Hello and welcome to (slightly delayed - blame it on South West Trains) coverage of Stage 11 of the Tour de France: the first summit finish of the 105th edition of the race. My apologies for running a few minutes late - I'll bring you up to speed right away.

Over the top of the Col du Pre goes Warren Barguil in pole position to reinvigorate the defence of his polka dot crown. The Frenchman takes 20 points with Belgian Serge Pauwels behind picking up 15 points. Pauwels had 24 points this morning and has since added 25. So, he's up to 49 points and is closing in on Alaphilippe's current total of 61.

Now this is interesting. Marc Soler clearly got told to ease up because he's now been caught by Ajelandro Valverde and so the two Movistar riders can zip along in tandem paving the way for Mikel Landa and Nairo Quintana behind. Youngster Soler once named Valverde as his idol and so this is quite the dream team.

Castroviejo has back on the front for Sky, who also have Kwiatkowski and Poels with Thomas and Froome, as Moscon starts to get distanced. So too does Majka, who is now off the back for a second day running. Bad news for the Pole.

Valverde is picking off remnants of the break one by one. He has 30 seconds over the peloton and up the road has Marc Soler who could act as a decent relay. So far, so good. But as I said, it's early days.

Meanwhile, on the front of the break - which now is down to around 15 riders - it's Fortuneo-Samsic who are turning the screw. They Have Moinard and Gesbert pulling hard for their man Barguil - and as a result, Julian Alaphilippe has been dropped.

ATTACK FROM ALEJANDRO VALVERDE! Now Movistar put their plan into action. The Spanish veteran zips clear and there's no response from Sky. Valverde quickly catches and passes Peter Sagan - a remnant of the early break - before continues on his way. Exciting stuff. Remember, he's 3'10" down on Van Avermaet on GC and so it could be him, and not Thomas, in yellow should things go Movistar's way today. Still, it's early days yet...

Bauke Mollema is the next GC rider to be dropped... Movistar's pace has seen their own riders Bennati and Erviti dropped, but it's put the rest of the peloton in difficulty and has seen Jonathan Castroviejo of Sky distanced a little. Rafal Majka, too, in trouble.

Rigoberto Uran has been dropped! That's game over for the Colombian. Runner-up last year, Uran lost time yesterday following his crash on the cobbles - and he'll shed a load of time again today.

That increase in tempo by Movistar has resulted in the peloton being blown apart - and the yellow jersey of Greg van Avermaet is one of the numerous riders off the back!

With Luke Rowe dropped, Dani Bennati comes to the front for Movistar and is joined by Mikel Landa and Andrey Amador as they up the tempo and start to string out the peloton a little.

Lots of riders being dropped by the leading group now, including Soren Kragh Andersen (who lost the white jersey yesterday), Kueng, Marczynski, Vichot, Taaramae, Perez and Bouet.

And here come Team Sunweb, too. In fact, Sky have been outpopulated and pushed back. The race needed that - although it remains to be seen if any of the GC riders are going to use this as a platform for anything.

Finally we have a bit of a mix-up on the front of the pack as Astana, Katusha and LottoNL-Jumbo draw up alongside Team Sky. The gap is back up to 6'20" for the break.

The riders in this leading break of around 30 riders are: Pauwels, Nieve, Barguil, Caruso, Alaphilippe, G Martin, Kangert, Andersen, Van Garderen, Bouet, Moinard, Rolland, Taaramae, Molard, Vichot, Frank, Kueng, G Izagirre, Valgren, Atapuma, Skujins, Soler, De Gendt, Gesbert, Sicard, Cousin, Poljanski, Marczynski, Navarro, Perez.

So much for Team Sky and their fabled preparation... they've clearly just watched our Tour mountain tactics explainer!

Barguil, Alaphilippe and De Gendt are back with the other escapees so we have around 30 riders out ahead now at the start of this long climb.

Team Sky increased the tempo a little on the approach to the climb and they have brought the gap down to 5'30".

We're onto the next duo of climbs, starting with the Cat.HC Col du Pre (12.6km at 7.7%) which is astonishingly being used for the first time in Tour history.

On the rest day Warren Barguil said it was his intention to lose time on GC so that he could be free to go for stage wins and the polka dot jersey - as he did yesterday. He then attacked on one of the key climbs yesterday, seemingly making a mockery of his words. But it was all a bit of bluff. The Frenchman was soon caught and out the back - and now he's over 10 minutes behind his GC rivals, he's put in a proper attack at the earliest occasion. He'd love a win today but it may be more about getting his climbing legs back - tomorrow's stage to Alpe d'Huez must be at the forefront of his mind. Having made history on the Izoard last year, he'll want to join the illustrious list of winners on Dutch Mountain.