Tour of California Stage 7

[laughlaugh18]

The sound and breeze of a peloton passing you only inches away - unbelievable!! Today I was a course marshal on Stage 7 in a great spot - the beginning of the only incline on the course (not a hill to them). Watching them go by 10 times, first the breakaway group of 4, then the peloton, was sensational. They're whizzing up this hill at 30 mph, they're all packed together - and they're chatting!! Each circuit I was able to pick someone out of the crowd - Landis, Hincapie, Salvodelli. I never found Leipheimer, but of course they're gone in the blink of an eye.

Road racing is just about the coolest thing, ever!

[tprevost]

Very Cool! How did you get to volunteer? I'm going to have to get more involved in this stuff! You are so lucky!!!

Thanks for the pics!

Tracy

[Ninabike]

Hi LaughLaugh - Congratulations on being involved in the Tour. Just watching those guys is enough to get you "addicted" to riding. Your pics are great too. I had planned to ride down and watch them, but "things" came up and I never even got on my bike yesterday. I hope next year, the media will get more involved. Intrestingly, on the local news they were talking about the crowd watching the Nascar race - about 140,000. and later, just in passing, said 200,000 watched the Tour on Sunday. Does that figure sound right to you? I hope so. The media needs to know how many people are into cycling.

Nina

[Ninabike]

I just checked out Velonews and they said about 100,000 people watched Stage 7. That's still aLOT of people!! Hey news media - Wake Up!!

[snapdragen]

Up here in Northern Cali the media were pretty good. The murky news (San Jose Mercury) had special articles on the race, and covered our local club. One of the local stations followed the race in their helicopter until San Luis Obispo, and had the video feed on their website.

[Bike Goddess]

Hey laughlaugh- Thanks for the great pictures! I followed the tour on Velo News yesterday here at work, so at least I was vicariously involved. They gave updates about every 10-15 min with the last few laps more frequently as the groups were changing.

Some of the guys dropped out and I think Leipheimer might have been one. There is a report on VeloNews.com for each stage of the race.

Pretty neat that we got to see the race up close! I'll get my pics of stage 2 on here as well. I have pics of the bikes!

[bikerchick68]

Cool pics! Isn't it just amazing to see the peleton in person??? I posted my story and phot album from stage 6 as well... Levi signed my brother's bike frame and my denim jacket!

He won KOM for the Tour!:D

[CorsairMac]

Lucky you LL! I can't even imagine what it must be like to be that close. We hold Crits here in the late spring but the most number of riders I've ever had pass me was about 2 doz. There is such a thrill hearing them come down the road and the _whooooooosh_ they're gone! Thanks for the pixs!

[laughlaugh18]

http://photobucket.com/albums/a306/PaulsBirthday/Tour%20of%20California%2006%20Stage%206%20and%207/

Here are more of my pictures (I hope I did it right; I'm a Photobucket newbie).

I'm no Graham Watson, I'm afraid, but I saw him! He was taking pictures from near my spot on Sunday. I saw his name tag and told him I loved his pictures. He was very nice. I also saw someone else come up to him and get his autograph - I bet that doesn't happen in Europe.

BC - I saw your pics. Absolutely amazing! I have spent all day looking at my pictures over and over, too. It still doesn't quite make it real, does it? I never did pick Levi out of the pack - I forgot to look for the red KOM jersey!

BG - I was flipping back and forth between Velonews.com, cyclingnews.com and the tour official website all week. I sure hope my company doesn't check my bandwith usage for the week! The official Tour website has lots of cool video clips from each stage.

Attendance - I think the >100,000 for Sunday was a bit optomistic, although I didn't see the start/finish area. It was pretty crowded just above me at the top of the hill, though. Everyone was in such a fantastic, party mood.

Media - if you're in the LA area, email bill.dwyre@latimes.com (the sports section editor) and ask him to provide better coverage next year.

tprev - signing up to volunteer couldn't have been easier. I just signed up at the official tour website for the stages I could work, and then I magically started getting emails from the volunteer coordinator for each stage.

Have I mentioned yet just how absolutely fun, amazing, crazy, exciting, fabulous this weekend was!! :D