Giro d'Italia Stage 7 recap: Davide Bais takes shock win as breakaway goes the distance on Gran Sasso

Andreas Leknessund has already been pictured struggling to put on his pink rain cape off the back of the peloton. The Norwegian has now returned to the back to pick up some leg warmers from his DSM team car. He needs to stop to put them on in what is quite a lengthy process. He has a team-mate with him but he'll be a few minutes behind on top of the eight-odd minutes that the peloton already trail the breakaway by. Still, given what's in store, this will mean very little in the grand scheme of things. He'll have to find the right opportunity to take those leg warmers off before the business end of the stage, mind.

Meanwhile, many riders in the peloton take this opportunity to stop themselves - either for a slash on the side of the road, or to sort out their own wet-weather accoutrements.

With the advantage of the breakaway now pushing eight minutes, Italy's Simone Petilli will have heard news filter through that he is the new virtual maglia rosa - which will be a boost in such hideous weather. The Italian trailed Andreas Leknessund by 7'49" going into today's stage. It's the Norwegian's DSM team-mates who are still on the front of the pack regulating the tempo ahead of today's climbs.

The gap continues to creep up on this long false flat towards the uncategorised climb that precedes the first intermediate sprint and subsequent Cat.2 climb to Roccaraso. The rain continues to fall and there's standing water all over the road. Pretty grim for the riders - but everyone is in the same boat, almost literally.

They came so close on the streets of Naples but came up 200m short yesterday. Former team-mates Alessandro De Marchi and Simon Clarke combined from the breakaway in pursuit of a Giro stage that has eluded both of them so far in their long careers - only to be pick-pocketed within spitting distance of the line.

Forget that battle for pink for a bit: today there are 76 KOM points up for grabs in the maglia azzurra competition, which Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) currently leads on 40pts ahead of Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Trek-Segafredo) on 26pts.

The gap, meanwhile, is now over six minutes. The rain jackets are coming back out because the clouds ahead look incredibly ominous.

Meanwhile, the mountain bike world series starts properly today, with Tom Pidcock in action. Speaking to Eurosport ahead of the opening round of the UCI Cross-country World Cup in Nove Mesto, Ineos Grenadiers star Pidcock revealed his plans to defend his mountain bike title at the Paris Olympics next summer. Pidcock is also targeting MTB glory at the inaugural UCI Cycling World Championships – which combines all the major disciplines – in Glasgow in August. More below...

The gap continues to grow but there's no concern back in the pack. None of these escapees are renowned climbers and the best placed rider on GC is Simone Petilli who is 7:49 down in the standings so no real threat to the pink jersey of Andreas Leknessund. That said, the Norwegian's DSM team have come to the front now to regulate the gap and set tempo.

The riders can no doubt feel it in their fingers, and can feel it in their toes. It doesn't appear to be raining right now - and there is a suspicion of blue skies ahead, amid the dank grey mass looming on the horizon - but for now it's still very damp on the roads. Indeed, our reporter Hannah Walker has reported a lot of standing water on the route ahead.

Now that a breakaway has formed, many riders take the opportunity to stop for a nature break at the side of the road. The advantage of the four riders stretches out accordingly - it's now over three minutes for the two Italians, Eritrean and Czech leaders. They'd have wanted a larger group, in all fairness, but they will have to make do with what they have. Only one WorldTour race this season has resulted in a win from the breakaway, so it's fair to say that the odds are stacked against them.

Back to today's stage and we have a break which looks to have been allowed to go up the road. The move contains some riders who have been active since the start. They are: Simone Petilli (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty), Davide Bais (Eolo-Kometa), Henok Mulubrhan (Green Project-Bardiani) and Karel Vacek (Team Corratec-Selle Italia).

We missed it yesterday because he was riding off the back of the peloton but Mark Cavendish hit the deck once again following his nasty crash at the end of Stage 5. The British champion also crashed - or was hit from behind - in Stage 2 on the weekend, so it's fair to say that he hasn't had the best of luck so far....

Nicola Conci (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Giovanni Aleoitti (Bora-Hansgrohe) did not take to the start. That means we're down to 169 riders in total.

Five riders try their luck early on after an initial dig by a Green Project-Bardiani rider. It comes to nothing and we then see Joe Dombrowski of Astana have a pop, chased down by Henok Mulubhan of Bardiani and a couple of others. But again, it's no can do. Simone Petilli (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) and Magnus Cort (EF Education) are next, followed by Davide Bais (Eolo-Kometa). But they don't have any leeway from the pack.

The flag goes down and the race is on! Here's what the riders have in store today, with two Cat.2 climbs ahead of the final Cat.1 showdown on Gran Sasso. It's pretty much 40km uphill to the finish - with, by contrast, a 60km flat / false flat start to the stage.

Primoz Roglic was coy about his chances today and refused to be drawn on the claims that he is nervous. He said: "All good for the moment. It's the first mountain stage and we will see how the legs will be. For sure, we will go full at the end and try to be with the fastest ones. If you can win, it's perfect. But there are a lot of super strong guys and it's the first uphill finish so we will have to see. We will know more after today - and the next days we will see the GC rankings. At the moment, Remco is the fastest."

After the sunshine in Naples, the rain has returned to the Giro with the riders - who are currently soft-pedalling through the neutral zone - currently decked out in jackets. It will be interesting to see how much of a factor the weather plays today, with reports that there could even be a little bit of snow on the final climb.

We spoke to the world champion again this morning and he said: "I'm looking forward to it. It's a very long day - maybe one of the longest in the Giro in terms of hours - but we had a good day yesterday and survived one of the trickiest stages very well. I'm happy with how I am at the start now."

On those claims of Roglic looking "nervous" at the Giro, Evenepoel back-tracked a little: "You guys made it bigger than I actually intended. I said I was in his situation in Catalunya and it made our team nervous to have to take the second back, so I can understand how it is for them in the opposite way. But it's typical press stuff making it bigger than it actually was."

On how he feels after his crashes: "Very good. Actually, everything's pretty fine and the injuries are not as bad as it was in the Vuelta [when he also crashed] and I don't have stiff legs. I'm very happy with the outcome of my crashes."

Remco Evenepoel has told Eurosport France that he feels his main general classification rival at the Giro d’Italia, Primoz Roglic, looks “nervous”. He added that so far he felt "the strongest" after the opening stages of the first Grand Tour of the year. The 23-year-old is second on GC, some 28 seconds behind Team DSM’s Andreas Leknessund, but holds a 44-second advantage over Roglic. Read more below...

1. Andreas Leknessund
2. Remco Evenepoel +28
3. Aurelien Paret-Peintre +30
4. Joao Almeida +1:00
5. Primoz Roglic +1:12
6. Geraint Thomas +1:26
7. Aleksandr Vlasov +1:26
8. Toms Skujins +1:29
9. Tao Geoghegan Hart +1:30
10. Vincenzo Albanese +1:39

Yesterday, Denmark’s Mads Pedersen completed his grand slam of Grand Tour stage wins after breakaway duo Alessandro De Marchi and Simon Clarke were agonisingly caught just 300m from the line in Stage 6 of the Giro d’Italia in Naples. On another day of drama Primoz Roglic and Geraint Thomas battled back after late mechanicals as Norway’s Andreas Leknessund retained the pink jersey. Watch the highlights below...

The late Marco Pantani put on an indomitable display on the Gran Sasso back in Stage 8 of the 1999 Giro to move into pink. He followed this up wiith his historic win at Orapa and then back-to-back wins at Madonna di Campiglio and - infamously - Aprica, after which he was unceremoniously booted off the race for doping offences while two days away from the overall win.