Tour de France 2026: Ballon d’Alsace awaits riders on testing stage 13 – live

Key events

A couple more Tour memories. Lucy Vittucci (great name), in London: “My first memory is in the late 1970s. In a hot flat in central Rome I watched my usually reserved grandfather peering avidly at his black and white TV. My dad explained that that RAI were showing the Tour, a daily appointment in the hottest month of summer.

“Over the years I have always followed the Tour: first with my dad in the Italian countryside, while home from university. Later over the phone from London, discussing the day’s events.

“My dad passed away a few years ago, but the family tradition continues. I just share my thoughts with him in my mind now.”

A bit more recent from Owen Peek: “For me it’s watching the 2013 Tour via French TV despite not speaking French. Stage 18 is the queen stage with a double ascent of Alp D’huez and Tejay Van Gaderen is solo and looking like he’ll take a win for the ages until, out of the mist, appears French domestique Christophe Riblon for AG2R. The French commentators explode into life and are falling apart once Riblon catches and rides away from Van Gaderen.

“By the time Riblon takes the tape, the commentators have reduced me to tears despite not understanding a word they’ve said.

“A small snapshot of what cycling fans share. You can stand on a roadside somewhere in europe and share every kind of emotion (and a few beers) with those alongside you despite no shared language. Best spectator sport in the world.”

These are great. More please.

148km to go Lidl-Trek called off the chase and the gap to the breakaway group shot up. Now we have a smaller group from the bunch going off in pursuit of the break, Biniam Girmay is among them.

150km to go This break group is eeking out time. The gap is now 30 seconds and the riders chasing in the peloton seem to be tiring.

This is what I’m talking about, thanks Phil De Jersey: “I saw my first Tour in 1990, when I happened to coincide with a stage finish in Nantes. I joined a queue with little idea of what it was leading to, and slowly progressed forward… to touch Laurent Fignon’s bicycle. I’m fairly sure the same level of access to Pog’s bike wouldn’t be available today.”

I want to hear not just what happened but where you were while it was happening, keep the emails coming in folks. Link is at the top of the page.

160km to go Lidl-Trek have no riders in this group and are really pulling on the front to bring it back. We’re in a bit of a holding pattern.

167km to go This is great racing. The peloton is a bit of a mess and up in that large split group is Pidcock, plus a bunch of others.

170km to go There is a large split at the front, how did that happen? They turned a bend and a gap formed, was it wind? There must be 40-odd riders in this. This surely can’t get away, but maybe we’ll see a splinter group. They have 10 seconds on the main bunch.

172km to go The five-man initial break is no more. The peloton is all back together but we’re still wave after wave of attacks. Currently Fred Wright is having a dig.

We had a lively debate yesterday about the reaction to Pogacar’s dominance, but today I’d love to hear about your favourite Tour memories either watching at home or on the roadside. My first memory of the Tour is when it came to Brighton in 1994 with the finish on the seafront. Let me know yours via the email link at the top of the page.

182km to go The writing on the wall for this breakaway group. The counterattacks are inching the peloton up towards them.

187km to go We’re averaging 53km/h in this first 20km and the breakaway hasn’t got a decisive gap by any stretch, in fact it’s down the ten seconds. We could be on for a reset here.

193km to go It seems as if the peloton is relatively happy with the five riders who have gone and aren’t too willing to let others go. The likes of Tom Pidcock, Mads Pedersen and Ben Healy have missed this move.

201km to go Five riders have gone off the front: Louis Vervaeke (Soudal Quick-Step), Georg Zimmermann (Lotto Intermarche), Kasper Agreen (EF Education-EasyPost), Alex Kirsch (Cofidis) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Netcompany Ineos). Others will desperate to join them but they’ve established a 15-second gap.

Kilometre Zero

There’s no exlplosion off the start but it’s a narrow road to navigate from the flag drop.

We’re still about 3.5km out from the flag drop. Adam Yates is in need of some technical assistance, but should have time to get that sorted before we begin racing.

The riders are on the road out of Dole, the flag drop is in 12.5km.

Tadej Pogacar is just rolling towards the neutralised start line in Dole, the rollout will be getting underway shortly.

General classification standings

The yellow jersey picture ahead of today’s stage:

1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG): 43hrs 04mins 01secs
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike): +3mins 36secs
3. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe): +4mins 06secs
4. Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek): +4mins 22secs
5. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team): +4mins 35secs
6. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe): +4mins 44secs
7. Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG): +5mins 08secs
8. Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek): +5mins 45secs
9. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious): +6mins 34secs
10. Ion Izagirre (Cofidis): +11mins 49secs

The points classification

On TNT, Adam Blythe said Mads Pedersen fancies today’s stage which would all but end the green jersey race if he could pull it off:

1. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) 357
2. Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling Team) 317
3. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) 311
4. Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) 307
5. Max Kanter (XDS Astana Team) 239
6. Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) 210
7. Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) 159
8. Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) 129
9. Milan Fretin (Cofidis) 117
10. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 107

King of the Mountains standings

There are a maximum of 12 points on offer in the polka dot parade today:

1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 42
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) 27
3. Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) 19
4. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step) 18
5. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) 18
6. Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) 17
7. Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) 16
8. Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) 16
9. Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 14
10. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) 12

Here’s how the longest stage of this year’s Tour maps out:

William Fotheringham’s stage guide

Stage 13, Friday 17 July: Dole to Belfort, 205.8km

The first of three days of climbing in north-eastern France and the longest stage of the race, with the intermediate sprint in the village of Mélisey, home to the retired French hero Thibaut Pinot. There is plenty of distance to build a lead, so you would expect a win from the breakaway by a climber who is also a superlative descender, with the first category Ballon d’Alsace – the first mountain pass to feature in the Tour in 1905 – less than 15 downhill kilometres from the finish. With a finale like this, supreme bike handler Tom Pidcock may fancy his chances.

Preamble

Strap in folks, we’re going long today. At least we might get something that resembles a breakaway today. The intermediate sprint comes with 68 of the lengthy 205km to go, so unless the sprint teams fancy trying to neutralise 130-odd kilometres of attacks something will have to give. UAE Team Emirates may decide, as they have throughout this race, to give the escapists a short leash but so long as the composition is suitable this really could be a day where there is a chance of a breakaway winner. The Ballon d’Alsace is the big beast in the road book, a category one ascent of 8.9km at 6.9%, that clearly means the winner will need to be a more than decent climber, but they’ll also need to have the nous to get down the other side. To me it looks like a Richard Carapaz kind of course and EF Education-Easypost are yet to get a stage win in this year’s Tour, but there will be a few frustrated riders in the peloton eyeing this up. Get the snacks in, settle in, this should be (we really hope) a bit of fun.