The tenth stage was the first classified as mountainous. The Col du Grand Colombier broke apart a 25-rider breakaway, leaving a small group to contest the finish at Bellegarde-sur-Valserine; Thomas Voeckler (Team Europcar) claimed the stage win and the polka dot jersey. Another mountain stage followed the next day, which again saw a large breakaway. The break crossed the two hors catégorie climbs - the Col de la Madeleine and the Col de la Croix de Fer - before being caught by the chasing group, which contained the overall contenders. A number of attacks followed, until Team Europcar's Pierre Rolland escaped with to go and took the win at the Les Sybelles ski resort. The group of overall contenders followed 55 seconds later. Evans was not in the leading contenders group and, due to the time lost, he dropped from second to fourth overall, over three minutes in arrears. Kessiakoff took back the lead of the mountains classification. In stage twelve, a large breakaway formed in, before later reducing to five riders across the Col du Granier. They stayed together until the finish, where, with a kilometer remaining, David Millar (Garmin-Sharp) escaped to take victory, closely followed by Jean-Christophe Péraud (Ag2r-La Mondiale). The next stage finished with a bunch sprint won by Greipel, with Sagan second.