Ciao ragazzi! Welcome to live coverage of stage 19 of the Giro d'Italia - the first of three stages that will decide the outcome of the 102nd edition of La Corsa Rosa.

The break is now onto the first categorised climb of the day, the Cat.3 Passo San Boldo (6.3km at 6.8% and peaking near the top at 10%).

There's a huge seven kilometres now separating the break from the peloton. Carboni, incidentally, is still on the back of the break, although two other riders have dropped back to their team cars. Movistar continue to set the tempo on the front of the pack. None of the escapees are a threat to Richard Carapaz's pink jersey, the best placed rider more than an hour down on the standings.

We're on some rolling roads along a series of ridges that cut through small hilltop towns interspersed with vineyards as the race approaches the first categorised climb of the day. The gap is around the 7'30" mark for our 12 leaders.

Poor Carboni - he's made the split and is now acting like a bull in a china shop. His fellow escapees are ganging up on his because he's taking a breather off the back - but both Boaro and Antunes have given him a piece of their mind, resulting in some grade-A Italian gesticulations from the 12th man of the break. In fact, it gets so tense that the racy jury car drives up and urges the riders to calm down.

Here he is! Carboni finally makes the connection, slingshotting himself in anger from the Groupama-FDJ car just before he latches onto the break, then spitting on the ground at the foot of the TV camera moto. Charming. Someone's not a happy camper.

Manuel Senni of Bardiani-CSF has been at the back of this breakaway for a long time, contributing nothing to the pace-setting. That's because he's waiting for his teammate Giovanni Carboni, who is still riding in pursuit. He's within 30 seconds now but still have ground to make up. But Damiano Cima's unexpected win yesterday for Nippo-Vini Fantini has given the Italian wildcard teams fresh hope - and Bardiani are the only one who have yet to snare a stage. Fauso Masnada of Androni, remember, won a stage in the opening week, the day Valerio Conti went into pink.

The peloton is all strung out with Movistar and Bahrain now setting quite a fast tempo with the gap stretching out to almost seven minutes for the leaders.

The lead has ballooned to over six minutes now for the 11 escapees. Giovanni Carboni is about 45 seconds down while the Israel Cycling Academy rider who was with him, Guillaume Boivin, is three minutes back and so very much stuck in no-man's land.

The gap's over four minutes now as Movistar set the tempo back in the pack. It's a sunny day in north-east Italy, which makes a welcome change from all that rain we've had in this Giro.

Right, it's time for the first climb. This one isn't categorised but the narrow road up to Santa Marisa della Vittoria is pretty steep. The leaders now have 1'07" behind the chasing duo and 2'55" over the peloton, which is bring driven by Movistar and Lotto Soudal now.

The gap is up to 1'15" now for the 11 leaders who have those two chancers trying to bridge over. No Arnaud Demare here - the Frenchman is 13pts behind Ackermann in the maglia ciclamino competition and his only hope now is to pick up intermediate sprint points. Probably realistic there - he can't climb for toffee and the sprint comes after the first big climb of the day.

And that seems to be that: Mitchelton-Scott and Movistar have riders blocking the front of the peloton by riding flat across the road - forcing a Bardiani rider to bunny hop onto the pavement and then zip clear to join the break. It's Giovanni Carboni and he's been joined by a rider from Israel Cycling Academy.

Just 30 seconds for the break with many teams behind not happy with the state of play. Trek and Bora, for instance, missed the move and are trying to pilot men across.

The 11 leaders are: Francois Bidard (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Andre Vendrame (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), Manuele Boaro (Astana), Manuel Senni (Bardiani-CSF), Amaro Antunes (CCC Team), Pieter Serry (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Olivier Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ), Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott), Marco Canola and Ivan Santaromita (both Nippo-Vini Fantini), and Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates).

We have about 10 riders out ahead now while Israel Cycling Academy are pushing on in the peloton - they clearly missed the move.

Attacks from the outset as half a dozen riders zip clear and numerous others ping off the front in an attempt to bridge over.

They're under way! The remaining 143 riders get the show on the road...