Tinkoff, of course, have loftier ambitions than just keeper Peter Sagan in the yellow jersey.

Two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador is their protected rider and he has set up his entire season around this next three weeks.

The Spaniard has not had a great start to the 2016 edition of the race though. A crash on day one left him bruised and battered down his right-hand side. A crash on day two left him bruised and battered down his left-hand side.

He finished Sunday's stage 48 seconds behind his rivals for the overall victory - Britain's Chris Froome, Colombia's Nairo Quintana and Italy's Fabio Aru. That doesn't sound a lot, but in cycling terms, he's got a, errr...mountain to climb. 

He admitted yesterday that he has been physically hampered. A day for hiding in the peloton.

The Tinkoff team are at the front of the peloton, chiefly because they have the yellow jersey among their ranks with Peter Sagan. 

Armindo Fonseca, our lone breakaway rider is now just six minutes, 10 seconds up the road. 

The peloton won't want to catch him too soon. That would be too nice. It's much more fun to leave him out there, toiling in the heat on his own for another 150km or so.

In previewing today's stage, BBC Radio 5 live summariser, and double track world champion Rob Hayles, said: "Cav needs to continue the way he did on Saturday when he was head and shoulders above everyone. 

"The best sprinter in the world is Marcel Kittel and they were shoulder to shoulder when they hit out in the final 200m but Cav just accelerated away – he had so much speed (his top speed was 68km/h in that sprint finish). 

"It's a case of if he can keep his legs. He doesn't have the endurance he normally has because of track work. The track work has helped with his top speed but road work helps with endurance so he may fatigue a little more."

In light of all that, Rob picked his mate Cav to win today. Commentator Rob Hatch has gone for Andre Greipel, which meant podcast presenter OJ Borg was left with Kittel.

Check out the podcast to also find out which song they played in honour of Peter Sagan's victory.

So, will Mark Cavendish equal Bernard Hinault's haul of 28 stage wins today?

He has spent much of the year focusing on track racing because he is going to the Olympics in Rio after the Tour de France in search of the one thing missing from his trophy cabinet - an Olympic medal.

He was famously the only track rider from the British team to leave the Beijing Games empty handed in 2008. He declared he was finished with the track. He was 23 back then.

Now, as a 31-year-old, the lure of the track has been too great. 

However he has juggled track and road training because he knew that stage one of this year's Tour offered a rare opportunity for him to win the other prize he coveted. The yellow jersey. Job done.

No active rider has anywhere near as many Tour stage wins as he has - Andre Greipel is next with 10.

Where does he fit in your list of all-time greats? Can he even be considered one yet? Is he the best in Britain? And, crucially, will he win today? Tweet me at #bbccycling

More on Cav shortly. First let's get up-to-date with today's stage.

All 198 riders who started the race on Saturday are still racing, despite the usual raft of crashes.

They left Granville around 11:00 BST so are about one hour into day's 223.5km race to Angers.

 We have just one breakaway rider today. Armindo Fonseca of the Fortuneo Vital Concept was the brave (or foolhardy depending on how you want to look at it) soul who went clear from the off.

His advantage crept up to more than 11 minutes after 25km. At which point, the peloton woke up and the lead is down to a more manageable eight minutes, 30 seconds with 170km or so remaining.

It's going to be a long, lonely ride.

Yep folks, it's the kind of stage tailor-made for our very own Mark Cavendish. The Manx Missile came into this year's race unsure of his own form but a stunning victory on stage one put him in the race leader's yellow jersey for the first time.

He was unable to hold on to the jersey on stage two, because the uphill finish was too steep for him.

But he could create another bit of Tour history today. Saturday's win was his 27th Tour de France stage win. Another victory in Angers puts him joint second on the all-time list with Bernard Hinault - the legendary Frenchman who has won this race a joint record five times.

There's only one man ahead of those two and that is the Cannibal himself. Eddy Merckx, on 34.

Image source, Getty Images

Hello and welcome to live text commentary of stage three of the 2016 Tour de France. We have a 223.5km race from Granville on the north-western coast, heading straight south to Angers.   

One early climb for the riders to negotiate and then it's pretty much a flat run in to the finish in Angers where a bunch sprint is expected and you know what that means...

World champion Peter Sagan had an excellent Sunday

Winning stage two of this year's Tour de France in Cherbourg saw him usurp Mark Cavendish as the overall leader and also move ahead of the Manx Missile in the green points jersey race.

A good day for the Slovak.