Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 12 of the Tour de France as the race hits the Pyrenees with this gruelling 214.5km ride from Pau to Peyragudes, culminating with the second of three mountain-top finishes in this year's race.

The Sky train sweeps past Cummings. It's all over for our last escapee - despite a valiant effort.

Only 32 seconds now for Cummings, who won't win his stage today.

After an absolutely titanic effort, Kwiatkowski is now sinking with no trace - the Pole has hit the wall after his pacing for Froome, handing over the baton to Landa and Nieve. Even without Geraint Thomas, Sky are such a formidable force.

It's still touch-and-go here with Cummings still 5km from the summit with a 1:25 gap. The problem is that once the attacks come from behind, the Dimension Data rider will struggle to maintain that gap and stay out ahead.

Who else is in this main pack? Besides those Sky riders, there's Contador, Bardet, Martin, Uran, Meintjes, Yates, Aru and Bennett.

Nairo Quintana has been dropped! With Froome riding on the front with Landa, Kwiatkowski and Nieve (who was the rider who led his leader off the road earlier), Quintana can't keep up with the tempo in this group of favourites. Warren Barguil has also been dropped.

The upshot of that is that Steve Cummings now has a much bigger chance at staying out and winning this one. He still has two minutes to play with...

The group of favourites sit up and wait for Aru and Froome who, once they've sorted out their gearing, get back ok. But that was a heart-in-mouth moment.

CRASH: FROOME AND ARU RIDE OFF THE ROAD! They don't go down, but they miscalculated the roundabout at the start of the climb and rode into a grass verge alongside specators. It looks like Froome was following the wheel of one of his team-mates - Landa, Kwiatkowski or Nieve - who themselves had to ride between two caravans rather than hit the deck at speed.

Cummings has managed to open up his gap back to two minutes, so he may yet pull this one off yet... as he swings onto the Cat.1 Col de Peyresourd (9.7km at 7.8%).

We're hearing that Jakob Fuglsang is riding six minutes down from the other GC favourites. The Dane fractured two bones yesterday - in his wrist and elbow - and is clearly suffering today. The Astana rider will drop out of the top five - probably at the expense of Dan Martin.

Cummings breaks through the clouds and into the sunshine... ah, we were promised it would come - and here it is!

Here was that crash by Gautier...

Just De Gendt and Cummings out ahead now, and the Briton has 1:30 to play with ahead of the Col de Peyresourd - so it won't be enough, unfortunately.

No news on Gautier yet, but Barguil is about to be caught by the pack as Kwiatkowski sets a strong tempo for Sky on this descent.

CRASH: Gautier makes a right hash of one of the corners and is forced to bunny-hop onto a rocky slope on the side of the road to avoid hitting the curb. A photographer was right there so he'll get some interesting shots of that fall.

This is a big descent for Cummings, who will need to maintain as big an advantage as possible if he wants any chance of winning today.

Barguil is pushing on as the summit approaches. Cummings has gone over the top in pole position to pocket 20pts. De Gendt kicks clear of Gautier to take second place and 15pts, with the Frenchman taking 12pts. Barguil move was a good one - he crests the summit for fourth place just behind Gautier and takes 10pts for his troubles. So he's up to 70pts in the KOM standings and consolidates his lead.

Simon and De Kort are the latest of the escapees to be caught by this Sky-led pack. They trail Cummings by 2:05 who is approaching the summit of this misty climb.

Froome still has Kwiatkowski, Nieve and Landa. Sky are in control of this and their tempo is such that no one can put in any meaningful attack - as we just saw with Contador and Barguil.

Barguil, Bertie and Brice are reeled in by this select pack of favourites - we only have about 20 riders here now. Cummings is 2:15 ahead of them. Gautier has De Gendt in his sights.