T-Mobile preview the Prologue 07

Team formation past Buckingham Palace

Mark Cavendish and Roger Hammond pose in front of Big Ben

Four T-Mobile riders - Mark Cavendish, Roger Hammond, team-leader Michael Rogers and Linus Gerdemann - descended on London recently to preview the Tour de France Prologue route.

The 7.9km will be a fast and challenging start to this year's race, and Cavendish and Hammond - if they get a place in the T-Mobile Tour team - will be hoping to perform well in front of a home-crowd. Both riders have had strong results this season so we can't see any reason why they won't be included.

After experiencing the streets of London in rush-hour, Cavendish commented: “It was fantastic, if a little scary, to ride through London on the roads that will be used to host the Tour Prologue. I can only imagine how incredible the atmosphere is going to be on 7th July and it will be amazing to see the race back on British soil. I think this trip will do us a lot of good as a team - even if we do not make the team for the Tour we have invaluable experience and knowledge of the route which we can pass on to our colleagues.”