Ciao ragazzi! Welcome to live coverage of stage 1 - sorry, stage 12 - of the Giro d'Italia. After 11 days of nothing much except a few messy sprints and a couple of TT masterclasses from Primoz Roglic, we're finally into the mountains as the race goes over 1,000m for the first time with the belated first Cat.1 climb of the 102nd edition.

Our leading duo have 25 seconds on the other escapees and 13'16" on the peloton.

The pack, meanwhile, are now tackling the cobbled climb in Pinerolo. Trek and Mitchelton-Scott are on the front before one of the Bahrain Merida riders comes through on the narrow ramp through the centre of town.

Bennett has been joined by the Austrian Marco Haller of Katusha-Alpecin. They have a small gap on the break, which leads the peloton by 13'35".

Well, this is odd... The American Grand Tour debutant Sean Bennett has just attacked his fellow escapees. With 60km remaining and 19km until the start of the climb, the 23-year-old EF Education First rider decides its time to make hay.

As the pack comes through the feed zone the gap is down to 14'35" and so that change in tempo is having an effect. Either that or the break just slowed up - understandably - on that wall in Pinerolo, which the peloton still have to tackle.

During the ad break just now the leaders entered Pinerolo for the first time and tackled the Muro San Maurizio for the first time - the same cobbled ramp that the riders will have to negotiate before the finish today. It peaks at 13.2% and should decide the outcome of the stage finish. More info in this tweet...

Finally, with the gap above 15 minutes, Jumbo-Visma and Bahrain Merida have send a rider each to the front of the peloton to help with the chase.

Talking of Roglic, Polanc and Slovenian cycling, the former maglia rosa was quizzed about his nation's connections to the latest doping scandal this morning...

Over 15 minutes now and this is a serious gap but for now, all the teams of the favourites are just playing poker in the peloton and waiting for someone else to crack. Astana won't, that's for sure, because they have Cataldo in the break, and nor will UAE for obvious reasons. Given that Polanc is a compatriot of Primoz Roglic, perhaps Jumbo-Visma won't do anything also... time will tell. My guess is that Mitchelton-Scott and Bahrain Merida will combine soon, perhaps Movistar as well - for Yates, Nibali and Landa stand to miss out today...

UAE Team Emirates have played a blinder putting Jan Polanc in this break, which takes the pressure off them doing anything behind. The gap has gone above 14 minutes now and the Slovenian is in a good position to take over from teammate Valerio Conti as the race leader tonight. The 27-year-old Polanc is no slouch: he won stage 5 of the Giro in a summit finish at Abetone in 2015 and stage 4 on Mount Etna in 2017 en route to finishing 11th on GC.

At the intermediate sprint a bit earlier at Paesana - apologies, I'd nipped out to pick up my lunch - it was the Belgian Bakelants who took the points ahead of compatriot De Gendt.

Stil the gap grows: it's 12'30" now for the 25 leaders. That puts Dario Cataldo and Enrico Gasparotto both into the reckoning for the maglia rosa should Jan Polanc falter.

It's rare that we see Ineos (formerly known as Sky) riders in the break of a Grand Tour. Having no bona fide GC contender here in Italy has opened the door to the British team's roster and Irishman Eddie Dunbar, making his debut in a three-week race, has grabbed the opportunity by the horns today. He's a good climber and has an experienced teammate in Christian Knees in the break alongside him - an ideal scenario for Ineos and the 22-year-old.

The strange thing is that the blue jersey Giulio Ciccone is not in this break - you'd think he'd have been motivated by those 40 points up for grabs on the summit of the Montoso. He's currently on 32 points (10pts clear of Primoz Roglic) so whoever goes over the summit in pole position will take his maglia azzura.

And still the gap grows... it's now over nine minutes for the 25-man break so it's safe to say that our winner today will come from this breakaway. With that in mind, the smart money is on one of: Polanc, Dunbar, Brambilla, De Gendt, Caruso, Bakelants or Cataldo. Although what do I know?

With the gap pushing seven minutes UAE Team Emirates have both the actual (Conti) and virtual (Polanc) maglia rosa on their hands.

Thankfully, the race's official website have published a list of riders in the break so I won't have to manually type them all into the system. So here, courtesy of giroditalia.com, are the 25 riders: Jan Polanc (UAD), Dario Cataldo (AST), Enrico Gasparotto (TDD), Eros Capecchi (DQT), Francesco Gavazzi (ANS), Jan Bakelants (SUN), Matteo Montaguti (ANS), Eddie Dunbar (INS), Gianluca Brambilla (TFS), Damiano Caruso (TBM), Manuel Senni (BRD), Manuele Boaro (AST), Danilo Wyss (TDD), Thomas De Gendt (LTS), Tobias Ludvigsson (GFC), Marco Haller (TKA), Luca Covili (BRD), Christian Knees (INS), Jenthe Biermans (TKA), Cesare Benedetti (BOH), Sean Bennett (EF1), Josef Cerny (CCC), Jasha Sütterlin (MOV), Roger Kluge (LTA) and Conor Dunne (ICA).

Alexis Vuillermoz's attempt to join the leaders comes to nothing: the Frenchman has been reabsorbed by the peloton. The gap is now 5'20".