Simon Yates won Stage 9 of the Giro d'Italia to extend his overall lead while other big names such as Chris Froome (Team Sky) and Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) lost varying amounts of time to the pink jersey.
Dumoulin shipped 12 seconds, which is far from terminal this early into a race where he will make up that time and more over later time trialling kilometres.
Froome, however, saw his deficit to the top increased by another minute and with it his chances of the overall look likely to be over.
Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) had looked the strongest in the last kilometre of the stage as he chased down all attacks, but that accumulated effort must have taken its toll as he couldn't answer when Yates asked the ultimate question of him as they approached the finish line.
With the time bonus, Yates extended his lead overall while his teammate Esteban Chaves crossed the line third to move into second overall.
How Stage 9 of the 2018 Giro d'Italia unfolded
A lumpy day with a summit finish looming large was always going to make the breakaway think it could go all the way to the end.
The advantage for those out front was over eight minutes for a time but once Team Sky and Astana got interested in the main peloton it soon decreased as was down to 3:52 with 27km left to the line.
The breakaway consisted of Manuele Boaro (Bahrain-Merida), Fausto Masnada (Androni Giocattoli–Sidermec), Hugh Carthy (EF-Drapac), Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida), Mikaël Cherel (AG2R La Mondiale) and Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo).
Approaching the gantry that told riders they were 25km from a milkshake and a shower, the breakaway split up as those with better legs decided to push on in the hope of glory.
With around 20km to go, pink jersey Yates sent his remaining Mitchelton-Scott teammates to the front to up the pace. they were shadowed by Team Sky and Team Sunweb, but Movistar and Astana fell down the pecking order.
Up the front Masnada pushed on solo with Boaro chasing. Carthy launched from his quartet, which saw Brambilla dropped and then Carthy went again to catch and pass Boaro.
As the tail end of the breakaway group rolled under the 5km to go banner, the Astana-led main peloton rolled past, while Carthy was weaving his way ahead, trying to maintain a gap of around 20 seconds but with 3.6km to go his chance of a stage victory disappeared under a charging peloton.
Weaving along next to snow banks, Masnada came into view of the peloton and ended the final possibility of a breakaway stage win. He was passed just 2.8km from the line and straight away the counter move came from Giulio Ciccone (Bardiani–CSF).
Fabia Aru (UAE Team Emirates) found himself the wrong side of a growing gap in the line of favourites as rivals such as Dumoulin and Pinot pushed on.
Froome and Carlos Betancur (Movistar) were the next to get unhitched, while further up the road Pinot tried to stretch his legs to see what his rivals could do about it.
Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) launched next and Pinot was the first to react while Dumoulin was pulling all sorts of grimaces as he clung on to the back of the heavily reduced group of favourites.
Ciccone took it up again under the flamme rouge and once more it was Pinot who chased on with the restr of the group strung out behind him.
The young Italian went for a third time but couldn't gain a gap, before Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merdia) went next and his attack saw Dumoulin distanced.
With the finish line not far away the real fireworks started to go off.