The gap is dropping like a lead balloon. It's down to 40 seconds. Positions are changing in the peloton with riders looking to get shelter from the wind behind each other. There's a remarkable split as they go different ways around a roundabout.

Contador, Froome and Quintana are up at the front of the pack. I've yet to spot Nibali...

The team leaders are at the front of the peloton and they will have just seen a bloke in a yellow jacket on a motorbike hold up a board telling them they are 2mins 10secs from the breakaway.

Alberto Contador has had enough and his pulling the peloton along, yelling at his team-mates. It's becoming stretched now.

It's the Tinkoff-Saxo boys, with Alberto Contador in tow, at the front of the peloton an they're just being joined by Chris Froome's Team Sky. The gap is dropping. They probably heard about the weather by reading this live text.

If you don't believe me, here's the opinion of a former yellow jersey wearer Jens Voigt.

Apparently the arch to mark the 1km-to-go point has been taken down because it's so windy. It's going to get arduous on the coast.

What's the best type of cheese?

Gouda. (Get it? You have to say it like gooder. Oh well)

Anyway, we're in Gouda, which is where the cheese comes from. It's all copper coloured tiled roofs surrounding a whopping big church (St John). That breakaway of four riders is staying at a steady distance up the road.

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Image source, BBC Sport

There will be live coverage of stage two on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra from 15:00 BST today. The team are winding their away across the Netherlands, and might have thought they took a wrong turn at one point....

The breakaway has added a minute to the gap over the past few kilometres. Nothing to worry about just yet for Mark Cavendish's Etixx-Quickstep, but they won't want that to grow much more, particularly if the weather is dodgy on the coast.

Some lovely aerial shots of this south-westerly part of the Netherlands. If you've ever spent a lot of time in the Fens in East Anglia, you'll be familiar with this remarkable level of flatness.

...ah

A few extra seconds added to the gap there as we go through Oudewater. There are some very ominous looking clouds up ahead. Big heavy grey ones that look like they could get angry at any moment. I hope they're not at the finish line...

This tweet from Cav this morning shows that he fancies it today.

Beautiful scenes as we head through Montfoort. I know the Dutch do windmills well but this is a cracker. It's in the middle of the town and the sails have been adorned with Tour yellow. Delightful.

Image source, EPA

Mark Cavendish and his Etixx-Quick Step team will fancy a crack at the stage win today. It's the type of stage the Manx man will need to do well in if has designs on that green jersey. There's also an intermediate sprint in Rotterdam, which we'll hit in about 50km.

Last year's points winner Peter Sagan might not excel today, but the likes of Andre Greipel and Alexander Kristoff might fancy a pop if we get a bunch finish.

I finally have live pictures of racing (could you tell I was padding?). And the first thing we see is a bloke, on a bike attached to a jet pack, hovering above a body of water. He's wearing a polka dot jersey, so possibly fancies himself as the king of the mountains.

Rohan Dennis may have just been stitched up by his own team here. Officially, he broke the record for the quickest average speed around a Tour time trial yesterday.

But his BCM team say the GPS on his bike shows that his distance was 300m less than the advertised 13.8km. If that's true, then Chris Boardman's record is intact.

There you go. Cycling is the most honest and trustworthy sport in the world...

ITV 4 presenter Gary Imlach has just shaken Boardman's hand to congratulate him. Boardman looks sheepish.

It's Sunday. The weather's nice.

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While it was fun to watch man against clock in yesterday's time trial, it's pretty exciting to get down to tactics and breakaways. The ceremonial stuff is all done, and the riders are on their way out of Utrecht. It's a depart of the grandest nature.