Hello and welcome to live coverage of Stage 5 of the Tour de France - a 160.5km ride from Vittel to La Planche des Belles Filles. It's the first mountaintop finish of the Tour as the race enters the Vosges mountains for what should be an explosive finale and what was - frankly - a pretty uneventful finale yesterday in Vittel...

Perichon has joined the two chasers, but there's no sign of Van Baarle. Team Sky have now come to the front of the peloton to set a fierce tempo ahead of the final climb - and that's Van Baarle swallowed up by the men in white.

Voeckler and Boasson Hagen have joined forces in chasing down the two Belgians on the front of the race - the gap is 18 seconds.

So, we have two Belgians out ahead: Gilbert and Bakelants. They crest the summit of this hill and now have the descent to the foot of the final climb. The gap is down to 1:25 for the two leaders back to the streamlined peloton, which has been whittled down thanks to the pace-setting of BMC.

ATTACK: Philippe Gilbert jumps clear from his fellow escapees on this pre-final climb hill. Bakelants can follow the birthday boy, Voeckler does his best, but the others have no answer.

Trek-Segafredo have gathered near the front, too, for their man Alberto Contador. The Spaniard looked troubled on the punchy finish to Longwy on Monday, so he'll be hoping for a psychological boost on today's first mountaintop finish. Contrary to our icon, Trek are sporting a special white kit not entirely dissimilar to Sky's limited edition Tour white kit.

And that's it for most of the sprinters: the likes of Demare and Kristoff have already been dropped from the pack, as has Greipel - and the man who rode for 190km out ahead of the peloton yesterday, Guillaume van Keirsbulck. The gap is down to two minutes now.

BMC still set the tempo but Astana have moved forward to help in the chase. The Kazakh team have two cards to play today in Fabio Aru and Jakob Fuglsang. The leading six-man break are now tackling that hill before the final climb.

Having earlier been in the break, Thomas De Gendt is now rooted to the back of the peloton. Clearly not enjoying a good day in the saddle, is the Lotto Soudal Belgian. The gap is down to 2:30.

We're well onto this fast descent now with the gap still around the 2:40 mark for the six leaders. Thomas Vockler has just empties the contents of his bidon all over his face in a bid to cool down - it's a sunny day in the Vosges. The experienced Frenchman drops back to his team car to speak to his DS and pick up a sticky gel (or should that be a sticky sticky gel?).

Of course, Thibault Pinot is very much the local rider today: the final climb in the Vosges is just a few kilometres away from where he lives and was brought up. The Frenchman rode the Giro in May, finishing fourth. He's not here for GC and so may have the freedom to attack on the climbs. Apparently he's ruled himself out of making a move today, but we'll believe that when we see it. PInot finished behind Nibali for second place here in 2014.

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) has been caught by the peloton, which is still being controlled by the BMC team-mates of yellow jersey candidate Richie Porte and Olympic champion Greg van Avermaet. Meanwhile, Bakelants has been caught by his pursuers, so we have a six-man break with a 2:30 gap ahead of this descent.

Jan Bakelants made headlines for the wrong reasons ahead of the Tour thanks to an interview he gave with the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. Asked - in a humorous interview - about going three weeks on the Tour without sex, he said: "It’s not too difficult with those porn films, and there are always those podium girls." When then asked would pack with him for his free moments during the Tour, the former stage winner and wearer of the yellow jersey joked: "A packet of condoms, for sure. You never know where those podium [hostesses] hang out." The 31-year-old Belgian later apologised on Twitter.

Boasson Hagen, Gilbert, Vocekler, Van Baarle and Perichon ride in a chasing group of five behind lone leader Bakelants; De Gendt is behind and Delage, the last of the initial eight-man break, has been caught. That's your race scenario as the road continues up on a false flat on a plateau ahead of a fast descent to the town of Servance. Bakelants' gap over the peloton is 2:45.

Mikel Delage of FDJ is the first of the break to be caught by the pack - just as they crest the summit of the climb. Delage has a large bandage of his left knee - he went down heavily yesterday, I think, or in that crash on the roundabout which gave Froome and Bardet a scare on Sunday.

Bakelants goes over the summit in pole position to pick up 2pts, which puts him in joint second place in the KOM standings. He has about 15 seconds over the break, which is led over by Perichon. The gap back from the Belgian Bakelants to the BMC-led peloton is around 2:25.

If De Gendt is off the back, then Bakelants is out ahead: the Ag2R-La Mondiale rider attacked early on this climb and has opened up a gap. It's Voeckler who leads the chase from the break.

Thomas De Gendt has already been dropped by the leaders. This happened a couple of days ago when the Belgian was in the break and the road headed uphill. He clearly doesn't have the same climbing legs as he did in days past on the Stelvio and Ventoux.

Right, time for some climbing. The riders have just edged onto the first categorised climb of the day, the Cat.3 Cote d'Esmoulieres, which precedes another hill ahead of the final Cat.1 climb to the finish. The gap is under two minutes now.

When the peloton comes to the sprint it's Matthews who beats Kittel and Kristoff, with Demare coming another place back after one of Kristoff's Katusha team-mates. It won't have much bearing on the green jersey competition, but every little helps - especially in a stage with an uphill finish.

The escapees put on a good show at the sprint with Boasson Hagen rounding De Gendt to take maximum points ahead of Gilbert, with De Gendt settling for third.

We have the intermediate sprint coming up shortly - and while these eight escapees will pick up the lion's share of the green jersey points, there will be 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 points available for the other sprinters when the peloton comes along...