The Tour de France heads into its third consecutive day in the high mountains as the Stage 12 goes from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Annonay Davezieux.
The 226 km stage features two Category 1 climbs to start the day and a Category 3 climb to finish the day.
The riders will first face the Category 1 Col du Grand Cucheron to begin the stage which summits with 192 km to go.
The Category 1 Col du Granier is next and summits at 145.5 km to go.
Riders will likely attack on the Cucheron and the Granier in order to get into the breakaway. The breakaway will need to be a sizable group to succeed on the day since a long descent and flat face the riders following the Granier.
Intermediate sprint points will be available at the 73 km to go mark.
The base of the Category 3 Cote d Ardoix begins with about 26 km to go and the climb summits at 18.5 km to go.
The final 18.5 km will be a flat push to the finish and includes a sudden, sharp climb to the line at the end.
Today's stage will unlikely see any major changes in the GC standings. Bradley Wiggins' Team Sky will not let major GC contenders like Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas), Cadel Evans (BMC), and Jurgen Van Den Broek (Lotto) get into the break.
However, riders a bit farther down in the standings like Frank Schleck (RadioShack) or Nicolas Roche (Ag2r) may be given the leeway to get into break and could get back time in an attempt to get into the top 5 of the GC.
Look for Peter Sagan (Liquigas) to also try to get into today's breakaway. Sagan will want to get the intermediate sprint points, and could very easily survivor the final Category 3 climb. If so, the final sharp climb to the finish line, is perfect for another Sagan win.
*** Stage 12 has ended, please click here for the latest live coverage of the Tour de France: /world-others/
