Good afternoon all, Tom Owen here standing in for the inimitable Felix Lowe. You can think of me as the flustered substitute teacher of live text commentary.

Dimension Data have Serge Pauwels in the break today and will be sorely hoping he can deliver them a result. The South African team has been decimated by illnesses and crashes thus far, with only five riders still in the race . Merhawi Kudus, who you may remember finished second on Stage 5, crashed out yesterday.

It's finely poised, this, as we enter the last 50km. The peloton cannot allow the break more than three minutes advantage at the finish, but the heat has made it a punishing day, even on the flats, for the pursuing teams. Sky still shouldering all the burden to reel in the break. Gap stands at 4"14'.

And who could forget this spectacular freak-out, courtesy of Tour de France winner, Cadel Evans? In this case, it was someone else standing on his dog that created the problem.

My all-time favourite dog-rider incident remains this, though, starring Markus Burghardt and a Labrador, name unknown. I should stress that the dog was absolutely fine.

Sam Bewley joins a noble tradition of cyclists who have been knocked off their bikes by dogs after crashing earlier today.

Bollards! All sorts of street furniture in the path of the peloton here, but it looks like everyone has navigated safely. Sky still chugging away on the front there.

The riders up front are climbing again. This isn't a categorised climb and the descent off the other side also happens to contain the day's intermediate sprint point. We might see the 21-strong break split apart here, as the stage hunters attempt to shed some dead weight.

Keen to hear your predictions for the stage win. You can tweet them to me at @owentcharles!

Split! The pace being set by Sky is what created that gap and it's not just Zakarin who is distanced. He has Thomas De Gendt of Lotto Soudal and Axel Domont around him too.

Not 100% clear what happened with Zakarin, but he is surrounded by other red shirts, so should regain contact presently.

Katusha have a bunch of men back helping Ilnur Zakarin try to regain contact with the main peloton. Zakarin, incidentally, was some people's outside shout for the stage today. They are about 25 seconds adrift at the moment.

Jan Polanc and Nelson Oliveira are both within four minutes of the lead, which puts them in virtual first and second at this stage in the race. There is a long, long way to go yet, though!

A reminder for those just joining us of the names in the break. They have finished the day's second categorised climb and have a long, steady uncategorised 'lump' to negotiate before the mighty Alto Xorret de Cati. Gap is 5 minutes.

Jesus Hernandez (Trek-Segafredo), Julian Alaphilippe (Quick Step), Loic Vliegen (BMC), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Rafal Majka, Emanuel Buchmann, Christoph Pfingsten (Bora-Hansgrohe), Clément Chevrier (AG2R-La Mondiale), Brendan Canty (Cannondale-Drapac), Alberto Losada (Katusha-Alpecin), Daan Olivier (Team Sunweb), Przemyslaw Niemiec, Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates), Sergei Chernetski, Laurens De Vreese (Astana), Bart De Clercq, Maxime Monfort (Lotto-Soudal), Domen Novak (Bahrain-Merida), Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data), Guillaume Bonnafond (Cofidis) and Michel Kreder (Aqua Blue Sport)

The Puerto de Onil is done and dusted for the peloton. Team Sky are driving things on the front, keeping the break at around five minutes. Meanwhile, up front the three who attacked the break have sat up for a bit of a snack.

Polanc is being pursued by Cannondale's Brendan Canty and De Vreese of Astana. This trio has a small gap back to the rest of the escapees.

Attack! And we have a fracturing in the break as the lead riders hit the slopes of the second climb of the day. Jan Polanc driving this, looking to replicate his team mate's success yesterday, or just bag some easy KOM points?

So, this final climb, Alto Xorret de Cati. Cati being the town and Xorret meaning something like, spring, gush or spurt of water. It was last used in La Vuelta in 2010 when David Moncoutie won by almost a minute. It was used the year before, too, when Gustavo Veloso took victory. In both cases, it was featured on Stage 8, which it is again today. Now far be it from me to suggest the race organisers are unimaginative, but...

Majka may actually be a good pick for today, if he has recovered from the stomach problems we heard he was suffering earlier in the race. He currently sits 19'40" down, so poses no threat to Froome's red jersey.

Cristoph Pfingsten doing the bottle duty for his Bora-Hansgrohe team mates up in the break. They are the best-represented here with three riders. Rafal Majka, and Emanuel Buchman are the other two. It is very, very hot out there, by the way.

Someone's excited!

Laurens De Vreese of Astana was first over the summit of the Puerto de Biar, scooping three points. Second and third were Przemyslaw Niemiec (UAE Team Emirates) and Brendan Canty (Cannondale-Drapac).