Hello and welcome to live coverage of Stage 8 of the Tour de France - and after 18 consecutive bunch sprints and around 15 wins for Marcel Kittel, it's finally the first of two back-to-back days in the mountains. To be precise, the Jura mountains - the second of five of France's mountainous regions that the Tour will visit this year.

An attack by Van Avermaet results in the Belgian riding clear with Pauwels, Barguil and Bakelants. Behind, Calmejane leads the chase with Simon Clarke.

The front of the main break has returned to the leaders, thanks to that acceleration from Buchmann. With both Latour and Buchmann back in with the leaders, that means the Frenchman is once again the virtual yellow jersey on the road.

Emanuel Buchmann drives the pace in the main break in pursuit of the leaders. The German rides clear just as Trentin is swept up. Further back, Christian Knees - who was with the break before dropping back to help Chris Froome - has been dropped. The yellow jersey still has Nieve, Kwiatkowski and Thomas in support.

Pauwels, Bakelants, Barguil, Ulissi and Van Avermaet have been caught by Talansky and Calmejane, so we have seven riders out ahead now. They're 1.2km agead of the peloton and a huge 3.1km ahead of the Kittel gruppetto. No news on Demare for now.

Calmejane and Talansky have ridden clear of the main break in pursuit of the leaders. They will soon catch Trentin, the latest to be dropped after Burghardt and Matthews.

The leaders are onto the second categorised climb of the day, the Cat.2 Cote de Viry (7.6km at a gentle 5.2%). This is the first Cat.2 climb we've had so far on this year's Tour - and there are 5pts up for grabs for the man who scales in pole position.

Reminder of the eight leaders: Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates), Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb), Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) and Marcus Burghardt (Bora-Hansgrohe), Jan Bakelants (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Warren Barguil (Team Subweb), Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data) and Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors). They're cooperating well to stretch the lead out to 38 seconds over the chasers, and 2:12 over the main pack, ahead of the next climb.

Direct Energie are leading the chase from this large 41-man group that's ahead of the peloton, but trailing the leaders by 30 seconds. They have Calmejane, Chavanel and Quemeneur all working hard to reduce the gap on these long, wide, sweeping descent.

So, Sunweb have two cards to play in this leading group in Matthews and Barguil. On the other end of the race, we're hearing that Demare is now 17 minutes down. His two team-mates will have to ditch him soon if they want to stay in the race themselves, otherwise FDJ will lose a third of their riders in one fell swoop.

Barguil and Pauwels have been caught by the four chasers, who themselves were caught by Jan Bakelants, so we have seven out ahead now we're on to the descent proper. Matteo Trentin has almost managed to bridge over. That would make it eight.

As expected, Christian Knees has dropped back from the break and is helping to pace Froome in the pack - which might be why the gap has been slashed by a minute or so.

It's worth adding that Pauwels is the virtual yellow jersey now: the Belgian was two minutes down on Froome this morning. Both Latour and Buchmann - who are in that main break further back - have also been in the virtual yellow hot seat today. It's all happening out there.

Our two leaders are on an uphill drag that breaks up this descent from the climb. They now have four men in pursuit: Ulissi, Van Avermaet, Matthews and Burghardt. They edged clear of the other escpaees on the first part of the descent. The gap is 30 seconds, with the pack now trailing Barguil and Pauwels by 2:50.

Chris Froome has three Sky team-mates with him in the main pack: Thomas, Mikel Nieve and Michal Kwiatkowski. But he has three men in the break ahead: Sergio Henao, Christian Knees and Mikel Landa. So Sky have options.

Warren Barguil (Team Sunweb) leads Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data) over the summit of the climb to pick up 2pts in the KOM competition, with the Belgian taking 1pt for second.

The leading duo have one minute on the huge chase group of 48 riders, with the peloton at 3:40. The Demare grupetto is 14 minutes down - and it's just the struggling French national champion with two FDJ team-mates in a battle to stay in the race: the broom wagon is just behind. The Luke Rowe group has dropped them.

The two breaks look to be coming back together after Ulissi drags many of the distanced riders back towards that leading group. Barguil and Pauwels still out ahead.

Pauwels has joined Barguil and so we have two leaders now with a small gap on this wooded climb.

Frenchman Barguil has attacked on the climb. He's clearly got the polka dot jersey in mind. Meanwhile, it's Bora's Buchmann who is the virtual yellow jersey now - by vitrue of Latour not being in the leading group, but the large chasing group of 34 riders behind.

Marcus Burghardt (Bora-Hansgrohe), Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors) and Warren Barguil (Sunweb) have joined the leaders, which is now 16-strong as they edge onto the Cat.3 Col de la Joux (6.1km at 4.7%), the first of three categorised climbs today.

Arnaud Demare, who was dropped early on, and who has been ill, is now 13 minutes off the pace. The French national champion could well see himself on the other side of the time cut today... he's in a gruppetto that also includes two of his FDJ team-mates, and also Luke Rowe of Sky, who crashed badly early in the race and has been playing catch up since.