Good afternoon cobble fans and welcome to our live blog for the E3 BinckBank Classic!

And that time gap to Marco Haller has reappeared. He's now a minute ahead of the bunch. Haller rides for the unhappiest squad in world cycling, Katusha, who could dearly do with a win soon.

Hot dog! The peloton is on the Hotondberg.

Team SKY are prominently placed near the head of proceedings. They have a couple of cards they might play today, with Owain Doull capable of mixing it in a reduced sprint, and Luke Rowe having a frankly amazing season so far. You might remember him gleefully tearing the peloton to bits earlier this month at Paris-Nice.

Well, that was an enjoyable, if brief, sortie from Haller. He appears to be back in the bosom of mother peloton. UAE Emirates meanwhile are up the front.

Ooh now this is fun. We have a 'group' in the gap between the escape and the peloton. It's Marco Haller and he is 30 seconds in front of the bunch. This would be a remarkably long way out to go from...

That gap continues to melt away as the peloton piles on the pressure. There has been plenty of looking around up to now, but as the race enters the serious phase the big teams are taking up their cudgels. 3'10" the gap.

There will certainly be a few Italian's cheering if Daniel 'The Rockstar' Oss can make a beautiful victory today.

De Winter Is Coming... to the front of the break to take his turn.

Reading between the lines, I'm going to assume Josh is of Welsh extraction...

As the break begins to tackle this sequence of climbs, their lead immediately begins to tumble. They're at 4'20" now, after at one stage being six minutes up the road. The peloton is stirring to life.

So then... who would you like to win today?

Here's a look at the full running order of the climbs. The key ones are the Taaienberg at 80km to go and the Oude Kwaremont at 40km to go.

You might remember the Oude Kwaremont, which features later today, playing a significant role in the 2017 Tour of Flanders when Peter Sagan crashed out after becoming entangled in a fan's rain coat.

Crowd control is becoming a bigger and bigger issue in pro cycling, one that was discussed in Episode 1 of The Bradley Wiggins Show. Catch up with that here.

Last year, Aksel Nommela won the Grand Prix Albert Fauville - Baulet. It's fair to say that if he were to win today from the breakaway, it would trump his previous best result by quite some margin.

The break is about to tackle La Houppe, the day's second climb. After that we'll have a flurry of five more bergs in the space of 25km - and that's where we should see things begin to disintegrate.

The eight men up-front are motoring along, looking smooth fresh and focused.

The peloton seem totally content to let the break build its advantage. It's up to 5'00" now.

Mikhel Raim and Aksel Nommela are both Estonian, making the breakaway 25% Estonian today. Is this the highest concentration of riders from that country we've ever seen in a WorldTour race? Who knows. Virtually impossible to find out. As you were.

The racers will tackle 15 bergs today, including the legendary Oude Kwaremont, which always provides a hefty dollop of excitement. It comes with 40km to go and will blow anything that remains of the peloton into little teeny pieces.

The break is at 4'00" now, they're chugging merrily along. Dare they dream?

No. They dare not.

And that really is the question, isn't it? Deceuninck - Quick Step have been incredibly dominant this season so far, hoovering up 19 victories already, including five one-day classics.