Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 14 of the Giro d'Italia - a 59.4km individual time trial from Treviso to Valdobbiadene.

Rigoberto Uran is preparing himself for his time trial. He won last year's 42km effort in Barolo - another wine region in northern Italy - and today he's even had a haircut in preparation, to get rid of those trailing Mick Jagger-style locks.

French national champion Sylvain Chavanel comes home 1:41 down on Kiryienka - that's level with Kristof Vandewalle.

Richie Porte is approaching the first check at Ponte della Pruila after 17.6km - and he's havimng a bit of a shocker. The Australian is well down on his team-mate Kiryienka's target time of 21:14. In fact, he's 1:57 down - that's three second shy of two minutes.

The last three riders to roll down the ramp were Damiano Cunego (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto Soudal) and Giovanni Visconti (Movistar). We're into the top ten now...

One interesting snippet of information: Kristof Vandewalle (Trek) crashed into a wall on one of the fast and slippery downhills, but the Belgian still recovered to set the fourth best time at the finish - 1:41 down on Kiryienka's target time.

Italian youngster Davide Formolo rolls down the ramp in the white skin suit of best young rider (the stage 4 winner is actually the second best young rider on GC, but Fabio Aru's in pink today). The Cannondale-Garmin rider has been a revelation so far in this race.

The course takes the riders through Prosecco region today - but the question is, who will have the most vintage performance today? Incidentally, thanks to the UK's unquenchable thirst for fizzy Italian white wine, there could well be a prosecco drought this summer. Last year's wet summer coupled with aggressive pricing from larger supermarket chains have put big pressure on supplies, apparently...

Can Richie Porte turn his horror week around? The Australian national champion is on the ramp about to get his 60km race against the clock under way... Here he goes - one last chance to save his Giro d'Italia for the Team Sky man.

But Gretsch's time in the hot seat didn't last long: Vasil Kiryienka has just come home 23 seconds quicket than the German to set a new target time of 1:17.52.

Here comes Gretsch - and it's the best time by a huge 1min 13secs for the German from Ag2R-La Mondiale. It just goes to show how big the gaps could be for the top 10 today. Riders like Uran are still very much in this race, while Richie Porte could well revive his race with a decent ITT. So Patrick Gretsch is the new leader with a time of 1:18.15.

If/when Durbridge's time is beaten, it could well be by Team Sky's Vasil Kiryienka, who is currently beasting the course. The Belorussian has set the fastest time at both the first and second check points. Atop the first climb at San Pietro di Feletto after 35km, Kiryienka clocked 45:23 which was eight seconds quicker than Patrick Gretsch's effort for Ag2R-La Mondiale.

New best time for Australia's Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEdge) who takes almost of minute off the previous best effort. His time of 1:19.38 is 54 seconds quicker than Mihaylov and will probably be the target time for quite a while.

The top 20 riders on GC will be riding at three-minute intervals from 13:45 UK time, starting with Darwin Atapuma (BMC). Richie Porte (Team Sky) - one of the favourites today - will start at 13:54 UK time, Rigoberto Uran at 14:27, Alberto Contador at 14:39 and Fabio Aru at 14:42.

More than half the field have already rolled down the ramp, with the current best time being held by Bulgaria's Nikolay Mihaylov (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) at 1:20.32. Russian Alexander Porsev (Katusha) is in second place at 7secs and Denmark's Chris Juul-Jensen (Tinkoff-Saxo) in third at 14secs.

Starting in reverse order, the first rider down the ramp today was Marco Coledan of Trek Factory Racing at 12pm local time. It's another rainy day in north-east Italy which will make this technical course all the more testing.

Aru is all but certain to lose the pink jersey today - time trialling is not his forte at all - so it might well be a return to the summit for Contador. Indeed, we could even see the resurgence of Rigoberto Uran, who won last year's longer time trial. In fact, the Colombian - currently 2:02 down in the standings - put 2:55 into Aru over a 42.2km course last year... read into that what you will.

A reminder that Italy's Fabio Aru (Astana) became the first Sardinian to wear the maglia rosa yesterday after a crash 3.2km from the finish caused Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) to lose 36 seconds yesterday. The Spaniard drops to second on GC at 19 seconds - marking the first time in his illustrious career that he has lost the race lead during a Grand Tour. Mikel Landa of Astana is third at 1:14, followed by Roman Kreuziger (TS) at 1:38, Dario Cataldo (Astana) at 1:49 and Rigoberto Uran (Etixx) at 2:02.

With nothing but mountains in the last week until the final stage to Milan, many sprinters have called it a day today ahead of the ITT. Australia's Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge), Belgium's Tom Boonen (Etixx-QuickStep), Germany's Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) and New Zealand's Greg Henderson (Lotto Soudal) have packed their bags - and we can expect many more to do so at the close of play today.

The first half of today's course is flat before the road rises around 240m to San Pietro di Feletto. There follows a small downhill and a plateau ahead of a final climb back up to 323m at San Pietro Barboza and a quick downhill towards the finish, which comes atop a small ramp.