Programming note: A few people have wondered how to access premium posts in the archive. Well now there's a link you can click! I'll be sure to include this in the preamble going forward.

Business note: I'm proud to report that Publication to Be Named Later, the independent sports quarterly that I am putting together with former SB Nation coworkers, has hit more than four-fifths of its funding goal with 19 days left in the campaign. If you haven't pre-ordered yet, DO IT NOW. I'm so excited for it.

Personal note: On Wednesday, I took part in a rally advocating to expand bike and pedestrian capacity on New York City's bridges. The campaign is called Bridges 4 People. In sad but related news, the city is up to four cyclists struck and killed in the last month. Do me a favor and support the campaign.

On to bike racing ...

A day of near constant ascending and descending fulfilled its disruptive potential. At the front of the race, Daniel Felipe Martinez won a battle of attrition, edging out Lennard Kamna for the stage with a SLOW sprint up 12-plus percent gradients. Farther back, Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar rode out of a group of general classification contenders and confirmed that they are this year's strongest riders.

Good luck and health willing, a Slovenian will wear the yellow jersey in Paris.

The day's biggest loser is clear: Egan Bernal fell to third place on the general classification after going over the line 38 seconds behind Roglic and Pogacar, who moved up to second. Bernal cracked as Pogacar attacked on the final climb to Puy Mary. After he crossed the line, the defending champion could only hang his head.

Friday also effectively ended France's general classification hopes. Guillaume Martin and Romain Bardet, who had been sitting 3rd and 4th on the GC, respectively, finish more than two minutes behind Roglic, and dropped out of the overall top 10. Rigoberto Uran rode in with Bernal and jumped up to No. 4 on the general classification, 1:10 out of the lead. 35-year-old Richie Porte looked as spry as ever, finishing just 13 seconds back of Roglic to jump from 11th to 9th on the overall.

We'll have more takeaways in a bit. But first let's holler about yet another young phenom.

Dani F***in' Felipe Martinez

Add Martinez to the list of under-25 riders who are giving incredible performances at the Tour, along with Pogacar, Bernal, Marc Hirschi, Wout van Aert, Neilson Powless and more.

Martinez entered the Tour on an incredible run of form, winning the Critérium du Dauphiné (albeit after Roglic and Bernal abandoned). He was one of three Education First riders who had high GC hopes, along with elder statesman Uran and another young Colombian star in Sergio Higuita. Double crashes on Stage 2 pushed Martinez down the standings, however, and he couldn't keep pace with his peers on the early mountain stages.

He looked rejuvenated Friday. The stage started fast and never let up, and Martinez spent the entire day among the breakaways.

A group of five riders got away first: Rémi Cavagna and Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-Quick Step, Benoît Cosnefroy of AG2R La Mondiale, Simon Geschke of CCC and Dan Martin of Israel Start-Up Nation.

Jumbo-Visma worked hard to shut down any other attacks in the peloton, but Martinez was able to break loose with teammate Hugh Carthy and start chasing down the head of the race. Eventually, the peloton slowed down and another group of roughly 20 stage hunters formed behind the two EF riders. Martinez and Carthy fell back into the bunch with roughly 140 kilometers left in the stage, and would keep themselves sheltered until the day's final obstacles.

With 130 kilometers to go, the front group of five was caught, and the head of the race consisted of 17 riders. Besides those mentioned, other important names were Pavel Sivakov (looking good after early crashes!), Powless (USA USA USA), Pierre Rolland (eternal French attacker) and Max Schachmann (Kamna's Bora-Hansgrohe teammate; he'll be important later).

That group largely held its shape, less a few skirmishes for summit points. Past the intermediate sprint point, with 120 kilometers to go, those 17 riders had roughly eight minutes on the peloton. That lead would extend again to 10:40 just ahead of the day's final categorized climbs.

Powless was the first rider to attempt what looked like a solo attack for the line, accelerating up the Category 3 Cote d'Anglards-de-Salers with 38k to go. He took the summit, but Schachmann began quickly eating into the gap late on the climb, eventually catching and passing Powless in the foothills of the Category 2 Col de Neronne. As he started the climb, he had more than a minute lead.

