Stage 12 | Pau / Peyragudes | Tour de France 2017

Stage 12 of the Tour de France from Pau to Peyragudes was slow to get going but after Team Sky dominated all day in the Pyrenees, riding strongly in support of Chris Froome, their leader faltered when it really mattered on the steep final ramp to the line.

All the day’s drama was packed into 800 metres of slow-motion sprinting against the gradient, with Romain Bardet winning the stage and Fabio Aru taking the yellow jersey from Froome by a handful of seconds. As Froome himself said, now the race is really on.

In this episode of The Cycling Podcast, Richard Moore, Lionel Birnie and François Thomazeau try to read into Froome’s rare moment of weakness and weigh up whether this offers hope to his rivals in the second half of the Tour.

And we ask how Astana will approach the race now they have the yellow jersey. Plus there’s discussion about the great French hope for a first Tour winner in more than 30 years, Bardet.

The Cycling Podcast is supported by Rapha and Science in Sport.