Ciao ragazzi! Welcome to live coverage of stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia - an undulating 205km schlep from Bologna to Fucecchio.

There's some words between Andrey Zeits of Astana and a rider from Jumbo-Visma, who the former feels should be doing more work on the front to reduce the gap, given their man Primoz Roglic is in pink. It's all a bit unnecessary because, the question of respecting the maglia rosa aside, there's really no huge threat from this break and Jumbo-Visma are obliged to do nothing, especially not vis-a-vis Astana. The gap is now 3'05" for the leaders so it's coming down, in any case.

The rain appears to have stopped as the riders continue this long descent into Tuscany. The gap is 3'45" with that man Jelle Vanendert still on the front of the peloton leading the chase on this eight-man break.

We should add that Simon Yates is in the maglia ciclamino today. He's second in the points standings but Primoz Roglic is, of course, in pink. Meanwhile, it's Miguel Angel Lopez in white - and he'll be favourite to wear that all the way to Verona. His nearest challenger is Tao Geoghegan Hart of Team Ineos, who is seven seconds down on the Colombian from Astana after a strong opening time trial yesterday.

With a four-minute gap, the break goes over the summit of this uncategorised climb of Montepiano and are now, rather gingerly, embarking on the descent. The road surface looks like it's quite new but it's very wet and it goes through trees and so it could well be rather slippery. The last thing anyone wants to do in the first road stage of the race is push things too hard and take a tumble.

Meanwhile, in the Eurosport studio today Simon Gerrans steps in alongside Bradley Wiggins and Brian Smith alongside our new presenter Orla Chennaoui, who's doing a superb job so far. If you haven't given the show a go, I'd recommend it. The live coverage is also followed each day by a special panel discussion show called The Breakaway.

All this rain makes me think of England. Talking of which, how about a brief distraction from today's Giro stage? If you thought it was impossible to come off your bike on a cattle grid then here's our Average Man, Tom Bennett, to show you otherwise...

Scenes from the start today...

It's the bearded figure of Jelle Vanendert on the front of the peloton, setting tempo for his man Caleb Ewan who, if he gets over those climbs, should be one of the favourites to win a second stage on the Giro. Amazingly, this is the first Grand Tour since the Giro two years ago, so he'll be looking to step into Andre Greipel's shoes and open up his Lotto Soudal account. The team also has Thomas De Gendt for the breaks - albeit not today - and Victor Campenaerts for the time trials.

Let's look back at yesterday again and it's fair to say that not every one was happy. Some big losers after the first 8km of this race: Bob Jungels conceded 46 seconds, Davide Formolo 50 seconds, Mikel Landa 1:07 and Ilnur Zakarin 1:20. These guys were the worst of the top 10 contenders.

The average speed so far today is 41.5km/h which isn't bad considering the weather and the currently uphill grind. The gap is still around four minutes for our eight leaders. It's thoroughly miserable out there.

There's a rider from UAE Team Emirates on the front of the pack to help lead the chase for their man Gaviria. Behind there are bodies from the team of pink jersey Primoz Roglic's Jumbo-Visma team as well as Viviani's Deceuninck-QuickStep, Ewan's Lotto Soudal and Ackermann's Bora-Hansgrohe. The gap is 4'03" for our eight leaders.

Meanwhile, in the Eurosport studio Bradley Wiggins is waxing lyrical about Simon Yates...

If the battle for pink is all about the Big Five favourites (Roglic, Yates, Nibali, Lopez and Dumoulin) then the sprint showdowns should also feature five fast protagonists in Elia Viviani, Fernando Gaviria, Caleb Ewan, Pascal Ackermann and Arnaud Demare. There's a whole host of second tier Italian sprinters who'll look to push the others all the way - the likes of Giacomo Nizzolo, Davide Cimolai and Sacha Modolo - but it would be very unlikely to see one of them feature heavily given the class of the others.

The road is already heading up on the long uncategorised climb of Montepiano. It's an uphill slog of 20km through the Apennines but the gradients are always pretty gentle. The gap is back above the four-minute mark.

"Savio's boys" being the riders in Gianni Savio's Androni Giocattoli-Sidermic wildcard team. It's a team packed full of talent with the likes of Fausto Masnada and Mattia Cattaneo worth keeping an eye on for the mountains, Marco Frapporti, Matteo Montaguti and Andrea Vendrame for the breaks, and Francesco Gavazzi and Manuel Belletti for the sprints. Today it's Frapporti's chance to shine.

It's worth adding that, as best placed rider in this break, Ciccone is now riding in the virtual pink jersey. The Italian was 1'28" down on Roglic this morning but the gap for the escapees is currently 3'55".

The gap has grown to four minutes for this eight-man break. It's interesting to see the blue jersey Ciccone in there - he's clearly going for the KOM points in those two categorised climbs in the final third, and he has another Trek rider with him in Clarke.

There's an eight-man break with around one minute on the pack. They are: Francois Bidard (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Marco Frapporti (Androni-Sidermec), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF), Lukasz Owsian (CCC Team), Sean Bennett (EF Education First), Damiano Cima (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Giulio Ciccone and William Clarke (Trek-Segafredo).

After a delay owing to the pouring rain, the riders have finally passed through the official start. Stage 2 is under way!

The sad news from yesterday was the Japanese rider Hiroki Nishimura (Nippo-Vini Fantini) finished well out of the 30% cut-off time and was eliminated as a result. The 24-year-old was making his Grand Tour debut but finished 4'36" down on Roglic, some 43 seconds beyond the time limit.