The course of today's stage looked like a great chance for Lotto Soudal to put Ewan in a good position to show off his speed in a bunch sprint, after the Australian pushed through the brutal mountain stages to finish inside the time cuts and remain in the race.
And it all looked to be going to plan early, with Ewan's team sharing the pacing responsibilities with Fabio Jakobsen's Alpecin-Deceuninck on the front of the peloton and keeping the day's breakaway on a tight leash of around two minutes.
"I felt really good actually," Ewan told SBS after the stage.
"That's why we committed 2 guys to try to control the breakaway, and it never got too far ahead."
But disaster struck for Ewan again with 71 kilometres to go as teammates in front hit the brakes harder than expected going around a corner causing him to touch wheels and crash out across the road.
"I don't know what happened in the corner," Ewan said.
"They just slammed on in the middle and I had nowhere to go but into the back of the guy in front of me."
The 28-year-old looked shaken up by the incident, clutching his knee and wincing in pain as Lotto officials told the rest of the team to keep riding as it looked as though he wouldn't be able to continue.
But Ewan wasn't done and got back on his bike to take on the tall task of going full gas to try and reach the his teammates in a group that was still nearly 30 seconds back from the main peloton.
Ewan was optimistic about his condition following the stage, but had concerns if his knee and shoulder would recover or be made worse in the time until tomorrow's race.
"Once you stay warm everything feels alright," he said.
"But I think once I cool down a bit I'll start to feel where I have pain. My knees pretty sore and my shoulder's pretty sore where I broke my collarbone last year, so hopefully it's alright.
With the help of the Alpecin-Deceuninck team car at one point, Caleb managed to reach his team, but the high pace on the peloton took its toll on his legs after pushing them to get back with the brunt of the wind.
"Once I went down I just didn't feel as good anymore and I did a big chase to get back on," he said.
"Then at the start of the climb they were going quite hard and I just had nothing left really."
It's another unfortunate day at the race for the Australian, but he will still have chances to get the win that still eludes in Stages 15, 19 and 21 on the Champs Elysee.
The Tour de France continues with Stage 14, a hilly stage with a brutally steep short climb into Mende to finish. Watch on the SBS SKODA Tour Tracker from 7.55pm AEST with the SBS and SBS On Demand broadcast starting from 8.30pm AEST.
