Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 19 of the Tour de France - a rolling 222.5km stage from Embrun to Salon-de-Provence, the longest of the 104th edition of the race.

14 of the 22 teams are represented in this break, with notable absentees being BMC (who tried to get Greg van Avermaet into an earlier move) and Cannondale-Drapac (for whom Pierre Rolland and Dylan Van Baarle were in that earlier, initial break). Direct Energie have three (Calmejane, Chavanel and Sicard) as do Fortuneo-Oscaro (Gesbert, Hardy and Perichon), while Orica (Albasini and Keukeleire) and Lotto Soudal (De Gendt and Gallopin) have two.

Another withdrawal to report - the second of the day: Timo Roosen of LottoNL-Jumbo has called it a day - and he must be badly ill because you don't just throw in the serviette so close to Paris. That means we have 167 riders left in the race.

Yesterday it was Colombia Day and today it's Belgium's national day. With three decent Belgian riders in the break - Bakelants, Keukeleire and De Gendt - perhaps we will see the French neighbours emulating Warren Barguil's exploits on Bastille Day in Foix.

Puncture for Ben Swift of UAE Team Emirates, who will have to fight back to rejoin the break. The British rider will be a good bet to win the sprint should this break stay out all the way to Salon-de-Provence.

After a short descent the riders are going uphill once again - it's a longer slog than the last climb, but uncategorised. As the race passes through the picturesque hamlet of Gigors, the gap is up to 5:40. None of the escapees are a threat on GC - the best placed rider is, indeed, Bauke Mollema, the Dutch stage 15 winner who is 47 minutes down on Froome.

Bahrain Merida have had a rotten race - and they've lost another rider this morning, with Czech Ondrej Cink calling it a day before the first climb.

It's an intriguing group, this. We have some decent sprinters here in Swift, Boasson Hagen, Keukeleire, Arndt and Bennati; there are some excellent rouleur breakaway specialists in De Gendt, Gallopin, Calmejane, Chavanel and Bakelants; some decent climbers who could look to take advantage of the Col de Pointu 50km from the finish - the likes of Albasini, Mollema, Brambilla, Kiserlovski, De Gendt (again), Calmejane (again) and Chavanel (again!).

One of the Fortuneo-Oscaro riders - Hardy, I think - edges ahead take the 2pts over the top of the climb before boshing an energy gel. The gap is up to 4:30 for the escapees now. Happy days.

The 20 escapees are (courtesy of letour.fr): Jan Bakelants (AG2R-La Mondiale), Daniele Bennati (Movistar), Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Ben Swift (UAE), Rudy Molard (FDJ), Michael Albasini and Jens Keukeleire (Orica), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data), Gianluca Brambilla (Quick Step), Robert Kiserlovski (Katusha), Thomas De Gendt and Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal), Nikias Arndt (Sunweb), Julien Simon (Cofidis), Lilian Calmejane, Sylvain Chavanel and Romain Sicard (Direct Energie), Elie Gesbert, Romain Hardy and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Oscaro).

The break is onto the second of today's climbs, the Cat.3 Cote de Breziers (2.3km at 5.8%). The gap is growing so it looks like this break will stay out for quite some time - perhaps even all the way to the finish...

Now this is interesting... we have a high-profile group off the front of the peloton now, and Sky seemed to have given it their blessing as the gap stretches to 1:15. The likes of Mollema, Gallopin, Chavanel, Calmejane, De Gendt, Boasson Hagen, Swift and Bakelants are all here in this collection of 20 riders.

Two Frenchman have a small gap of 10 seconds over the peloton on this hairpinned descent: Lilian Calmejane (Direct Energie) and Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Oscaro).

Seeing that Nostradamus spent his last days in Salon-de-Provence, here’s a prediction for you: despite counter attacks coming on the Col du Pointu some 50km from the finish, the race will come back together for a bunch sprint for the finish. But watch Alexey Lutsenko of Astana: the Kazakh defied the peloton to win a stage here in Paris-Nice last year.

Today's stage finish is held in Salon-de-Provence, which makes a first appearance in the Grande Boucle. You know the Red Arrows-style fighter jets which fly over Paris emitting a trail of red, white and blue smoke on the final day of the Tour? Well, the famous Alpha Jets of the Patrouille de France are based in a large airbase near Salon-de-Provence in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France. Salon-de-Provence (population 44,270) gets its name not from its high-society reception rooms but its location on the salt trade routes between the Adriatic, Atlantic and Mediterranean (salé means salted).

French duo Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac) and Romain Sicard (Direct Energie) pass over the summit with a Fortuneo-Oscaro rider (perhaps Maxime Bouet, making it a French trio) with a very small gap over the peloton. This will have no bearing on the polka dot jersey competition, which has already been wrapped up by yesterday's stage winner, Warren Barguil, who has 169pts - more than double the 80pts of his nearest challenger, Primoz Roglic. Today's climbs offer a combined today of 6pts - so it's lockdown there.

About half a dozen riders off the front now, including Roman Kreuziger (Orica-Scott), Gianluca Brambilla (Quick-Step Floors), De Gendt and Rolland.

Now Brice Feillu rides over to the break - which annoys his team-mate Bouet. And it's all back together again, with Betancur on the front. There's still 2km of this climb to go so we'll see more attacks, surely...

A Bora-Hansgrohe rider attacks from the pack - which is odd, seeing that there's another Bora rider (Burghardt) in the break. That leads to a flurry of activity behind. And indeed, Burghardt is dropped, which explains things. Petit has already been dropped - replaced by Movistar's Carlos Betancur. But the gaps are all very small and so there's going to be another reshuffle.

The eight leaders have a gap of 30 seconds as they edge onto the Cat.3 Col Lebraut (4.7km at 6%) which has a section that hits 10%.

Yet more splendid views today... and tomorrow we're off to Marseille, which shouldn't be to shabby either!

Julien Vermote (Quick-Step Floors), Marcus Burghardt (Bora-Hansgrohe), Pierre Rolland and Dylan Van Baarle (Cannondale-Drapac) and Maxime Bouet (Fortuneo-Oscaro) bridge over so we have eight riders ahead now.