Stage 2 was Etoile de Bessèges  was held under very bad weather conditions which caused a lot of troubles for the riders. Almost the entire CCC Sprandi Polkowice team finished in the main group. 

"Cold headwind made racing extremely hard today. The officials were even considering canceling the stage, because the speed of the wind reached almost 100km/h. The peloton had to stop few times because it was impossible to move forward and it was the only safe thing to do. In addition to that there was a crash 1km from the line, but fortunately no one from our team was injured," Robert Krajewski, sporting director of CCC Sprandi Polkowice, said.

The first breakaway of the day that consisted of three riders – Thomas Vaubourzeix (Veranclassic-Ekoï), Evaldas Siskevicius (Team Marseille 13-KTM) and Tim Kerkhof (Roompot). They got caught after gaining 3:30 lead and the main reason they slowed down so rapidly was the fact that the wind picked up.

For a long time the riders were not able to race. Because of the weather they stopped 3 times and the average speed came down to only 28 km/h.

Tim Kerkhof (Roompot) decided to make a brave move and took off solo. He created a 5-minute advantage. When the wind eased the bunch turned up the pace and brought down the advantage to one minute. This is when Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) and Hugo Houle (AG2R-La Mondiale) decided to bridge the gap. They joined Kerkhof and surpassed him, but in the end it was the sprinters’ teams that took over. After the bunch sprint Roy Jans (Wanty – Groupe Gobert) took the stage win, outsprinting Alexandr Blain (Team Marseille 13 KTM) and Bob Jungels (Trek Factory Racing). The highest ranked „rider in orange” was Marek Rutkiewicz, who finished 27th.