Tour de France Stage 11: Peter Sagan wins as Chris Froome extends lead (+ videos)

Crosswinds blew the Tour de France apart on today's Stage 12 to Montpellier, and Team Sky's Chris Froome was the big winner as he finished second and took 12 seconds from his closest rivals for the overall win. The victory today went to Peter Sagan of Tinkoff, who already has what seems an unassailable lead in the point competition.

The pair had used crosswinds to get away with a team mate each - Geraint Thomas in Froome's case, and Maciej Bodnar supporting Sagan - with 12km to go.

At one point the quartet had a lead of more than 20 seconds on the run-in to Montpellier as rivals panicked behind them, evidently caught by surprise and unable to organise the chase until it was too late.

Thomas did a big turn inside the final kilometre as Froome - improbably - went for a head to head sprint with the world champion, the race leader finishing second as Bodnar made it a Tinkoff one and three.

Afterwards, Froome said: "I was asking myself in the last 10 kilometers: is it worth it?

"At the moment, I try to get time on my adversaries anywhere, knowing that Nairo [Quintana] is usually very strong in the last week. So whenever I manage to take seconds on him, I will.

"For the time being, I'm just enjoying my racing. To be in the yellow jersey is a dream scenario. It's bike racing at its best. I attack downhill and on the flat just because I enjoy it, I'm not forced to it because of the pressure.

"As a team, we ride very well together. Today, the guys positioned me at perfection, that's how I could go after Sagan."

Stage winner Sagan said: "When we rode away with Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, we had no breath to talk. All we could say was ‘go, go, go'. We started to go, then we worked together.

"It was impressive also for me. It just happened. It wasn't planned at all. Yellow jersey and green jersey at the front, it's unbelievable how the breakaway was formed. It was a crazy day with wind and crashes.

"It was a very nice change that people were working with me, usually nobody does. I thanked Froome after the finish. Despite the big finish there'll be for him tomorrow, he made a big effort today.

"I would have liked to let Bodnar win the stage but Froome wanted to take a maximum of seconds so I to go for the stage win because that's what we had worked for.

"Today we're not actors, we're artists! I hope people have fun watching me racing, while I was just suffering doing that,” he added.

It was a nervous peloton that began the 162.5km stage from Carcassonne, with strong winds forecast, and Team Sky signalled their intention to profit from them by controlling the race from the front.

The two men in the day's break, French champion Arthur Vichot of FDJ and Leigh Howard of IAM Cycling were kept on a tight leash, and behind them in the main bunch, the wind caused several riders to crash.

They were caught with 60km to go as the peloton kept up a relentless pace, breaking into echelons then reforming on several occasions, and entering the final 20km the bunch was all back together.

It looked at that point that the day might end with the predicted sprint until Sagan and Froome made their decisive move.

Even had it come down to a bunch finish, it would have been missing Mark Cavendish, who had a mechanical problem late on.

Here's today's onboard footage - watch out for Tinkoff's Rafal Majka going over his bars when he hits a speed bump.