Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 18 of the Tour de France - a 186.5km ride over seven mountains from Gap to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the Alps.

Belgian breakaway specialist Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) sets the pace in the break. Their lead of 3:50 is fairly stable. The summit is coming up in about 500m. Ah, and right on cue steps forward Joaquim Rodriguez...

Pee stop for Astana duo Vincenzo Nibali and Michele Scarponi. And in full view of quite a few spectators too...

Back with the pack - which trails the break by 3:50 - it's the Giant-Alpecin team of ninth-placed Warren Barguil and yesterday's stage winner Simon Geschke who set the pace. Bauke Mollema's Trek team are also there with Team Sky.

We're onto the Cat.2 Col de la Morte (3.1km at 8.4%) which isn't as ominous as it sounds, but it's still quite a punchy ramp over 3100m and will be followed by a long, steep descent.

Mark Renshaw (Etixx-QuickStep) has withdrawn from the Tour - he's been suffering with illness too. A big blow for Mark Cavendish's Champs-Elysees aspirations...

The KOM leaderboard now is: Rodriguez 63, Froome 61, Fuglsang 44, Pauwels 43, Porte 40, Bardet 38.

Once again Rodriguez takes the points over the top - and he now moves two points clear of Froome in the KOM standings. It was Serge Pauwels, again, who was second for 1pt.

The six leaders sat up and waited for the other escapees at the start of the Cat.3 Col de Malissol (2km at 8.7%).

There were rumours that Rafal Majka - who was in yesterday's break - refused to slow and help pace Tinkoff-Saxo team-mate Contador on the final climb to Pra Loup after the Spaniard's climb. Contador has denied this: "His radio wasn't working and so he didn't know was going on. From the feeding zone he had issues with his radio and so he didn't know about my crash. I completely trust him." So that's that, then.

Those five leaders have been joined by Stef Clement. The quintet have about 15 seconds on the other escapees as they ride along a plateau ahead of the next climb.

Fuglsang, De Gendt, Rodriguez, Voeckler and Pauwels edge ahead near the top of the climb. It's Rodriguez who takes the two points available for first place to draw level with Chris Froome in the polka dot jersey standings, with Pauwels taking the remaining point.

We also spoke to Alberto Contador this morning about his crash yesterday. "I'm not feeling great. It was a bad crash, right on the corner. I don't really know what I touched but I felt something on my left leg, which is painful now. Not sure if it was my bike or a stone. It's going to be a really hard stage today anyway and I'm not really recovered. Psychologically I'm feeling good. I was hoping to win time yesterday so to lose time is hard to take. I was thinking about the podium yesterday but there's no chance of that now. It's great for Alejandro (Valverde)."

We spoke to Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) this morning after his shock withdrawal yesterday: "I was in denial. I've been fighting this chest cold for a few days and was hoping that I'd get over it on the rest day. But I had a fever and high temperature and when I got out there the legs just weren't working. It was hard. It's the Tour de France, it's what you ride for. At the time I just thought it was a bad dream. The hardest part was getting on the bus before my team-mates and having to look them in the eye when they got on. I was thinking of all the kilometres they did pulling in the wind and all the sacrifices they made for me. But they were great about it and said they would do the same again next year."

We're onto the Cat.3 Côte de La Mure (2.7km at 7.5%). Dennis has been caught by the other escapees after his sudden rush of blood to the head.

Yesterday Simon Geschke became the first German rider to win a summit finish stage since Jan Ullrich in the 90s. He gave Germany their fifth stage of the Tour, which means that 32% of Tour stage winners since 2013 have been German.

Rohan Dennis - winner of the opening time trial and a key component of BMC's winning TTT squad - has attacked on a downhill stretch to the third climb.

We mentioned Europcar, but the danger team in the break is Cannondale-Garmin, who have their three best riders involved in Talansky, Martin and Hesjedal. Martin (twice) and Talansky (yesterday) have both finished second in stages this year, while former Giro winner Hesjedal is an experienced long-distance attacker in the hills. Can they finally get their win?

Giant-Alpecin and Team Sky are on the front of the peloton, which trails the break by five minutes on rolling roads ahead of the third climb of the day. The real action will probably come on the Col du Glandon and the picturesque Lacets de Montvernier climb today - although don't rule out someone having a dig on the fast descent of the Col de la Morte before the intermediate sprint.

Did you know: The first two climbs of the day, the Col Bayard and Rampe du Motty, as well as the towns of Corps and La Mure, and the start town of Gap, are all on the Route Napoleon - the path taken by the French emperor in 1815 on his return from exile on Elba during the infamous 100 Days, which ultimately ended in defeat at Waterloo.

The leaders covered 37.4km in the first hour today. The peloton is currently 4:50 in arrears.

And it's that man Rodriguez who takes the maximum 2pts over the top of the Rampe du Motty to move within 2 points of Chris Froome's lead in the KOM competition. Serge Pauwels took 1pt for second place. The Belgian was fourth in the standings this morning after featuring in a number of mountain breaks.