12:40am - Haussler goes clear! He has flown down the descent and dropped his breakaway companion Chavanel. He now leads the stage alone by a minute with the peleton a further 5 minutes back. This could be a glorious victory for Australia (sort of). I think he is going to do it and hold on for the win!
12:23am - The peleton have backed off again on the plateu and the descent. The escape's lead is now back up to 4:10 with 41km to go. Brice Feillu and serial breakaway pest Amets Txurrika have made an attempt to close the gap but are floating 3:30 behind the two leaders. Egoi Martinez has got back to the main group in the hope of defending his KOM journey.
12:04am - And Saxo and Astana blow the peleton apart on the big climb! They have dropped all but the strongest. All of the major GC men have made the selection but Egoi Martinez, the polka-dot jersey wearer was dropped near the summit. This might give Franco Pellizotti the chance to steal the jersey today. The burst has seen only Haussler and Chavanel left in front, 2:50 ahead with 58km to go.
11:41pm - Onto the major cat-1 climb of the day and suprisingly Ruben Perez has been cracked from the break leaving Haussler and Chavanel alone in front. They are around 5 minutes ahead of Gerderman, 6:45 ahead of Kern (another lunatic trying to make the gap via a solo cross) and 7 minutes ahead of the peleton.
11:25pm - The peleton have backed off the chase along the valley it seems with the breakaways lead back out to near 7 minutes. However, Linus Gerderman bombed the descent and is manically trying to make his way across the gap to the trio of leaders. He is currently 5 minutes 40 behind them - good luck and closing that gap down!
11:09pm - The escapists really crawled up the cat-2 Col de la Schucht there. As a result the peleton has reduced the gap to just under 6 minutes. At the top of the col Egoi Martinez snared 4th from Franco Pellizotti to increase his lead in the KOM competition by an extra point.
10:45pm - We have a break of three out in front today. And it includes pseudo-Aussie Heinrich Haussler. The other members are Ruben Perez and Sylvain Chavanel. The triumvirate are currently around 9 minutes ahead of the peleton who are rolling on in terrible weather conditions. Very cold and wet in France today.
10:38pm - And the big news of the day is that the crash late in yesterday's stage was worse than initially thought. In fact Levi Leipheimer has a broken wrist and failed to take his place at the start today. He is out of the race! That should pent a dent into the seemingly indestructable Astana team.
10pm - Hello and welcome to live coverage of Stage 13, a 200km trek from Vittel to Colmar.
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