Schachmann looked uncatchable for a while. He bobbed his head in steady rhythm as he took the penultimate summit, descended, and began the final climb up to Puy Mary Cantal with a solid gap. But Martinez and Kamna were free of their breakmates at that point. They ate into Schachmann's advantage on the Col de Neronne, and pulled within 20 seconds as the final climb began with 5k to go.

Schachmann appeared to have succesfully held them at bay, however. The gap didn't move much for the first three kilometers of the climb. Then the gradient went UP:

See the black slope at the end? Schachmann hit that section on his own and began to fall back fast. Because his teammate was in the lead, Kamna was happy to let Martinez do all the work in chasing. And as soon as Schachmann was caught with 1.5k to go, Kamna accelerated, hoping to break the Colombian with a superior finishing kick.

Martinez hung on Kamna's wheel, however, and thus began a slow motion duel to the line. Schachmann briefly caught them, but then fell right back as they went under the 1k-to-go banner. Kamna attacked with 600 meters to go, but Martinez stuck to him and began towing Kamna into sprint distance. Kamna jumped again, and appeared to have a definitive gap on Martinez, but the Colombian crawled back a bike-length plus, inch by inch, and somehow got his bike across the line first with room to spare and enough energy to celebrate:

The last kilometer of the race felt like a prizefight held in a pool of molasses. Which is to say, it was a ton of fun. (And note: Kamna is YET ANOTHER CHILD at 24 years old.)

OK now tell me what happened in the GC

I sort of wish I knew. The probably with stages like these is that they're incredibly exciting, and the production crew can't keep up with all the skirmishes on the road.

The first big event took place long before the final attacks, however. As the peloton was rolling up to the intermediate sprint point, a crash sent several riders to the ground, most notably Romain Bardet and Nairo Quintana, who had to chase back on, and Bauke Mollema, who would shortly abandon the Tour de France with a reportedly broken wrist.

Neither Bardet nor Quintana appeared to be hampered by the tumble, though we may hear more later. Bardet, in particular, struggled late in the stage. Friday should have been his big day, in part because the stage passed through his home region. But as the peloton approached the top of the Col de Neronne, he fell off the back with Adam Yates and fellow Frenchman Guillaume Martin.

Yates rode himself back onto the group, but Bardet and Martin were cooked. Martin attempted to bridge, but never got closer than 20 seconds from the yellow jersey group before the final climb began. Bardet would pass him on the ride up to Puy Mary and finish 27th on the stage, two spots and 16 seconds ahead but 2:30 back of the yellow jersey.

The yellow jersey group consisted of 13 riders as it went over the Col de Neronne. Roglic had two teammates -- Tom Dumoulin and Sepp Kuss -- to Bernal's one -- Richard Carapaz -- but it was Carapaz who began towing the group into the final climb. In hindsight, Ineos maybe should have let Jumbo-Visma do the majority of the work, though it's difficult to say what the consequences were.

At this point in the race, the cameras were largely trained on the tête-à-tête between Martinez and Kamna. Just as the two were entering the closing meters, a quick cut back to the yellow jersey group revealed Pogacar once again attacking and pushing rivals away with Roglic on his wheel. Bernal was barely maintaining sight on the Slovenians and falling, officially cracked. Only Porte, Uran, Mikel Landa and Miguel Angel Lopez could stay within spitting distance of the two.

Roglic pulled ahead under the 1k-to-go banner and would tow Pogacar to the line so that they finished with the same time. Porte and Landa finished together 13 seconds later, with Lopez just three seconds behind them. Uran would drop and finish with Bernal, followed by Quintana and Yates two seconds later.

THAT WAS A LOT

Friday was probably the biggest GC day thus far. It reconfirmed that Roglic and Pogacar are the two strongest riders by some distance, and ended any dark horse campaigns for the final yellow jersey.

Bernal's hope of a repeat Tour victory aren't over yet. Heading into the day, we knew that this profile was probably better for punchier riders like Roglic and Pogacar. There are still three HIGH mountain stages to go, all with longer ascents that Bernal will like more. And unlike Roglic, we know that Bernal can perform well (and is perhaps at his best) during the third week of a grand tour.

