Rob Hayles
Former GB cyclist at the Tour de France

Rob's guide: Part of this stage will be contested at an altitude of more than 1,000m and the opening climb to the Aubrac plateau should provide the perfect platform for a breakaway. Whether it can stay away over the late first category climb is debatable. One thing is for sure, this is an intriguing stage that will be tough and unpredictable.

One to watch: I did originally pick Alejandro Valverde but his crash on stage one scuppered his chances. This could be one for a rider like Dan Martin to stretch his legs.

Definitely worth mentioning early on that tomorrow is a rest day.

Now, depending on your thinking, that could mean one of two things. If a rider's feeling full of beans maybe he'll go all out and look to snatch even the most marginal advantage over his rivals.

Or it could be white peace - a ceasefire declared to save those aching legs in the knowledge of what's to come between now and Paris and next Sunday's finale...

Looks like the early breakaway group is building a pretty solid lead now - with the peleton a sluggish 45 seconds back. The main bunch is happy to see them go.

It's sunnypublished at 12:19 British Summer Time 16 July 2017

12:19 BST 16 July 2017

By the way, it is hot.

Not here in Manchester, I'm talking about on the road.

It's about 27 degrees in Laissac, according to our Google overlords.

There are 10 riders out in front.

As well as Barguil, Germany's Tony Martin is there, with Dylan van Baarle, Robert Kiserlovski, Tsgabu Grmay, Damiano Caruso, Serge Pauwels, Marcel Sieberg, Luis Angel Mate and Marcus Burghardt making up the numbers.

They're about 23 seconds up on the peloton. A bit early to say if it'll stick.

Image source, Reuters

No messing about at all!

As soon as the red flag is dropped, a pretty decent-sized breakaway group begins to eat into an early lead.

Warren Barguil, wearing the King of the Mountains jersey, is among them. He'll be looking to scoop up more polka dot points.

The brave souls whose destiny is to suffer for our collective enjoyment will be hammering along a 189.5km route from Laissac-Severac L'Eglise to Le Puy-en-Velay in south central France.

There are two category-one climbs, one category-three and one category-four with an intermediate sprint in the middle.

Image source, Le Tour

Like yesterday, today's stage doesn't look like it should create any big gaps between the yellow jersey candidates.

It is rolling. Up and down through the Massif Central.

Instead it looks like one for a breakaway. Will whoever peels of first be able to hold out all the way?

"He was so misplaced it was ridiculous. He threw the jersey away."

That was Rob Hayles' assessment of Fabio Aru's end to stage 14 yesterday. Plenty more in the clip below as he and OJ Borg preview what's in store...

Image source, Getty Images

It was quite the display from Froome. And quite disastrous for Aru.

"It is a great day. I didn't think I could get the jersey back on this stage," Froome said afterwards.

"It's incredible to be back in yellow. To bounce back like this feels amazing."

Froome got his tactics spot on and executed brilliantly. But many were asking - just what went wrong for Aru? Why was he so off the pace?

Image source, Getty Images

Yesterday was supposed to be straightforward. We were all expecting Fabio Aru to keep his yellow jersey over stage 14.

But Chris Froome had other ideas. Britain's three-time Tour de France winner punched his way up the final slopes of Saturday's 181.5km ride into Rodez to reclaim the overall lead.

Aided by his invaluable Team Sky companion Michal Kwiatkowski, Froome, who lost yellow to Aru at the end of stage 12, turned a six-second deficit into an 18-second advantage.

Aru had maneuvered into the leader's jersey in similar circumstances on Thursday, but was nowhere on Saturday.

You see? At the Tour, you never know what might happen next...