Image source, Elia Viviani

Cannondale Pro's Italian rider Elia Viviani on Twitter:, external "We have a plan for today @cannondalePro, ready for a sprint stage! #greenmachine."

With Cambridge's very own depart creeping ever closer - the race starts at mid-day - it's probably a good time to take a look at what today's stage has in store. It's a 155km, almost pan-flat race from Cambridge to London which is expected to end in a bunch sprint on The Mall.

Unfortunately, there will be no Mark Cavendish to challenge for the stage win, so the big question is, who can stop Marcel Kittel from winning his second stage in three days?

Image source, Tour de France

BBC Radio 5 live

You will be able to listen to regular updates from stage three of the Tour de France on BBC Radio 5 live on both Shelagh Fogarty's programme, which starts at 12:00 BST, and Richard Bacon's, from 14:00 BST.

Live coverage will start on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra from 15:00 BST and you can listen by clicking on the Live Coverage tab at the top of this page.

Rob Hatch
BBC Radio 5 live sports extra commentator

"The residents of little-known Jenkin Road opened their door for front row seats as the first blows between the favourites were exchanged at the Tour de France. The brutal 33% gradient on this residential road in the suburbs of Sheffield saw Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali and Chris Froome attack each other for the first time.

"With no-one able to make a difference on the climb itself, and Peter Sagan favourite on the sprint, Italian champion Nibali broke away on the last 2km. Confusion behind and the big guns behind allowed him to take the stage and with it the race leaders yellow jersey."

The crowds are already gathered in Cambridgeshire village Great Shelford ahead of the Tour passing through.

Image source, Getty Images

An estimated 2.5m, including three royals, were on the streets and hills of Yorkshire, watching the 198 riders embark on the 2,277-mile race to Paris.

They cheered them up the exotically-named Cote de Buttertubs and Cote de Grinton and gasped as home favourite Mark Cavendish crashed out in stage one's sprint finish in Harrogate.

Stage two saw similar-sized crowds, with 60,000 alone on Holme Moss, although the hilly terrain was too brutal for race leader Marcel Kittel, who finished 20 minutes adrift of the winner to relinquish the yellow jersey.

Vincenzo Nibali outkicked his rivals on the run-in to Sheffield to take the maillot jaune, but not before defending champ Chris Froome had delivered a psychological blow to his main rivals by being first up the steepest climb of the entire Tour - a 33% gradient named Jenkin Road, on a housing estate in Sheffield.

It appears as though they just might. Hundreds of people have been gathering around the race start at Gonville Place in Cambridge since 06:30 BST. Around one million spectators were on the roadside in London the last time the Tour was in town for the 2007 Grand Depart and we all know how much bigger cycling has got since then.

Hello and welcome to live text commentary of stage three of the Tour de France. Yorkshire turned out in their millions to give the race the best send-off it has ever had and organiser Christian Prudhomme has clearly been impressed.

Even the legend that is Bernard Hinault, a five-time winner of the race and the last Frenchman to do so, in 1985, was moved to say he has never seen crowds quite like it in his 40-year association with the race.

A big chapeau to Yorkshire.

Will spectators lining the third and final English stage, from Cambridge, through Essex to London, complete a sensational hat-trick today?

Image source, PA

"I can see the Tour in their hearts, and in their eyes. For that, I say thank you to everyone in Yorkshire who has made this Grand Depart so very, very special."

The words of Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme, who has described Yorkshire's Grand Depart as the "grandest" in the 111-year history of the race.