Ciao ragazzi! Welcome to live coverage of the third rest day - sorry, stage 11 - of the Giro d'Italia: a pizza-flat (with zero toppings) 221km schlep from Carpi to Novi Ligure, and a final chance for the sprinters to do battle ahead of the mountains.

Five minutes for the three leaders. Marco Frapporti has been out longer than anyone else in the Giro: 620km before today's stage. Damiano Cima has racked up 564km in breakaways while Mirco Maestri has 374km so far. So, this trio are ideal breakaway bedfellows, there's no denying.

It's worth adding that Arnaud Demare yesterday criticised Pascal Ackermann for his "excessive confidence and a bit of arrogance." The two riders had words after the intermediate sprint during stage 10 where Demare took three points to the German's two. "He asked me why I'd done that if he was so far ahead in the overall [points] classification," Demare claimed in his stage winner's press conference. "But a Grand Tour is long and you have to stay humble. It's his first three week stage race, he doesn't know yet how he'll get on in the mountain stages and he should stay calm."

We spoke to Pascal Ackermann this morning: "I feel really bad today - I've never had as much pain or lost as much skin as I did yesterday. But I think I was also really lucky - if I had to choose between winning a stage and crashing then I'd accept that. It's going to be really hard today but I still hope to make it to Verona." The question is: will he win another stage between now and then - and will he still be in the ciclamino?

The gap is up to 5'30" for our three leaders.

Big pressure on Elia Viviani today. The Italian national champion is still looking for his first win in this Giro after being disqualified from stage 3 (which he had won) and also finishing runner-up on three occasions. It is thought that the Deceuninck-QuickStep rider will leave the race tonight - along with Caleb Ewan but perhaps not Ackermann and Demare (who have the ciclamino still to battle for) - ahead of the mountains.

The gap is up to 4'55" for our three leaders. It's going to be interesting to see how much leeway the peloton gives this trio. It's a long stage but they won't want to make their job too hard in the second half because it's the last chance for the sprinters to get in the mix before - finally - the steep stuff.

Ackermann's crash coupled with Demare's win means the Frenchman has reduced the German's lead in the maglia ciclamino standings to just the single point. So we're going to have a fierce battle between those two riders today - although it remains to be seen how the Bora rider fares after losing so much skin in that nasty fall yesterday.

A quick reminder of yesterday's result, with the German double stage winner Pascal Ackermann denied a chance to make it three wins thanks to a touch of wheels with his teammate Rudiger Selig, who made amends by finishing third.

There's no interest to chase the leaders down from the pack and the gap has quickly grown to 2'20".

ATTACK: It didn't take long and we now have a trio of riders up the road. No guesses who they are... it's the familiar faces of Marco Frapporti (Androni-Giocattoli-Sidermec), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF) and Damiano Cima (Nippo-Vini Fantini-Faizanè). They were part of an eight-man break in stage 2 and then formed a trio in stage 4. Today they're getting the band back together for one last hurrah.

One non-starter today: Matteo Moschetti (Trek Segafredo) is not being risked after slamming into the barriers in yesterday's finale. According to his team, the Italian sprinter did not lose consciousness after the crash and was cleared of risk of concussion. But he will not start stage as his shoulder and legs will take some time to heal.

The remaining 162 riders have rolled out of Carpi to get this stage under way.

Here's the official profile of the stage; apologies in advance for the next five hours.

Another sunny day on the Giro - music to everyone's ears after last week's washout. Here are the classification leaders at the start in Carpi: Giulio Ciccone (blue), Valerio Conti (pink), Pascal Ackermann (ciclamino) and Nans Peters (white).

Yesterday, Frenchman Arnaud Demare ended his winless streak for 2019 with a surprise victory in stage 10 ahead of Italy’s Elia Viviani after a nasty crash inside the final kilometre thwarted any chances of a hat-trick for the in-form Pascal Ackermann.