12 riders in the lead… including Marcel Kittel
179 riders started stage 12 in Pau. After several skirmishes, Cyril Gautier (AG2R-La Mondiale), Imañol Erviti (Movistar), Koen De Kort (Trek-Segafredo), Stefan Küng (BMC), Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates), Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data), Marcel Kittel and Jack Bauer (Quick-Step Floors), Nils Politt (Katusha-Alpecin), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Michael Matthews (Sunweb) and Julien Simon (Cofidis) formed a 12-man after 15km of racing. Matthews preceded Kittel on the line of the intermediate sprint at Loures-Barousse (km 94) where the peloton led by Team Sky under the rain was timed 5.45 behind.
Stephen Cummings alone at Port de Balès
Kittel was the first rider dropped from the front group but only in the ascent to col de Menté with 84km to go while the peloton led by Team Sky was timed 6.20 behind. Maxime Bouet and Brice Feillu (Fortuneo-Oscaro) rode away from the bunch before the ascent to Port de Balès with just over 40km to go. The time difference was reduced by Team Sky to 4 minutes. 5.5km before the top of the only Hors-Category climb of the day, De Gendt attacked, soon rejoined by Cummings who went solo 3km away from the summit.
Froome and Aru off road at the bottom of Peyresourde
As Team Sky didn't give everything to catch Cummings, the British rider started climbing to col de Peyresourde with a two-minute lead. Following Mikel Nieve in the last curve before the hill, Chris Froome followed Mikel Nieve who went off road in a caravan park. Fabio Aru (Astana) also had to stop. They didn't crash and the chasing group was quickly reunited before Nairo Quintana (Movistar) was the first of the favourites to lose contact. It was game over for Cummings 3km before the top of Peyresourde while eleven riders composed the yellow jersey group: Froome, Nieve and Mikel Landa (Sky), Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale), Fabio Aru (Astana), Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo), Rigoberto Uran (Cannondale-Drapac), George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), Dan Martin (Quick-Step), Louis Meintjes (UAE) and Simon Yates (Orica-Scott). Contador was dropped in the last kilometer of the climb.
Bardet rushes to victory
Team Sky kept the race under control until the super steep final stretch. But Froome cracked as Aru gave it all in the hardest part of the climb to Peyragudes. Bardet passed the Italian champion to win a Tour de France stage like in 2015 at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and in 2016 at St-Gervais-Mont-Blanc. Third on the line, Aru kept enough lead over Froome to take the yellow jersey over from the Brit ahead of the short but brutal second Pyrenean stage. It's the first time Froome loses the yellow jersey in the mountains since he first took it in 2013.
