Stage 12 sees the race travel 168.8km from Roanne to Belleville-en-Beaujolais
The lumpy terrain and downhill finish should favour the breakaway specialists
Jonas Vingegaard is the overall race leader and wears the yellow jersey
The leading trio are reeled in by the yellow jersey group.
It's pretty much been full gas all the way so far. Poor old Caleb Ewan is over 11 minutes down on the leading bunch. The Australian sprinter will have some job on his hands to get home inside the time limit.
The polka dot jersey group that includes Ben O'Connor, Mikel Landa and Louis Meintjes over two minutes and 30 seconds adrift.
Marc Soler is on the move and looks to join the leading duo.
Jonas Vingegaard who looks short on teammates is in the group behind those three.
Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Wilco Kelderman (Jumbo-Visma) both get up the road after a Wout van Aert attack come to nowt.
This leading duo have only opened up six or seven seconds.
Sorry about that delay folks. Technical issues have disrupted this live text commentary but it looks like we are up and running again now.
David de la Cruz in in the ambulance. He'll be the third Astana rider to abandon this this year's Tour after Luis Leon Sanchez and Mark Cavendish. All three have crashed out.
Image source, Getty ImagesOh what's happened here? David de la Cruz (Astana-Qazaqstan) and Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ) are down on the deck and they don't look in great shape.
Frenchman Pacher is back up on his feet but Spain's De la Cruz doesn't look like he'll be able to continue.
A group of about 30-40 riders have been put in difficulty on the first climb and been distanced.
Image source, Getty ImagesDaniel Martinez and Giulio Ciccone go over the Cote de Thizy-les-Bourgs first.
French rider Julian Alaphilippe has a little dig but that's closed down by Omar Fraile, who might fancy getting away himself.
Here comes the first climb of the day which is the Cote de Thizy-les-Bourgs. It is 4.3 km at 5.6%.
Caleb Ewan is immediately spat out of the back of the main bunch as British rider James Shaw tries to make his way back after a mechanical.
Matej Mohoric has a little dig to get away but is swiftly followed by Wout van Aert.
The peloton is strung out like it's approaching a sprint finish but closes that down. This looks hard going for some of the sprinters at the back.
Image source, ASOWhile Roanne is renowned for its extraordinary number of Michelin starred chefs, inspired primarily by the Troisgros family, and the wider Beaujolais region attracts wine lovers, stage 12 is unlikely to serve up a mouth-watering general classification battle.
Instead this should be another day when the baroudeurs - breakaway specialists - excel on the rolling hills between the Loire and the Rhone.
The predominantly downhill final few kilometres should allow a small group of riders to hold off any late attempts by the peloton to reel them in.
Racing got under way a short time ago but as yet, despite lots of activity at the front of the peloton, nobody has been able to snap the elastic and get up the road.
Image source, Getty ImagesFabio Jakobsen, who won stage two last year has called it a day.
The Dutch Soudal-Quick-Step sprinter was 16th on Wednesday and has been struggling a bit, not helped by a crash on stage four.
"After discussions with the team, we decided it’s better for me to stop my Tour de France journey here”, he said.
“At this point it seems impossible for me to get to Paris, as I am not recovering, and my body is not healing from the crash. I’m very sad to leave the Grande Boucle, because I had big goals for this race and I wanted to be at my best with the team.
"I will now take some time to recover and clear my head, and hopefully be back at my best later this season.”
Image source, Getty ImagesCould Wout van Aert break his duck today? The multi-talented Belgian is yet to win a stage at this year's race but this looks like it suits him down to the ground.
Image source, Getty ImagesBon apres-midi. Welcome to our coverage of stage 12 of the Tour de France, which sees the race travel 168.8km from Roanne to Belleville-en-Beaujolais.
Jonas Vingegaard is still the man in possession of the yellow jersey as the overall leader and I've got to be honest I'm not expecting sparks to fly in the GC race today.
The lumpy terrain and downhill finish should favour the breakaway specialists.