Le Tour which first started in 1903 is like the bicycles themselves, a well oiled machine and the hoardes of media who follow the tour were well catered for with bus shuttles from the media centre at Excel and cruises up the Thames to Embankment plus their own village in the grounds of Buckingham Palace offering free food and drink.
Considering that the visit of the race generated around thirty million pounds in income for the city in hotels,travel etc, this was money well spent by Lord Mayor Ken Livingston.
The route was a 7.9km prologue course which snaked up up and down Constitution Hill to the finish in the Mall.
With well policed and stewarded crowds estimated at the one million mark watching either by the side of the road or on big screens with commentary from Hugh Porter, Le Grand Departure for the first time on English soil since 1994, started at 3pm.
First off was Enrico Degano from the Barloworld team who set the pace with a time of ten minutes and twenty seconds. It was a time which was very slow in comparision to the vast majority of the other 188 riders.
Spain's Mikel Astarloza who started 36th clocked a time of 9.23 to lead for a while. With first David Zabriskie and then Valdimir Karpets riding home in a time of 9.16 which saw the Russian eventually finish sixth.
There were five British riders starting the race, the biggest since Britain entered a team in 1987 and hopes were high for wins for either David Millar or local lad Bradley Wiggins.
Millar eventually finished in 12th place whilst Wiggins who was getting all the cheers from the crowd on the road and in the press box from the handful of British press who were well out numbered by their foreign colleagues. He finished third (eventually fourth) and he was was pleased with his ride saying: "The crowd helped me. "I was going out there to do everyone proud. "It was fantastic."
David Millar
Then along came Swiss rider Fabien Cancellera. Like a speeding bullet, he shot off even over taking media and pollice motorbikes. He finished in a time of 8.50 ahead of Andrea Kloden and George Hincapie to take the yellow and green jersey's.
The Prologue Winner in his yellow jersey.