SF Grand Prix? Who went and how was it?

We just got done watching the coverage on channel 7 and it was horrid. We had no idea what was going on most of the time and it was quite confusing.

Another note, we saw that our friend, Zach Walker, who was riding for McGuire, crashed pretty badly. Did anyone happen to hear how he's doing?

This morning the race announcer stated that they were improving the televised coverage this year - instead of live, all day coverage there would be a 30 minute highlights show at 7pm. What an improvement, huh? Well, at least the coverage was an hour long (or maybe only 30 minutes after commercials).

Think of the highlights show as being just like the race in terms of confusion, though. You rarely have a clue what's going on, you just cheer each time you see the riders pass :).

Despite the confusion, it's a very fun time; next year, get a sitter and go slinke! We saw Ivan Basso warming up and being interviewed - he's skinny but such a cutie. Saw Bob Roll, standing around NOT talking. The announcer said George Hincapie now weighs 160 pounds! No wonder he was back in the pack, he's obviously starving. At times along the course the cyclists pass so close to the barriers you could easily cause a "musette" moment. Levi looked fantastic - he always seemed to be leading the peloton chasing down the breakaway (kinda strange, since Gerolsteiner was in the breakaway). Dave Zabriskie started, but we never saw him after the beginning; Basso dropped out somewhere along the way too.

I didn't know there'd been a crash until I saw it on TV - hope your friend is OK.

Lee and I took CalTrain into the city, and almost immediately hopped on a bus up Van Ness, got off at Broadway, walked up to to Fillmore & found Veronica and Thom about 5 minutes before the race first came by - our timing was impeccable. We all hung out on Fillmore for a couple more laps, watching the spectacle, and then wandered down Broadway a bit to see them carreen by at speed (once they caught their breaths after coming over the top of Fillmore) and then we continued down to Broadway & Polk where they did a 90 degree turn at speed, that was fun to see. The teams cars bombing around that corner with brakes a-squealin' was kind of exciting, in the impending doom sense.

It looks like Dave Z dropped out within the first couple of laps, I never really saw him except in the team car (at one point I saw the CSC team car go by, Bjarne Riis at the wheel, with a bike on top when there wasn't one before. I saw a silouette with bushy hair inside and figured it had to be Z. Next time around I saw it was his number on the bike on top of the car so that was that). Got my Basso fix over several laps before he too dropped out - he was never really up there in the mix, and he didn't look like a happy camper (no angelic smiles for moi, alas) but he has cheekbones to die for. :)

Levi and George were kinda-sorta up there, the race broke apart after 3 laps or so but they were almost always near the front of the second or third chase group. Freddie made an appearance up there too from time to time.

Once the part of the race that went out to Fillmore was over, we went our separate ways, and Lee and I had our traditional (if 2 yrs in a row makes a tradition) lunch at Little Joe's on Van Ness (linguine w white clam sauce, yumm...) and we walked up Union and Columbus back to the Embarcadero where the expo was still going on, wandered through that a bit and then walked to the Caltrain station for the trip home. Great time!

Oh, and at about the 26-minute mark on the telecast they showed Michael Creed going up Fillmore and we got a very very brief glimpse of Veronica standing along the barrier with Lee & I behind her (thus extending Lee's current 15 minutes of fame by about 12 milliseconds). V. was wearing a light blue jacket and sunglasses. We were standing just uphill of a signpost near the top of Fillmore, that's how we were able to pick ourselves out.

If you want to know what happened (fancy that ;) ) here's a story

http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2005...05/?id=results

Nothing about Slinke's friend, though.

http://www.tandemhearts.com/temp/fabian.jpg

Race winner Fabian Wegmnann is behind Fred Rodriguez and we're not sure which Discovery guy.

This is the corner where as Jo says - they carreened by at speed.


V.

Cool shot Veronica! I'm going next year, now that "the no-Lance-effect" has struck, watching on the television is the pits.

Was this Basso's first SFGP? Maybe he wasn't ready for Fillmore! :eek: