Road Cycling Pros: Eddy Merckx and the 2012 Tour

The 2012 Tour de France starts in the homeland of cycling legend Eddy Merckx.

There are just under three weeks to go until the start of the Tour de France, when the world's cycling elite will once again chase the yellow jersey in the 98th edition of the French tour. On Saturday 30 June the peloton sets off for the prologue in Liege. The Parc d'Avroy marks the start of this year's most tradition-steeped cycling event in the world.

Belgium is awaiting the Tour de France peloton with great anticipation. After Brussels in 1958, Charleroi in 1975 and Liege in 2004, the cycling elite will fight their first battle for the yellow jersey here for the fourth time in 2012.

Belgium, a cycling nation with many famous professional riders and a total of 10 different Tour winners - including five-time overall winner Eddy Merckx - is hoping for a spectacular start to the main race of the 2012 cycling season.

Once a rider himself, now a bike manufacturer behind the scenes.

Eddy Merckx, regarded by the Cycling Hall of Fame as the greatest racer in cycling history, now runs his own company producing high-quality bikes for competitive cycling.

Alongside sponsoring and equipping various professional teams and a recently established development partnership with Lexus to improve the technical capabilities of his racing machines, it is above all amateur cyclists who contribute to continuous quality improvement. In so-called test facilities, such as the Cervelo Test Center on Mallorca run by Radverleih Mallorca, cycling enthusiasts have the chance to put the latest developments in the sport thoroughly through their paces under professional guidance.

Cannondale test centre on Mallorca.

Radverleih Mallorca, as a renowned international cycling holiday operator with a large bike hire station on Mallorca, contributes directly to improving and refining the road bikes through its customers' feedback.

Once cycling fans are convinced by a product, they can buy the bike they've tested on the spot and take it away with them straight away, or have it delivered to their home address.

Anyone who buys a Cervelo or Cannondale road bike inevitably associates its quality and technical features with the great names in cycling history and their dogged pursuit of perfection.