Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 4 of the Tour de France - a 207.5km ride from Mondorf-les-Bains in Luxembourg to Vittel in France, via one Cat.4 climb and, probably, a bunch sprint finale.

Team Sky are keeping near the front to stay out of trouble, with yellow jersey Thomas in third wheel. Cofidis and Dimension Data have formed their trains on the other side of the road, while Katusha have just powered through the middle.

There's a fair bit of arguing going on at the moment with an Astana rider - Grivko or Zeits - gesticulating wildly with riders from Movistar and Dimension Data. I think it was about the wind and hogging certain parts of the road, but there's clearly a bit of beef going on out there.

He was on the front, now he's on the back: van Keirsbulck is struggling to keep in touch with the peloton after his mammoth break.

British national champion Steve Cummings makes a rare cameo on the front of the peloton to help pave the way for Dimension Data team-mate Mark Cavendish. The road is wide, the pace is high, the sprint trains are forming.

Out since kilometre zero, Guillaume van Keirsbulck (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) is caught by the peloton after riding solo for 190.8km. Chapeau.

Talking of Cavendish, Dimension Data have thrown a man on the front alongside Katusha and Cofidis - to fight for the right to sprint at the end. It's almost over for our valiant escapee, who has the peloton closing in. He finished 22nd in the final sprint on Sunday; no chances he'll repeat that today.

Today will be the fourth stage finish in the Tour's history. Previous winners are: France's Charly Grosskost in the 1968 prologue, Dutchman Jelle Nijdam in stage 6 in 1990, and the Dane Nicki Sorensen in stage 12 in 2009. Sorensen's win came after he attacked from a six-man break during a Tour in which Mark Cavendish won six stages. Eight years on, can the Manxman get on the score sheet in Vittel, so to speak?

Just the minute now for the lone leader, a former Quick-Step rider who would love nothing more than deny former team-mate Marcel Kittel, the green jersey, that chance of doubling his stage tally. But he'll know - and will have known from the moment he attacked some 185km ago - that he has next to no chance of causing an upset today.

Breakaway killers Julien Vermote (Quick-Step Floors) and Tiago Machago (Katusha-Alpecin) lead the chase on the front of the peloton. It won't be long now: van Keirsbulck has 1:15.

Over the top of the climb goes the pack, trailing van Keirsbulck from 1:30. The Belgian moves into joint fifth place in the KOM standings - on one solitary point - so that's confirmation that Brown will stay in the dots for another day. Things should change tomorrow, mind: stage 5 features a Cat.3 climb ahead of the final Cat.1 ascent of La Planche des Belles Filles - so whoever wins the stage will also take the polka dot jersey, in all likelihood.

We're onto the only categorised climb of the day, the Cat.4 Col des Trois Fontaines, which is a bit of a dead rubber, really. Van Keirsbulck will take the solitary point over the top and it will have no bearing on the KOM standings, with Nate Brown staying in the polka dot jersey for a second day for Cannondale-Drapac.

Lotto Soudal, Cofidis, Katusha and Quick-Step Floors all have men on the front of the pack now helping to prepare the way for their sprinters Greipel, Bouhanni, Kristoff and Kittel. Bora-Hansgrohe (Sagan), Dimension Data (Cavendish) and FDJ (Demare) are not showing their hands for the moment.

Arnaud Demare holds on for second place in the intermediate sprint ahead of Peter Sagan, Andre Greipel, Marcel Kittel and Michael Matthews. They went through the sprint 2:15 down on van Keirsbulck. Those 17 points for second put Demare just one point behind Kittel in the green jersey standings.

Guillaume van Keirsbulck wins - uncontested - the intermediate sprint at Goviller, which he passes through with an advantage of three minutes over the pack, who are now readying themselves for the sprint.

Team Sky's Christian Knees loads up with water bottles back in the peloton. Van Keirsbulck has not notched over 150km out in front of the race on his own. He would have had a lot of time to do some thinking.

The intermediate sprint is coming up, and while Guillaume van Kiersbulck won't care one jot, we will see some action from the sprinters in the pack: in a bid to stretch their legs ahead of the finish, but more importantly for green jersey points. The gap is 3:35 for the Belgian.

The sprint on Sunday in Liege was very much a showdown of the peloton's fast men, what with a top ten in this order of: Kittel, Demare, Greipel, Cavendish, Groenewegen, Colbrelli, Swift, Bouhanni, Matthews and Sagan. Missing in that list were John Degenkolb, Dan McLay and Alexander Kristoff. Expect that baker's dozen of sprinters to be in the mix again today at Vittel. Sagan made up for his disappointment with a victory yesterday, so he'll be buoyant, but he's not a pure sprinter, so it's tough to call. The finish is slightly uphill and so the world champion may have another sniff... but watch out for the inform Demare and that man Cavendish.

It's been a long day. Just imagine a very long series of these very long, straight, flat roads. Our lone leader - out since the outset - has 4:35 over the pack.

On Bardet, it worth adding that he had his annual hair cut this morning at the Tour village in Mondorf-les-Bains.

There's no way the peloton will let our Belgian solo rider be caught just yet - it would throw a curveball up and open the possibility of a counter attack from someone with fresher legs ahead of the finish. So expect to see the backside of Van Keirsbulck for a bit longer before he's reeled in. Meanwhile, back with the peloton and there's a go-slow as the yellow jersey drops back to visit the Team Sky car. Romain Bardet also dropped back to his Ag2R-La Mondiale car and is now being paced back by a handful of team-mates.

Two things are certain: 1. Van Keirsbulck won't stay out ahead of the peloton today, and 2. He will, at least, find consolation in winning the day's combativity prize - and so will wear a red number tag tomorrow. His gap now dips below five minutes.