Richie Porte goes into the first Tour de France stage in the big mountains in second overall and the Australian is looking forward to the longer climbs that suit him better than the short, steep ones in the Vosges. Both he and Geraint Thomas hope that he will be able to gain time on his podium rivals over the next two days.

Team Sky and Richie Porte ticked off another day at the Tour de France after emerging safely through stage 12.

The 185.5-kilometre test came down to a frantic bunch sprint in Saint-Etienne but the Tasmanian was brought to the head of affairs in the closing kilometres by Geraint Thomas and Bernhard Eisel to retain second place overall.

The general classification remained largely unchanged on the transition stage with Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) maintaining his advantage of two minutes and 23 seconds as the race gets set to return to the mountains on Friday.

Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) prevailed to win a scrappy bunch sprint with Peter Sagan (Cannondale) again just missing out on a stage win in second, a few inches ahead of Arnaud Demare (FDJ.fr) in a close finish.

The pace was consistently high in the bunch on a rolling and deceptively tough stage as a breakaway of five riders was chased down by the peloton.

Ready for the mountains, Porte admitted after the stage: “The last two days have been anything but easy.

“It's certainly got hot here at the Tour and it's nice to get through those stages, and tomorrow we're into the mountains. The atmosphere is always good within Team Sky. We've still got some strong guys for the climbs, obviously we've lost Xabi Zadio and Chris Froome and it does hurt being two men down, but I think we'll be fine.

“It's a big opportunity. It's not an easy two days coming up and I think it's going to be absolutely crucial in terms of the general classification, so I'm looking to take more time out of the guys behind me.”

Thomas, who moved up another place overall to 12th, admitted that heat played a factor during an energy-sapping stage.

"I don't know if I'm looking forward to the mountains," said the Welshman. "It's been two hard days - everyone talks about transition days as being easy but it's been anything but, especially with the heat - it's been tough going. We were out in the sun for five hours today and I was really feeling it, hopefully I'll get used to it though.

"Richie suits the long, consistent gradients in the Alps and hopefully it'll be a good few days for him. There's always going to be a chance for Richie to take time in the Alps, he just needs to not get drawn in to what happened the other day when everyone else sat on his wheel. He's going to get stuck in, see what he can do, and hopefully come out of the two stages in the same position if not a bit closer to Nibali. That'd be great. We can't just think about Nibali though - there's a lot of other guys close to him - so we have to play the game a bit.

"If Movistar feel like they can get something out of it, for sure they'll get stuck in again, like every team. Every day has been unpredictable so far and you can't fall asleep for a second, anything can happen. There are some tough days coming up so if someone feels good on a long, hard, hot day, there's going to be the opportunity to make up some time."