Missiles of Tirreno

Tirreno-Adriatico: Stage 6

Best breakaway yet:
Part-time model Little Pete Kennaugh and Special Agent Jack Bauer. And two other inconsequential guys.

The Curse of Chauncey Jerome was also there briefly but was dropped on an early climb.

Little Pete Kennaugh is a bit of a player as we know. Dave Brailsford reckons he would've played an even bigger part in Froomey's Tour had he not pitched so aggressively into that ditch.  

Porto Sant’Elpidio has previously been visited by this race and notably featured a 27% climb last year. 

Partially because of that climb, it also provided a backdrop to one of the greatest demonstrations of human endeavor seen in the modern age, in the form of Taylor Phinney's beyond epic and beyond emotional solo ride to the finish.

...I defy even the most hard-hearted not to WEEP at that tale.

But anyway. After the havoc caused by yesterday's wall, everyone will no doubt appreciate the average 5.6% we'll see today.

While we await some updates... LINDA TIME!

Ted King's Cannons are pushing the pace at the front, trying to drop the competition.  

Well it worked once before, so why not?

This time it's Kittel being left behind. That'll teach you to steal Taylor Phinney's hair!!

Wow, he's so distanced he's now a Group on the road. 

Peter Kennaugh led the four escapees over the climb, and is now trying to breathe some life into their move by putting in a long, long turn on the descent. Watch those long descents, Pete.

Cav is still in the main group. Do a San Remo, guy!

The gap to Pete Kennaugh's group is coming rapidly down. 'Gap' and 'rapidly coming down' not uncommon themes for Little Pete.

Jack Bauer is responding to the ticking time bomb and is soldiering on gamely as well.

Oh my god, Hero Adam is back at the Hero Wheel and trying to do some pace-making for The Thighs.

OPQS is going largely unmentioned in all of this. Kwiatkowski has ridden himself out of his skin until now, but the kid knows no bounds and will undoubtedly be back for more.

Jack Bauer is going solo!  

Very little advantage for the breakaways now, about 25 seconds in hand.

Round the back, Kittel is within a minute of the main group.

Mark Cavendish and Andre Greipel are resolutely part of the main peloton, and their Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Lotto-Belisol teams are both contributing at the front.  Ok, who in this group HASN'T ridden for HTC?

15k and 15 second's lead for the break.

And Little Pete Kennaugh sits up.

Kittel is still going for it, his gap is down to 33 seconds with 13k remaining.

With impeccable timing, host broadcaster RAI has lost live pictures from the race, and as Marcel Kittel gamely tries to battle back on to the main peloton, we are instead being treated to pictures of a dog awaiting the finish in Porto Sant'Elpidio.  Alright I like dogs as much as the next guy but WTF?? We're trying to have a bike race here!

Even the twittersphere can't cope. So here's this.

The last breakaways are caught. And cyclingnews continues to have problems with RAI's coverage.

PhilGil is taking this untelevised moment to shine, and cyclingnews struggles to cope: RAI has now shown us every dog on a leash on the Adriatic coast.

What did I say about this total legend??!

Cyclingews are outdoing themselves: And we're back just in time to see Philippe Gilbert's (unseen and thus presumably for the ages) solo attack shut down by the main peloton.

Oh my Christ, a crash! Lotto mainly down. OPQS mainly up apparently.

FLAMME ROUGE.

OF ALL THE TIMES FOR THE TV TO BREAK!! Waaaahooooooooooooo!

This is one of the greatest things I've ever heard. If only there were visual evidence: Petacchi and Cavendish opened a huge gap on the rest even before Cavendish came off his wheel. Once Cavendish flashed past, Petacchi sat up to celebrate Cavendish's win - and then looked around and started sprinting again to help himself to second place on the stage.

Bernie better watch out, there may be a new bromance on the go.

Classic Cav: "I never look at what he's doing and what everyone else is doing," Cavendish says of Kittel, before enquiring of Greipel. "It would have been nice to sprint againt Kittel and Greipel."

Too bad I'm just too good.

SO MUCH LOVE!!!

But not all my love, cuz he gets lots.