Hola! Welcome to live coverage of the first of two back-to-back days in the Pyrenees - a slow-building 154.4km slog from Lleida into Andorra which culminates on the long but gradual grind of the Coll de la Rabassa. A day of destiny for Simon Yates and his red jersey rivals.

All eight Movistar riders are driving the pace on the front of the pack, with a few Mitchelton-Scotts tucked in behind. The calm before the storm. Steve Cummings, meanwhile, is rooted to the back of the pack.

Simon Yates is currently off the back of the pack picking up fresh bidons ahead of the climb. He has a chat to Matt White, the Mitchelton-Scott DS, before riding back onto the peloton with team-mate Michael Albasini.

The gap is up to 2'20" for our two leaders. Yesterday, two escapees defied the peloton and held on to contest the win; that was yesterday. The same will not happen today.

A good performance by Sky's David de la Cruz today and tomorrow could put the Spaniard into the top 10. He's currently 9'55" down in 13th but would need to find 3'50" to move into the top 10. "It’s being a complicated La Vuelta," De la Cruz told lavuelta.es this morning. "I came here with the goal of fighting for GC and I’m bit off, but we have two stages left to bring on some battle and fight for a stage win. (At Blacon de Bizkaia) I was calculating when to go or not, I hope it will work out better today and tomorrow. We hope a break will make it today and we can be there. And if not, we’ll try it in the last climb."

Team Sky are yet to win a stage in this Vuelta, neither do they have any riders in the top 10. The last time Sky failed to win a stage of a Grand Tour was the 2014 Vuelta. In fact, they didn't win any stages in any of the Grand Tours in 2014, which was a low-point for the British team. Can Jonathan Castroviejo change that today?

Castroviejo and Thomas combine well to stretch out the lead to 1'50" as they pass a deep blue lake. Behind, Movistar have still not let up, but they have eased a little. Valverde, who is in the green jersey, rides forward to give a pep talk to all his team-mates. They are clearly planning a coup today. It's interesting because, in recent history, the Spanish veteran has come up short on high altitude finishes. Which makes me think that perhaps this is all a red herring and that Valverde is going to be the decoy to a huge attack from Quintana...

Like his team-mate Clarke before, Van Asbroeck drops back from a leading trio of riders. The Belgian probably felt that more riders would come with them - and seeing that the gap is still only 1'15", he calls it a day. So, just the two riders in the lead now: Castroviejo and Thomas (no, not the Welsh Tour winner, the French one called Benjamin).

Our three leaders have 1'10" to play with. None of them are a GC threat - Van Asbroeck, the best placed, is more than two hours in arrears - but Movistar want to keep tabs on this because they fancy a win for their man Valverde today.

That trio has 15 seconds on the pack, but that may well stretch out because it looks like the peloton has sat up.

The fast pace has seen a handful of riders drop out the back of the pack. We're also hearing that Laurens De Plus (Quick-Step Floors) has withdrawn.

Three riders out ahead now: Tom Van Asbroeck (EF Education First), Jonathan Castroviejo (Team Sky) and Benjamin Thomas (Groupama-FDJ).

De Marchi and Rolland were joined by Igor Anton (Cofidis), Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) Sergio Henao, Michal Kwiatkowski (both Team Sky) and José Herrada (Cofidis). But it came to nothing.

Movistar have five on the front leading the chase - they're really pushing on, probably for a number of reasons. Firstly, they're not too keen to give any break much leeway because they want the stage to come down to a battle between the red jersey favourites because that could mean 10 bonus seconds to Valverde should he win. Then there's the need to knacker out the opposition. They will hope to keep the pace high and the pressure on Yates' Mitchelton-Scott team in a bid to isolate the Briton before the steep stuff.

Another move goes off the front with Alessandro De Marchi (BMC) and Pierre Rolland (EF Education First-Drapac) joined by two riders, then another two, and then one more, who is in the process of bridging over. They're on a wide, straight road that kicks up on this gradual rise, and behind the peloton is all strung out.

Those nine riders are up to 12 not - but they're only a few bike lengths in front of the pack and it will come back together again. Very fast pace so far thanks to a steady tailwind.

With the break's advantage coming down, there's a flurry of counter-attacks from the break - and we now have nine men out ahead at the foot of another uncategorised hill.

Interestingly, Simon 'Simo' Clarke - who won Stage 5 at Roquetas de Mar before setting up EF Education First-Drapac team-mate Michael 'Rusty' Woods in Stage 17 - has sat up from the break. Either the Australian is not feeling any good, or he's decided that there's no point in pursuing this one. With the gap falling to 35 seconds, perhaps it's the latter.

We join the stage LIVE with 105km remaining and that break of three riders holding a gap of 1'35" over a Movistar-led peloton. The Spanish team have two cards to play today: Valverde is the nearest challenger to Yates, but Nairo Quintana may be 2'11" down in sixth place, but he can't be discounted. After all, it was in this corresponding stage in the Giro where Chris Froome made his huge comeback and when Yates plummeted out of the pink.