes clear now.

OJ Borg have picked a chateau as tonight's venue for the BBC Radio 5 live Facebook live, which also becomes the BeSpoke podcast.

OJ tells me it is the Chateau De La Presle and belongs to Marie and Geoff. Marie is French, Geoff from Newcastle.

More details on that to follow but keep an eye out for it later.

Image source, BBC Sport

The next bit of excitement on the horizon is the category four ascent of Col des Trois Fontaines - a 1.9km pimple with an average gradient of 7.9%. That's coming in about 10km.

I'm hoping Guillaume van Keirsbulck can make it over the top in front to pick up the solitary King of the Mountains point on offer today. He certainly deserves it.

Thomas Rees, external: Chain snapped a few years ago going up a climb in the Cotswolds. Legs kept spinning and I couldn't unclip before toppling over!

littlelosses‏, external: T-junction by a cow field, raining, roadside was a mix of rain water, mud and dung. Car came, I braked, clip stuck, oh sh...

Henry Compson‏, external: My mate Dave decided to learn to ride in cleats on a year long ride from London 2 Sydney. 4 weeks in and the fall count = 5.

Your cycling cleat stories #bbccycling