Uran at 1:10 back, Quintana at 1:12 back and Lopez at 1:31 back round out the Colombian quartet still within shouting distance of the podium, or even the yellow jersey if any unforeseen calamities strike the race leaders.

But yeah. This is the Tour de Slovenia now. As Bernal put it after the stage, "They're just stronger than me. I can do nothing."

Though none of them will win the yellow jersey, it's nice to see Yates, Porte and Landa sitting in the top 10 after a big day. The Tour hasn't always been kind to them, but all three appear to be on fine (if not SLOVENIAN) run of form.

There's more fun than that?

This section is mostly just pretty camera shots today.

Anyway here's a cool dam.

We were treated to perhaps the most Legend of Zelda-looking landscape so far. There's definitely a Korok seed at the bottom of this crater.

Nice house.

I don't know much about Egan Bernal except that he's doing something weird every time the camera finds him.

IMPRESSIVE Dutch Corner.

Stage 12 passed near the Gare de Corrèze, infamous site in the 1998 Festina scandal.

Tomorrow's stage finishes in a fairytale, apparently:

The standings

STAGE 13

1. Daniel Felipe Martinez (Education First) -- 5hr 01min 47sec
2. Lennard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe) -- +04sec
3. Max Schachmann(Bora-Hansgrohe) -- +53sec
4. Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) -- +1min 33sec
5. Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) -- +1min 42sec
6. Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) -- +1min 53sec
7. Simon Geschke (CCC) -- +2min 35sec
8. Marc Soler (Movistar) -- +2min 43sec
9. Hugh Carthy (Education First) -- +3min 18sec
10. David de la Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) -- +3min 52sec

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION

1. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) — 56hr 34min 35sec
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) -- +44sec
3. Egan Bernal (Ineos) — +59sec
4. Rigoberto Uran (Education First) -- +1min 10sec
5. Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) — +1 min 12sec
6. Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) – +1min 31sec
7. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) — +1min 42sec
8. Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) -- +1min 55sec
9. Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) -- +2min 06sec
10. Enric Mas (Movistar) -- +2min 54sec

GREEN JERSEY

1. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) — 252 points
2. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) — 186
3. Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) -- 162
4. Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) -- 155
5. Matteo Trentin (CCC) — 146

POLKA DOT JERSEY

1. Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R-La Mondiale) — 36 points
2. Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale) -- 31
3. Marc Hirschi (Sunweb) -- 31
4. Toms Skujins (Trek-Segafredo) -- 24
5. Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept) -- 21

Stage 14 preview -- 194km from Clermont-Ferrand to Lyon

Stage 14 will begin at 1:20 p.m. local, 7:20 a.m. ET. For those watching from the United States, coverage will begin at 7 a.m. on CNBC (!). (Here’s NBC’s complete broadcast schedule).

Don’t get that channel? You’ll need to pay, sadly. I really like the NBC Sports Gold Cycling Pass, which gives you a commercial-free stream as well as some handy race-tracking whatzits. The much cheaper option, however, is Peacock Premium, which costs $4.99 per month and will reportedly get you access to live coverage of every stage, though presumably with ads and without the whatzits.

If you can’t watch live and want access to replays, it appears Gold is your only way to go.

The Tour designates Stage 14 as a "Flat," which I don't think I've ever seen on a day that features a Category 2 climb. Saturday may be considered "flat" only in the relative sense of this very climb-y Tour. The profile is very much up-and-down:

Saturday should be dedicated to a breakaway and the punchier sprinters. GC teams will be giving as little effort as possible in preparation for Sunday's mountain top finish atop Grand Colombier. Any yellow jersey drama that takes place will be the result of a crash, crosswinds or futile desperation.

So expect to see Deceuninck-Quick Step and Bora-Hansgrohe driving the peloton for Sam Bennett and Peter Sagan, respectively. If not for his relegation on Wednesday, Sagan would have been looking to retake the lead in the points classification Saturday; the profile suits him very well.

He's the pick, unless he can't assed to try any more. In that case, I'd love to see Matteo Trentin get the win after challenging or winning seemingly ever single intermediate sprint so far.

Make a delicious breakfast of quenelles, but don't fill up. You'll want room for the robust meals to come.