The media has Skujins, Boasson Hagen and Kelderman as the top 3 favourites but certainly a lot of top riders for the fans and the cameras to follow today.
24 Teams are here in Italy for the start of Strade Bianche. The crowd at the start line is minimal but expect greater numbers as we begin the 195km journey into the hills!
Nych is the first rider to start the attacks for the day right from the get go.
Clearly a lot of teams wanted to ensure they got in on the big move and we have 15 riders out front. Nych Hennis & Croes Munoz & Ulloa Razumov Akhmaevi Pantano Gomez Aleotti Almeida & Stavrakakis Tediashvili Ballerini Abdurrahman Konychev
A group of 3 bridged the gap shortly after making it 18 riders out front now with a gap of 3'31, 172km still to go. The latest to join are Krigbaum, Kaislavuo & Daniel. No particularly strong puncheurs in this group so the peloton fairly happy at the minute.
The gap for the breakaway extended out to 4'30 but with 125km to go we have Cedevita, Sauber, UBS, Philips, cycleYorkshire, Tryg & Minions sharing the workload at the front. The peloton is a little stretched out as they start one of today's longer climbs at 3km of 9% gradient.
100km to go and the situation is still very similar. In the Peloton the aforementioned teams have taken a bite out of that gap which is down to 2'55. The breakaway still working cohesively for the time being.
Hard to see with these HD shots but there was rain earlier which appears to have cleared! Explains the lack of supporters in some sections.
Poljanec gets the focus here as he has put a big shift in at the front of the Peloton at the request of Beltran. 70km to go and the gap is down to 1'35.
This shift along with added power at the front by some stronger puncheurs has spread the peloton which is now fragmenting! The team leaders caught out are Gesbert, Mutsimene, Lienhardt, Aranburu and Sinkeldam, Vliegen & Le Court. They were just poorly positioned near the back, clearly not their race today.
54km to go and Di Maggio is one of the bigger casualties of the pace being driven by Hoelgaard and Bellis who have the breakaway within a minute.
38km to go and the breakaway realises they're going to be caught so it's time to try extend their time out front. Almeida & Munoz decide enough is enough and set off into the sunset together.
We fast-forward to 11.5km to go where the 29 man peloton has finally made the catch on one of the bumps in the road. It was Gaudu of Cedevita who made the final push. Limited domestiques remaining so this could get messy.
Instantly the attacks begin! Beltran thanks Gaudu for his services and heads off. The other favourites all in close pursuit.
Only 6km to go now and we have a group of 4 who have opened a 20 second gap which isn't much but on these undulating roads it could be deciding! The group of 4 is (in road order) Van Garderen, Betancourt, Beltran and Ponzi.
Boasson Hagen has single-handedly caught up to this group and dragged the rest with him! He's looking very strong. With 4.5km to go we have 17 riders close together. The 12 not already mentioned are: Kelderman Schreurs Skujins Prevar Kwiatskowski Bakelants Jensen Bilbao De Plus Paulinho Borges McCarthy
That kite isn't particularly accurate as we have only 1km to go. The group of 17 will fight it out for the win here in Tuscany!
Meters to go and impossible to know who is going to win this one!
And it's Jay McCarthy who takes it for cycleYorkshire!! He raises his arms in celebration as he rolls over the line.
Kwiatkowski finishes strongly for 2nd while Van Garderen takes the last spot on the podium.
Ponzi comes in 4th ahead of Beltran in 5th. It's a strong result for Bilbao who takes 6th with Prevar and Paulinho just behind him. Minions will be disappointed as Boasson Hagen only manages 9th while Schreurs rounds out the Top 10.
Skujins won't be too happy either as he only manages 14th while Kelderman would have hoped for more than 16th.
Strade Bianche Race Report 
