Home hope Kerbaol soloes to win at Tour de France

French rider Cedrine Kerbaol soloed to victory on stage six of the women's Tour de France on Friday to go second in the overall standings with two days to go.

The 23-year-old raced home up a hill ahead of a pack of around 25 riders that included overnight leader Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland.

The sixth stage was decided up the the Cote des Fins climb less than 15km from the line when Kerbaol made a late counter-attack and then produced a solo run to the line.

Niewiadoma leads the race by 16sec from Kerbaol while Olympic champion Kirsten Faulkner of the United States is third at 19sec after the rolling 159km stage.

A day after a nasty fall defending champion Demi Vollering was in the chasing group that came home just 21sec behind the winner Friday and The Team SD Worx leader sits in 10th position at 1min 19sec.

Vollering was caught in a 10-rider pile up Thursday and lost the lead to Niewiadoma as she took more than a minute to remount.

It could be all change on Saturday's 167km run over a series of climbs in the Alps to a summit at the Grand Bornand peak, a 7km climb at five per cent closing out the day.

The Tour finishes on Sunday with one of cycling's most challenging climbs up Alpe d'Huez.