Welcome to live comments from stage 15 of the Tour de France, an undulating 192.5km run from Limoux to Montpellier which comes sandwiched between the last Pyrenean stage and Monday's rest day.

The roads are surrounded by vineyards - this is a very pretty area of France, that's for sure. HTC are in full reel-in mode, looking ahead to that intermediate sprint in 50km.

The leaders pass a windmill - le Moulin du Rocher - before zipping downhill into a low-lying valley at Saint Chinian. The fans are out in their droves, basking in the sun of south France. What a great turn out this is - the town has done itself proud. The gap is three minutes.

Voeckler rides up to the front of the peloton and then tells his team-mate Perrig Quemeneur to cut the speed and step off the gas. Europcar have no interest whatsoever to control things up front, and they drop back to allow HTC - the team with most to gain today - to take up the baton.

Having dropped to 2:30, the lead has grown another minute back to the 3:30 mark.

Delage lets Ignatiev take the solitary point atop the climb - there's a first. Delage and FDJ seem to have won every climb and intermediate sprint in this race so far...

Niki Terpstra makes a meal of taking off his long-sleeved upper jersey. The leading group of five are onto the only climb of the day, the Cat.4 ascent to Villespassans.

Talking of Cavendish, the green jersey has a flat and needs a rear wheel change. Better now than 100km later. He's in good company - yellow jersey Thomas Voeckler is also off the back of the peloton after a mechanical, tactical or call of nature stop.

One man up for the win today will be green jersey Mark Cavendish, looking to sprinting to a fourth win this year. We spoke to Cav on the team bus ahead of today's stage...

Belgian champion Philippe Gilbert needs some new shoes and so slips back to put some on - while riding - that he picks up from his team car.

TODAY'S TRIVIA QUESTION: What is behind this sequence of numbers? 119, 18, 124, 89, 66, 97, 67, 76...

The lead has dropped to just under three minutes. The sun may be out, but it is extremely windy out there. At the moment, it's a side tailwind, apparently the hardest to deal with.

After the rain and clouds of the morning in Limoux, the sun is now shining as the five leaders continue their presumably futile trek towards the finish in Montpellier. They have 3:05 over the bunch, which is being controlled by Europcar and HTC.

The race is LIVE NOW on British Eurosport (Sky 410 / Virgin Media 521) and is also available on your PC via the Eurosport Player:

The lead is still around the 3:10 mark. Yesterday also saw Jens Voigt crash twice on the descent of the Col d'Agnes. Safe to say, the German veteran wasn't best pleased...

Rabobank's Laurens Ten Dam crashed badly yesterday, overshooting a bend and landing on his face in a ditch. The Dutchman - described as "hard as rock" by his team - suffered severe gashes but finished the stage with bandages around his face. Ten Dam started today after receiving 8 stitches ("Still 25 fewer than Johnny..." he tweeted with reference to fellow Dutchman Johnny Hoogerland's 33 stitches after his run-in with a barbed wire fence.

With the exception of a small fourth-category climb after 80km, stage 15 is a flat affair – precisely what the doctor ordered after the travails of the Pyrenees. Given the previous day's route, many sprinters who would have other wise contested today's highly likely bunch sprint finale could well be already on a plane home. With the second rest day coming up on Monday there are going to be some very tired legs in the peloton.

The lead is coming down: 3:13 at the latest check. It seems that no one in the peloton wants this break to get too far up the road, especially with those important green jersey points up for grabs.

After yet another solid climb, Sky's Rigoberto Uran is leading the white jersey competition. The Colombian is 1:07 faster than Rein Taaramae (Cofidis), with Europcar sensation Pierre Rolland in third, 1:25 down. In the team standings, Europcar are catching Leopard Trek and trail the Schlecks' team by just six seconds.

The wind is getting pretty strong and some splits are appearing in the peloton already. That will be the danger today - if one of the race favourites loses a minute or so with a split, it could be curtains before the Alps.

Today's stage will be an ideal chance for one of the green jersey hopefuls to make a mark on the competition. This is the last flat stage before the final stage on the Champs Elysees so both the intermediate sprint - which comes 48km from the finish - and the finale in Montpellier should be very competitive. Mark Cavendish currently leads Jose Rojas by 13 points with Gilbert juust 24 down as well.

The latest from our blogger, Blazin' Saddles: "Well, something must be up if the entire cast of Tour favourites can't drop little Tommy Voeckler on the queen stage of the race in the Pyrenees. Saddles takes a look at the second summit finish and lists what we have learned from stage 14 to Plateau de Beille..."