Tour de France 2024: stage 11 from Évaux-les-Bains to Le Lioran – live | Tour de France 2024

95km to go: Jeremy has got in touch with a question related to Romain Bardet:

Does anyone else feel the need to sing On a Ragga Tip by SL2 everytime Romain Bardet is mentioned??

He’s referring to this song:

The truth is, no, I wasn’t thinking about this song, but now I can’t get it out of my head. Cheers Jeremy. I suppose you did warn me …

99km to go: Team Visma-Lease a Bike have reminded their riders, over the radio, to fuel up. They need 120g of carbs in the next hour apparently. This is a good reminder for me to eat my sandwich (cheese and pickle, in case you’re interested).

In the race, the ten rider breakaway are pushing on while the peloton is being controlled by UAE-Team Emirates on the front.

103km to go: The quartet chasing the breakaway have closed the gap, so we have a group of 10 now leading the race. They have a 2min 28sec lead with as we dip under the halfway mark of the stage.

You can see the full route of stage 11 via the Strava interactive map below:

113km to go: The six-man breakaway has almost 2min on the peloton now. There’s a group of four riders (Bruno Armirail, Julien Bernard, Romain Grégoire and one I haven’t identified yet) who are chasing and are about 10sec away.

120km to go: Here are some of the latest images from the Tour today, via the newswires:

123km to go: Davide Formolo, Cort and Garcia launched a chase on the breakaway but have been caught by the peloton. The six riders out front are ascending the Côte de Larodde climb, a 3.8km climb with an average gradient of 6%.

Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), has had a bike change after a mechanical.

125km to go: The Côte de Mouilloux has taken its toll and the peloton has split into several groups. Movistar’s Oier Lazkano has bagged a climber’s point.

Lapeira, Healy, Lazkano and Oscar Onley joined Carapaz and Vercher on that climb and now this group of six has about 37 seconds on the yellow jersey group.

132km to go: The breakaway has been swallowed up but Carapaz and Vercher have counterattacked and taken a lead into the first categorised climb of the day. The Côte de Mouilloux is a 1.9km cat four climb with an average gradient of 6.3%.

135km to go: Bill has got in touch and says:

I can sympathiser with Laporte. It’s like when you find out there’s a chance to see a really great band who are playing in the pub next door but nobody wants to go as it’s going to be a long day ahead.

Today looks brutal. I think that it one of the GC contenders sniffs a bit of weakness on his rivals, they’ll be bound to get a stomp on up the final climb. However, with a rest day, and couple of flat stages, all should be raring to go. There’s sufficient talent on the top three, and enough of a will to win that one of them’s going to crack … If they do, it’ll take some thrilling heroics over the next 10 days to pull any gap back.

On the other hand, I suspect that this stage could also be targeted by some of the super domestiques to keep them happy, engaged, and happy to work for their leaders when it comes to the business end. Or, in Wout Van Aert’s case, just do it all. Options are generally good!

139km to go: It’s not looking great for Wright, he’s only just rolled through the intermediate sprint and is still a way back from the peloton.

Elsewhere, there’s been a mechanical for Felix Gall (Decathlon-Ag2r) who had to briefly stop to put his chain back on and is pushing to rejoin the peloton.

146km to go: The riders have just gone through the intermediate sprint. The only one interested was Anthony Turgis who pushed ahead from the breakaway to roll across the line first.

That front breakaway group is made up of 11 riders at the moment: Clément Russo (Groupama-FDJ), Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Axel Zingle (Cofidis), Cristian Rodriguez (Arkea-B&B Hotels), Magnus Cort (Uno-X), Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies), Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies), Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek), Paul Lapeira (Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale) and Frank van den Broek (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL).

Ion Izagirre and Alexis Renard abandon the race

152km to go: Other riders have joined Carapaz and Rodriguez. There group has grown to about 10 riders or so.

