Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 11 of the Vuelta a Espana - a gruelling mountain sufferfest in Andorra, a 138km ride from Andorra La Vella to Cortals d'Encamp that includes six - SIX - back-to-back climbs.

Jerome Coppel rides ahead of the break now, the IAM Cycling man throwing the dice early.

The break is, well, breaking up on this fourth and hardest climb. Sky still lead the chase, but surely even their programmed wattage will take a hit some time soon.

We're onto the collosal Cat. HC Collada de la Gallina (11.7 km at 8.5 %) which has a maximum gradient of 17%. We should expect some initial skirmishes in the pack of main favourites I should think.

Erviti, Hardy and Montaguti have riden clear of the break towards the bottom of the descent, but their gap is small.

Erviti's foray on the front is over and the break now rides as one down this descent. There's a bit of moisture in the air with the odd rain drop falling. It was that man Fraile who took second place over the summit to consolidate his lead in the polka dot jersey competition. The pack is 4:20 down.

All teams seem to be taking on musettes now instead of waiting until the bottom of the climb for the feedzone, which comes just before the fourth climb when things might get feisty.

Erviti has 45 seconds to play with going over the summit. He took a musette near the summit so he will ride straight through the feed zone later, it seems. Behind him the break has reformed after that trio broke clear. The Sky-led peloton is still 4:30 down with Christian Knees on the front for practically the entire climb.

OIiviera and Landa ride clear of the break, joined later by Bennett. Some more are trying to bridge the gap. Erviti is approaching the summit.

Sergio Paulinho (Tinkoff-Saxo) also crashed on the first climb - perhaps in the incident that involved Dombrowski of Cannondale-Garmin. It didn't look nice...

A reminder of the 18 riders behind Imanol Erviti (Movistar): Nelson Oliveira and Ruben Plaza (Lampre-Merida) Darwin Atapuma (BMC), Matteo Montaguti and Mikael Cherel (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Javier Moreno (Movistar), Romain Sicard (Europcar), Omar Fraile and José Gonçalves (Case Rural-Seguros RGA), Pawel Poljanski (Saxo-Tinkoff), Alberto Losada (Katusha), Mikel Landa (Astana), Damien Howson (Orica-GreenEdge), Jerome Coppel (IAM Cycling), Romain Hardy (Cofidis), Carlos Verona (Etixx-Quick Step), Ian Boswell (Team Sky) and George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo).

There's an upping of the tempo in the break as Erviti's lead comes down to under a minute. Some of the escapees are struggling a little. Sky are still keeping the peloton at exactly 4:30.

Froome is the last man in the Sky train on the front of the pack, with Movistar riders Sutherland, Rojas and Quintana in his wheel. The peloton is still about 120-strong and so it has certainly eased up since that frenetic opening climb.

The sun is shining sporadically through the clouds but there's a 75% chance of rain later on for the final climbs, so they're getting all but the kitchen sink out there in Andorra today.

We've hit a little stalemate now with lone leader Erviti pressing on with a 1:05 gap over the break and the pack riding at 4:30. It was very frantic at the start, what with Froome crashing on the first climb and then having to fight back from over a minute down. But Sky have regrouped and the status quo has returned.

After that big scare this morning with Chris Froome's early crash, it's business as usual for Team Sky who have all their riders - bar escapee Boswell - on the front of the pack, driving the pace.

The breakaway is in disarray with no-one ready to commit to the chase - probably because of the succession of climbs that are still on the horizon. Without this dynamic playing out, Erviti is able to ride on at his own pace and make some decent headway.

Erviti is making some headway here: the 31-year-old Movistar rider - a double Vuelta stage winner (2008 and 2010) riding his 16th Grand Tour - has 1:10 over the break and 4:30 over the pack.

The leaders are onto the Cat.1 Coll de la Rabassa (13.8 km at 6.6 %). This is the third of six climbs on today's menu (which features bowl after bowl of gruel)

It looks like the peloton has decided to let this group go: Sky have come to the front and the gap is now more than four minutes for the 18 leaders, who trail lone rider Imanol Erviti by 35 seconds now.

Erviti has 22 seconds over the other escapees and 3:20 over the pack.

Spaniard Imanol Erviti (Movistar) has opened up a small gap ahead of the break thanks to some daredevil descending skills.