Tour de Farce: Bastille Day Groundhog Day on the Tour

And the Kenyan-born Brit wonders why swathes of French fans and the French media have struggled to take to him...

Well, maybe if he were to stop rubbing it in their faces every year on their biggest national holiday the relationship between your average Jean-Claude and Messieur Froome would not be so strained.

To think that the 14th July started so bullishly for the host nation with FDJ proudly announcing that their man Thibault Pinot had overcome a chest infection and knee injury while team manager Marc Madiot belted out the Marseillaise near the hotel foyer.

The Tour’s official website was clearly getting excited about the prospect of a home winner on Bastille Day – and they clearly had a certain Tour debutant in mind...

So it was an almighty shame when the Warren Barguil got his musette caught in his spokes and hit the deck with some alacrity in the feedzone...

It didn’t look good for the Vuelta double stage winner from 2013 – although he eventually hobbled back onto his bike and continued on his way, some three minutes adrift of the peloton.

French fans were concerned – because the Giant-Alpecin climber was one of their best bets for the victory at La Pierre-Saint-Martin, despite the continued presence of 36-year-old veteran Pierrick Fedrigo in the break.

By attacking early on, ‘The Nose of Marmande’ clearly sniffed an opportunity to be the first French rider in a decade to win on Bastille Day.

But Sky were having none of it. Along with Movistar, the British team made light of the two escapees’ 13-minute advantage to reel them in near the start of the final climb on the Col du Soudet.

Not content with scuppering Fedrigo’s chances of a fifth Tour stage win, Froome’s team picked off the French riders one by one – relegating Pinot, Romain Bardet and Jean-Christophe Peraud to the realms of also-rans with the climb barely in its infancy.

Pierre Rolland and Tony Gallopin were the only Frenchman left – but neither of them had any chance once Froome lay down one of his devastating seated spinning surges that recalled his last epic Bastille Day victory over the likes of Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador – on Mont Ventoux in 2013.

Ironically enough, this was the video doing the rounds on social media during the rest day, overlaid with Froome’s hacked power date.

When Sky soared to a Froome-Porte one-two that mirrored their opening mountain gambit at Ax 3 Domaines in the 2013 Tour, the Twittersphere inevitably went into overdrive. Oddly enough, it was Lance Armstrong who emerged the measured voice of reason.

The seven-time Tour asterisk followed this up with another word of warning in a bid to assure his millions of followers that the 2015 Tour was not over – even if the Big Four had been reduced to a Spindly One in a flurry of elbows and knees to rival any Bavarian barbecue.

Wise words. After all, two years ago Richie Porte popped on the subsequent stage on a day Froome’s yellow jersey credentials were taken to the very limit by Movistar after the Sky rider was isolated en route to Bagneres-de-Bigorre.

Such was Froome’s swashbuckling rampancy on the final climb on Tuesday that local French fans even dressed up as Americans and tried to stop their nemesis getting to the top.

But in the end it was Froome, Sky and the wrong version of red, white and blue - Great Britain - who had the last laugh: three Sky riders in the top six, and seven Brits in the top seven - surely unprecedented in a Tour mountain stage?

When the dust settled, France were left with just two riders in the top ten in Gallopin and Barguil. With Froome holding a lead of more than three minutes over Quintana, it seems the battle for the yellow jersey is all but won before the halfway point of the race.

Indeed – because the Gorilla, swinging from the Madiran vines, did enough in the intermediate sprint to move back ahead of Peter Sagan in the points competition. This heralded another first – Andre Greipel topping a podium over 1,600m above sea level.

At least the green jersey will give fans - French or otherwise - a two-horse race to get excited about...

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In a nutshell: Fearsome back-to-back climbs of the legendary Col d'Aspin and Tourmalet will do the damage ahead of a far gentler finish in Cauterets.

History: Synonymous with rest days and doping scandals, Pau hosts its 55th stage start in the Tour and its 66th appearance on the race. Last year, the riders rode from Pau to Hautacam in a stage won by Vincenzo Nibali. This year its a more sedate final climb to nearby Cauterets, which is being used as a finish town for only the second time - the first being way back in 1953.

Believe it or not: The last four riders to cross the summit of the Tourmalet in pole position were French (Christophe Moreau 2010, Jeremy Roy 2010, Thomas Voeckler 2012, Blel Kadri 2014).

Did you know: Introduced into the race in 1910, the Tourmalet has been more than any other climb in the Tour and prompted Octave Lapize's famous "Vous etes des assassins!" line towards onlooking Tour officials when he became the first man in the race's history to cross the summit.

Look out for: The usual peloton of pilgrims queuing up outside the cathedral at Lourdes, which the riders will pass by after 35km.

Plat du Jour: Go goose and duck crazy with some foie gras pate followed by a melt-in-the-mouth confit de canard that flakes off the bone in a manner that would make even the most stringent of vegetarians question their beliefs.

Tour tipple: Produced in the foothills of the Pyrenees around Pau, Jurançon white wine is renowned for its sweetness. When, in 1953, the future king Henri IV was baptised with a drop of Jurançon, the golden wine was hailed as the "wine of the King and the king of wines".