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.

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.

The 13-man leading group have 40 seconds over the other escapees and 3:40 over the pack, which is still being controlled by Team Sky. It remains to be seen if Sky recall Knees, whose pace-setting may be useful for Froome. But having both Landa and Henao up front may work in their favour - either as a yellow hedge, or to help relay Froome in the closing climbs.

We've got the first of three categorised climbs coming up. There are 17 points on offer today for the polka dot jersey, so Fabio Aru is bound to concede the spots to someone in this break. The Italian has 10pts, with Dan Martin on 8pts, Froome on 6pts and Richie Porte on 4pts.

CRASH: Bernie Eisel has a musette or feed zone-related crash, and will have to fight back on once he gets a new wheel. He's torn his big shorts - and there will be a big pressure for many riders to finish within the time limit today, such is the pace and the deficits already for those who were shelled out the pack early on.

The race has zipped through the feed zone - and it's still frantic out there. So many races within the race, making it extremely chaotic.

Right, so 13 riders have broken clear of the 46-man group: Buchmann, Pauwels, Frank, Calmejane, Bakelants, Ten Dam, Van Avermaet, Bettiol, Keukeleire, De Kort, Valgren, Schar and De Gendt. They have 30 seconds over the big break and 3:30 over the Sky-led pack.

The gap is now three minutes over the Sky-led peloton, so it loosk like they're letting it go. The dangerman in the break is Pierre Latour, who is only 1:07 down on GC, which makes the Frenchman from Ag2R-La Mondiale the virtual yellow jersey on the road. Emanuel Buchman of Bora is 1:29 down, so he's one to watch; but Sky do have a security blacnked in Mikel Landa, who is 1:47 down on his team-mate Froome on GC. Wouldn't that be a story, if the Spaniard became the third Sky rider to wear yellow in this race...

Latour, Buchmann, Landa, Talansky, Pauwels, Roche, Henao, CAruso, Frank, Chavanel, Molard, Edet, Calmejane, Brajkovic, Bakelants, Ten Dam, Kiserlovski, Barguil, Minnaard, Bouet, Gilbert, Ulissi, Impey, Castroviejo, Clarke, Mori, Van Avermaet, Gautier, Bettiol, Keukeleire, Matthews, De Kort, Quemeneur, Burghardt, Gesink, Bauer, Valgren, Lammertink, Felline, Knees, Bole, Amador, Sutterlin, Schar, Sicard, De Gendt, Lemoine, Pichon, Trentin and Kozhatayev are all in this break. Wow, that took me a LONG time to type.

CORRECTION: That six-man group actually attacked out of the main pack, not that leading group of 50-odd riders. Easy mistake to make, given just how huge the leading group is: I mean, it's practically a third of the field. They have 45 seconds on the chasers and 1:20 on the yellow jersey pack. We're going to try and bring you some names once we've got our head around the situation...

Now six riders have some how managed to edge ahead of that large group. Team Sky have come to the front of the main pack for Chris Froome, restoring a bit of order. They trail the leaders by 55 seconds. Sky have Sergio Henao in the large group of 50 riders which is ahead of the peloton and behind those six leader. Crazy race situation.

The four leaders are reeled in and now it's Cyril Gautier of Ag2R-La Mondiale who is driving the pace on the front of a group of around 40 riders, with more chasing over. Surely this won't be allowed to stay out? They have about 30 seconds to play with over the streamlined peloton.

Frank looks over his shoulder - and he sees that large chasing group, and the peloton, behind, and the four leaders sit up. They know it's going nowhere.

It's relentless today. The quartet have about 20 riders in pursuit, but the peloton is closing in fast. No favours are being given and yet again it looks like it will all come back together again. The likes of Kittel and Greipel have been dropped on that last climb - and we've still yet to hit any of the categorised climbs on the menu.

Sutterlin has been replaced by Ulissi in this leading quartet - but the pack is strung out in pursuit, with riders poised to bridge over...

It's all kicking off on the next climb - another uncategorised lump which has blown the pack apart. A large chasing group looked to be forming around Chavanel and Ulissi, with Roglic there too and Rolland joining later on. Behind the pack is strung out, while the leaders were really being pegged back - with Sutterlin the first to crack.

Lilian Calmejane is not happy with the situation and has attacked from the pack, taking Philippe Gilbert with him. Astana have a couple of riders near the front too...

The pack bunches up a little - and it looks like they may let these four riders stay out. The gap is 40 seconds as they riders pass yet another astonishing piece of field art.

Christ Froome is being very attentive here, riding very near the front alongside his lieutenants Christian Knees and Michal Kwiatkowski. The yellow jersey does not want to be caught out by an ambush by one of his rivals today - and these four leaders still only have 20 seconds to play with.

The four riders out ahead are Burghardt (Bora-Hanshrohe), Mathias Frank (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis) and Jasha Sutterlin (Movistar). The gap is 15 seconds.

The pack came back together before four riders pinged clear. As the gap opens up, numerous riders try to bridge over - which could spell the death of it.

Confirmation that it was Matthews who took second place in the intermediate sprint ahead of Kittel and behind Greipel, the winner. There was no sign of Demare, who was dropped on the climb - and has only just passed through the sprint, 3:20 down. It's going to be a long day for some of the riders already distanced by the pack.