154km to go: Wright is almost 5min behind the head of the race. The gap between the peloton and the duo in the breakaway has reduced to about 8sec. It seems unlikely that Carapaz and Rodriguez will stay away as a pair, given how interested so many teams are in getting in the breakway today. But then again, perhaps some riders will manage to join them?

159km to go: Carapaz and Rodriguez have an 10sec gap but the peloton are visible behind them. EF Education-EasyPost have said on the radio: “The race is going to come hard.”

165km to go: Cofidis rider Ion Izagirre is 1min 58sec behind the peloton. On ITV4 they’re speculating that the Spanish rider is not feeling well. Fred Wright has just gone past Izagirre trying to get back to the peloton – not sure why he’s that far back.

At the front of the race, Carapaz and Rodriguez have broken away.

168km to go: While we wait for some more action from the peloton, here’s Nielson Powless’s pre-race thoughts on stage 11:

Today is going to be a very exciting day because the breakaway is going to have probably half the peloton looking to escape and it’s going to be a big fight for that. And then a big fight for the finish.”

174km to go: Christophe Laporte went on the offensive but his solo breakaway didn’t amount to much as no one followed him, so he’s back with the peloton now.

181km to go: Team TotalEnergies are on the radio, telling their riders to “follow the waves”. That’s a good way of putting it. There are still attempts at breakaways but the peloton are not ready to let any of them go. The riders have covered 30km at a pretty rapid pace (average speed of 50km/h).

186km to go: There were too many strong riders in the breakaway and the chasing group, so the peloton have reeled it in. Stand by for the next attack.

192km to go: Among the others looking keen to join the breakaway are Tom Pidcock and Ben Healy. Van Aert is with them and this second group has broken away from the peloton and is chasing the trio up ahead, who have about 15 secs on them.

The Intermarché-Wanty rider Kobe Goosens crashed on a descent and has lost a bit of skin on his hip. He’s back up and on the bike though.

199km to go: The first breakaway of the day has gone and is formed of three riders: Tobias Johansson, Kévin Vauquelin and Quentin Pacher. They have a 25sec gap on the peloton.

Wout van Aert looks a little interested at the head of the peloton. Could we see something from him today?

202km to go: Gary is the first to email in today. Congratulations Gary! There is no prize though, I’m afraid.

Gary thinks it’s going to be a defensive day for the GC contenders. He writes:

I fear a defensive day for the GC contenders (only three after the misguided insertion of the Galibier so early). Why would they attack? Nobody can win it today, but get isolated and end up mano-a-mano with a rival who has a teammate with him, and you can certainly lose it.

Feels like a strange Tour in many ways, like we’re waiting for Pog to fall off and then it can begin.

204km to go: Matt Stephens on Eurosport is saying that the road surface today is quite sapping and will “add to the fatigue of today’s stage”. They’re talking a lot about “heavy roads” on the Eurosport coverage – apparently, this is when the road surface has “bigger chippings”, or essentially, is less smooth and fast.

Who’s wearing what jersey

Also, in case you missed yesterday’s race report from stage 10, here are Jeremy Whittle’s words from Saint-Amand-Montrond:

The racing has begun!

According to the Tour de France’s NTT predictor, Pello Bilbao, Maxim Van Gils, Richard Carapaz, Enric Mas and Santiago Buitrago are the riders to watch for attacks today.

Today’s roll-out has begun

The top 10 on General Classification

Stage 11: Évaux-les Bains to Le Lioran, 211km

Tour de France race director, Christian Prudhomme, on stage 11:

There’s only one stage across the rugged Massif Central, but what a stage it is!

With 4,350 metres of vertical gain, the riders will have to be on their mettle at all times, and particularly in the final 50km, when the degree of difficulty rises a level with a series of very challenging obstacles: the climb to the Col de Néronne, then to the Puy Mary Pas de Peyrol with its fearsome final two kilometres, then continuing on to the Col de Pertus, the Col de Font de Cère and the ascent to Le Lioran.

They provide all manner of opportunities for eager climbers to attack.

Preamble.