Quick-Step's Jack Bauer hits the front of the peloton, trying to bring Michael Matthews and co back.

Meanwhile, Marcel Kittel is in a group that's been dropped behind but has a couple of team-mates back there trying to pace him back to the peloton.

So Matthews is now part of a sizeable counter-attack group, but there are five riders out front on their own as it stands.

Thomas de Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Sylvain Chavanel (Direct Energie) and Thomas Degand (Wanty) are still up there, along with Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) and Daryl Impey (Orica).

Marcel Kittel starts slipping back in the peloton - Michael Matthews spots it straight away and sprints out of the peloton.

He's joined a group just up the road that contains a couple of Sunweb team-mates and Dan Martin can't go with his attack.

Sunweb will be desperate to make this stick.

Sunweb continue to try and catch out Quick-Step in the hope of dropping Marcel Kittel in green to help out their man Michael Matthews

Kittel's team-mate Dan Martin - fifth on general classification - is the man currently marking Matthews. Tremendous work in service of his team from the Irish rider.

The side-effect of Martin going to the front is Team Sky joining him up there, with Martin just one minute 12 seconds behind Chris Froome overall.

See, I told you these two had dragged themselves off the rest day sofa.

Rob Hayles and OJ Borg bring you The Daily Pain, previewing today's stage 16.

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There's a rise in the road but the race is still about 1km away from the foot of the first climb of the day - the category three Cote de Boussoulet.

It's a 4.5km-long climb at 6.3% average gradient - expect a few riders to launch their attacks on it.

Meanwhile, the group of five out front has doubled in size, but still just 15 seconds ahead of the peloton.

Right, four now becomes five as BMC's Alessandro de Marchi bridges across.

Plenty of counter-attacks behind still. And plenty of work left to do to establish this break, the peloton are still just 15 seconds behind.

Those three have been swallowed up by the peloton and we have a new three-man group trying to break clear.

Thomas de Gendt (Lotto Soudal), Sylvain Chavanel (Direct Energie) and Thomas Degand (Wanty) are the men in question.

Wait, who's this sprinting to join them? Britain's Steve Cummings has deemed this the move to latch onto.

The Dimension Data made a brave but ultimately doomed break for glory on stage 12 - can he make it stick today?

Bora's Marcus Burghardt has bridged across to join Maurits Lammertink and Angelo Tulik out front.

That big group didn't quite have the legs to make it stick and have been brought back into the fold.

Another couple of riders are trying to break clear - Katusha's Maurits Lammertink and Direct Energie's Angelo Tulik.

Sunweb did indeed do a lot of the pace-setting early on - trying to put Michael Matthews up the road and leaving green jersey leader Marcel Kittel behind.

Matthews is 79 points behind Kittel in that competition so needs a win today and for Kittel to ideally pick up no points to bridge that enormous gap.

Rob Hayles
Former GB cyclist at the Tour de France

Today is very complicated to predict due to the route profile with there being climbs early on, plus the fact that it's extremely windy.

From a glance at the road book, you would more than likely expect it to come down to a sprint, but with Michael Matthews climbing as well as he is, I feel his team will ride hard from the start to try to distance Marcel Kittel in his green jersey.

However, in Kittel's favour, he has a very strong team who can work well in crosswinds.

The general classification riders will not be able to relax as maybe we thought they could have done because of the wind, and for any GC rider who isn't vigilant there is the possibility of losing time in the region of a minute or maybe more.

With that in mind, today's relative relatively short 'sprint' stage could be anything but.

The Tour director Christian Prudhomme waves and drops the white flag and the racing is under way.

Straight away riders surge to the front trying to establish a breakaway. A group of about 20 have slightly gapped the peloton - can they make it stick?

The riders have just started the neutral roll-out from Le Puy-en-Velay, so let's have a look at the route before the white flag drops and the racing begins...

The peloton hit a category three climb just over 20km into this 165km, staying elevated until a category four climb before dropping down towards the intermediate sprint point.

There's plenty of rolling terrain and false flats to negotiate. There is also a potential for high winds that could create splits in the peloton. So not a stage to lose your concentration on.

Should the sprinters' teams keep it all together for the finish in Romans-sur-Isere, it's hard to look past Marcel Kittel grabbing his sixth stage win.

Image source, .

Hope you enjoyed the rest day - I think everyone connected with the Tour needed it after a crazy few days.

First, Chris Froome cracked and lost the leader's yellow jersey to Fabio Aru. Then a French rider - Warren Barguil - won on Bastille Day for the first time since 2005.

Next, Froome caught out Aru and reclaimed yellow. But then he looked to be losing it after a mechanical issue on Sunday, only to recover in thrilling fashion.

He said he thought that was "game over" for his Tour hopes, but the Briton remains on course for his fourth title.

It's close though - the top five are separated by just one minute 12 seconds, making this the closest Tour at this point in history.

Phew. No wonder it took a fair bit out of the BBC Radio 5 live team out in France - I'm not sure how long Rob Hayles and OJ Borg stared into space for but I'll wager it was a while.

I gather they're back up and at it, though. They'll be on air later and there will be plenty more from our intrepid team during the stage.

Image source, BBC Sport

Welcome to the final week of the Tour de France.

The riders have had their final rest day and now there's no sleep til Paris. Metaphorically, of course.

There are 175 riders left from the 198 started and they've got six stages left to negotiate.

Starting with today - stage 16. It could well be one for the sprinters but it's not as straightforward as the flat stages earlier in the Tour. More on that soon.

Here we go...