Bonjour le Tour! Hello and welcome to our live coverage of stage 1 of the 2017 Tour de France - kicking off with a 14km time trial in Dusseldorf in Germany.

We have a new leader: Germany's Nikias Arndt (Team Sunweb) shaves one second off Grivko's target time. That's a nice present for the home fans, who are braving the rain out there to watch the world's biggest bike race come to town.

CRASH: Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) slips over onto his backside and slides along the road into the barriers. Not the greatest start for the Dutchman, who has been tipped to win a maiden Tour stage win in one of the sprints...

Here's the moment Andrey Grivko set the best time...

Belgium's Thomas de Gendt is the latest rider to come home - and the Lotto Soudal man ships an entire minute to provisional leader Grivko. He has bigger fish to fry, mind. Namely a stage win in the mountains or the polka dot jersey, perhaps...

One of the big favourites today is Tony Martin, the German rider who helped out designing the course. He's world champion in this discipline, and the obvious choice for the win today - although the weather may throw a cat among the pigeons.

We failed to mention that it is Elie Gesbert's birthday today: the first rider down the ramp this afternoon turns 22 today. What a birthday present being the man to get this Tour started.

CRASH: We didn't see it, but Nathan Brown - one of four Cannondale riders making their Tour debut - hit the deck on one of the tight corners. He'll be the first of many, we expect.

Just to give you a market, Grivko's time was over two minutes quicker than Bouhanni's time. The Frenchman is slowest so far - clearly keeping himself fresh for tomorrow's first sprint.

Monster time for Andrey Grivko of Astana, who sets the first proper benchmark today. The Ukraine rider really gave it some welly out there, going hell for leather on the home straight to beat Colbrelli's target time by 15 seconds. Grivko had 12 seconds on the Italian and Tim Wellens of Lotto Soudal at the first check, and then took a further few seconds on the second part of the ITT. New target time: 16:21 (with both Wellens and Colbrelli +15 back).

Some notable start times today: Peter Sagan at 15:31, Vasil Kiryienka at 15:42, Michal Kwiatkowski at 16:04, Jonathan Castroviejo at 16:24, Mark Cavendish at 16:39, Greg van Avermaet at 16:44, Romain Bardet at 16:46, Geraint Thomas at 16:47, Jos van Emden at 16:54, Richie Porte at 17:06, Primoz Roglic at 17:16, Tony Martin at 17:20, Marcel Kittel at 17:22, Steve Cummings at 17:23, Fabio Aru at 17:27, Alberto Contador at 17:29, Nairo Quintana at 17:30 and Chris Froome at 15:32.

The riders are coming home in quick succession now: and it's that man Colbrelli who has the lead. His time of 16:36 is 34 seconds quicker than Nathan Brown of Cannondale-Drapac and 48 seconds quicker than Gesbert.

Just a reminder that the first check point today comes after 8.1km at Konigsallee. Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Merida) currently has the best time there: 9:39 - some 22 seconds quicker than Gesbert.

We have a target time: Gesbert completes the 14km course to set a time of 17:24.

It's worth mentioning that Elie Gesbert almost made a right hash of his first Tour - what a heartbreaking start that would have been to the 2017 Tour.

Bouhanni takes that U-bend before the bridge extremely gingerly - no surprise: it's raining heavily and there's a painted red section that looks really, really slippery. I guarantee that at least one rider will hit the deck there today...

The riders are rolling down the ramp thick and fast now, with sprinter Nacer Bouhanni of Cofidis the biggest name so far to enter the fray. He'll just hope to stay upright so he can contend for the opening sprint tomorrow...

Not the most auspicious start of the race, what with this rain and fog...

We're off! French rookie Elie Gesbert gets the 104th edition of the Tour under way as he rolls down the ramp. What an honour for the 22 year old making his Grand Tour debut... he's the youngest rider in the race.

Here's what the riders have in store today: some very long straights, two crossings of the river Rhine, a technical loop off one of the bridges, 10 tight 90-degree bends, one even tighter 300-degree bends onto the first bridge...

Riders are going off at one-minute intervals today - starting Elie Gesbert of Team Fortuneo-Oscaro at 14:15 BST, so just 10 minutes from now... The last rider down the ramp will be defending champion Chris Froome of Team Sky, at 17:32, so it's a fair wait until we catch a glimpse of the triple Tour champion in action.

So, after all a long wait and after all the sizzling build up, here we are for the 104th edition of the Grande Boucle and... it's raining. Things have eased up a little since this morning - when it was really cats and dogs - but the wet conditions are going to make it difficult for the riders out there, with with around eight or nine slippery bends to negotiate on this fast but occasionally technical, and almost pan-flat course.