Pawel Poljanski hits the front of the chasing pack for Bora. He wants to set a pace high enough to prevent further attacks and also bring back Julien Bernard and Fabien Grellier. But also not high enough to drop Peter Sagan.

The world champion really wants a fourth stage win today.

Right, Bernard and Grellier hit the lower slopes of the Pic de Nore, leading the 27 chasers by 1'52'' - can they make this stick to the summit?

Meanwhile, the peloton are just rolling through the intermediate sprint, 12'07'' down and with the best part of 60km left to race.

Julien Bernard and Fabien Grellier are heading towards the tough climb of the Pic de Nore, which has never been used on the Tour de France before.

It's 12.3km at an average gradient of 6.3% and tops out at 41km to the finish.

That should be too far for any general classification riders to mount a long-distance attack. But will anyone give it a go? Team Sky will have to be wary at least.

Image source, Tour de France

Interestingly, Greg van Avermaet positioned himself right behind Sagan at that intermediate sprint.

The Belgian may be thinking he has a chance at the green jersey should Sagan be forced to abandon the Tour for any reason.

He's fifth in that classification, now on 122 points.

And sure enough Peter Sagan gets himself on the front and rolls over to take third at the intermediate sprint.

That extends his lead over Alexander Kristoff to 282 points in the green jersey.

Julien Bernard and Fabien Grellier are not interested in contesting the sprint, only extending their lead.

Bernard rolls over the line unopposed.

Here comes the rest of the break...

Bernard and Grellier have 1km to go until the intermediate sprint.

Sagan is working for third place but that will give him enough points to take an unassailable lead in the green jersey.

Julien Bernard bridges across to Fabien Grellier and the French pair have a lead of 47 seconds over the rest of the breakaway.

Peter Sagan leads the chase behind as the intermediate sprint point nears.

Team Sky continue to lead the peloton, over 10 minutes down the road. As with yesterday, there will be two races today.

More from Wiggins on ITV4: "If we can get the money together then we will have a women's Team Wiggins outfit. Funding it is the biggest challenge but we would love to have a women's team running side-by-side."

Trek-Segafredo's Julien Bernard has set off in pursuit of compatriot Fabien Grellier out front.

Fabien Grellier now has 11 seconds on the 28 chasers behind.

Direct Energie's Fabien Grellier wants to get rid of a few riders from the break and attacks off the front.

That three-man attack is shut down, with Peter Sagan determined to be up near the front for the intermediate sprint point in about 15km.

The 29-man break lead by 9'24'' over the peloton, who have 82km left to race.

There are a few more attacks going off the front of the break now.

Toms Skujins, Greg van Avermaent and Fabien Grellier give it a go.

Yep, no one wants Peter Sagan to get too far away and the 29-man break has come back together for now.

Expect the strongest riders to try and up the tempo and whittle this group down as we approach the category one Pic de Nore.

Now Peter Sagan is attacking.

The world champion has sustained his gap off the front and been joined by Niki Terpstra and Toms Skujins.

The rest of the break have spotted the danger and riders are trying to bridge across now.

Geraint Thomas has briefly popped off the back of the peloton, perhaps just for a comfort break. He's being paced back by a team-mate now.

The Welshman leads Chris Froome by 1'39'' and Tom Dumoulin by 1'50'' - when does this become his Tour de France to lose? Is it already?

After today, there are only three mountain stages for his rivals to put time into him before the potentially decisive individual time trial on the penultimate stage. But can Thomas hold his form? Froome and Dumoulin have more experience of pacing a three-week race to perfection.

It promises to be a belting final week of the Tour.

Peter Sagan is a descending demon and has popped slightly off the front of the break. He's not attacking, he's just much better at going downhill quickly than the rest.

The 29-man leading group are 6'14'' ahead of the peloton, who are about 4km down the road.

Mark Cavendish
Winner of 30 Tour de France stages

There are other ways the riders could have got to Carcassonne without going over the category one Pic de Nore near the finish, which will break things up for the run-in.

Hopefully the sprinters will be OK to get to that climb and then can roll in because they won't be looking to do anything but there's definitely guys who can get over this category one climb and come to the finish.

Cav's one to watch: Peter Sagan (Svk/Bora-Hansgrohe) - He hangs on with the climbers and then wins the run-in.

He may sadly be out of the race, having been eliminated despite a brave ride on stage 11, but what did Mark Cavendish make of today's stage in his guide for BBC Sport?