Four riders in the lead
187 riders started stage 14 in Montélimar. The peloton observed a minute of silence as the riders were reunited for the first time since the Bastille Day tragedy in Nice the day after the first individual time trial in the Ardèche. With the head wind in the Rhône valley, the riders also took a slow start with no attack until Jérémy Roy (FDJ) went clear off the peloton at km 28.5. Alex Howes (Cannondale-Drapac), Martin Elmiger (IAM Cycling) and Cesare Benedetti (Bora-Argon 18) joined him to form a leading quartet that was allowed a maximum advantage of 4.45 after 50km of racing by the teams of the sprinters, namely Dimension Data, Lotto-Soudal and Etixx-Quick Step.
Fourth winning sprint for Cavendish
Two riders were forced to pull out during stage 14: Mathias Frank (IAM Cycling) who was sick with gastro-enteritis and Matti Breschel (Cannondale-Drapac) who crashed while making his back to the peloton in the convoy. In the last 50km, the peloton kept the 4-man leading group in sight. Howes was the first of them to give up with 13km to go. Elmiger accelerated with 9km to go when the deficit of the bunch was 30 seconds. Only Roy was able to follow him. They got reeled in with 3.5km to go. Etixx-Quick took the command of the peloton with 2km to go but Mark Cavendish passed Marcel Kittel right on time to claim one more significant victory.
