Alexey Lutsenko has been successfully paced back into the peloton.

Rochelle Gilmore
2010 Commonwealth Games champion on BBC TV

With the material of the jackets it can be quite hard to print colours and numbers on them.

Nicky Cook: Surely it would be possible for the riders raincoats to be in team colours and contain numbers?

The peloton are holding the advantage of the 11 riders out front at the 4:30 mark.

Lutsenko now has three Kazakh team-mates pacing him back.

He is perhaps nervous about using the team car too much after Nils Eekhoof was disqualified from winning the under-23 race for drafting behind his Dutch team car for over two minutes earlier this week.

Kazakhstan's Alexey Lutsenko, an outside shout for victory here, has had an issue and is being paced back by a team-mate.

Should easily get back on.

J Sapier: Feeling sympathy for these riders in this atrocious weather.

Patrick Bevin (NZ), Vasil Kiryienka (Bel), Lukasz Owsian (Pol), Alexander Evtushenko (Rus), Natnael Berhane, Daniel Teklehaimanot (Eri) and Drikus Coetzee (Nam) have all abandoned the race.

If you're just joining us, heavy rain overnight has meant that the course has been shortened by 23.5km and re-routed.

The two biggest climbs of Buttertubs and Grinton Moor were removed and the race took a different loop before rejoining the planned route at Leyburn.

The riders will now complete nine laps of the finishing circuit in Harrogate, instead of seven, to make up some of the distance lost.

No, Sharon. Bernal pulled out of the Colombia team earlier this month and was replaced by Carlos Betancur.

Sharon Powell: Is Egan Bernal racing today?

Jos van Emden has just come up to the front and told Rohan Dennis to just ease it up.

They don't want to catch the breakway too soon, just limit the gap.

Van Emden especially wants to make sure the race situation is ideal for Mathieu van der Poel when they reach the finishing circuit.

BBC Two now has live coverage of the race, with commentary from Simon Brotherton, Chris Boardman and Rochelle Gilmore.

You can also watch uninterrupted coverage by clicking the tab at the top of this page.

Jos van Emden is on the front of the peloton for the Netherlands, mostly in service of Mathieu van der Poel.

Australia remain prominent up the front too.

The gap to the leading group goes above four minutes for the first time in the race.

Still a long way to go, but when do the peloton get nervous?

This isn't your standard world champs breakaway - there are three Grand Tour winners and other serious talents in that group of 11.

More from Geraint Thomas: "It’s amazing. A home worlds doesn’t come round every day. To be lining up on the startline with my team and with a real chance of getting a medal with Swifty is great, especially on his local roads.

"With the way the support is these days it’s something we’re really relishing and we’ll try to ride off that. Even with the bad weather there will still be great crowds."

These are the 11 riders in the front group: Nairo Quintana (Col), Jonas Koch (Ger), Jan Polanc (Slo), Primoz Roglic (Slo), Magnus Cort (Den), Maciej Bodnar (Pol), Silvan Dillier (Swi), Petr Vakoc (Cze), Hugo Houle (Can), Richard Carapaz (Ecu), Alex Howes (US).

They lead the chasing peloton by 3:42 with 180km left to go.

Hels Bels: Not every day the World Cycling Championships comes down the bottom of my road now dry and watching on BBC.

The leading group head through the feed zone and Denmark's Magnus Cort almost comes a cropper but stays upright.

These 11 riders, including Grand Tour winners Primoz Roglic, Richard Carapaz and Nairo Quintana, have extended their lead to 3:20 now.

Seb Piquet, the voice of race radio in many of cycling's biggest races, probably thought he had seen it all before today...