2005 Tour de Georgia

[skibum]

I've been waiting for the announcement and it came today -- tour officials have finally unveiled the route for the 2005 Tour de Georgia. If I can manage to get the Friday off work, I can catch the last three stages. These stages look to be very similar to last year, two are mountain stages in the N. Georgia mountains and then the final day finishes in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta.

If anyone lives close enough, I would highly recommend trying to see a stage or two. I saw two stages last year when I was just getting into cycling and it definitely got me pumped up to keep on riding!

[doc]

How Cool. I just moved to the south 6 months ago and didn't even know this took place. I'm gonna try to convince the hubby we should go! He doesn't ride so this might be tricky.

[mtbstarr]

Awesome!!!!! The hubby and I went last year. Managed to catch Lance Armstrong coming out of the trailor, and got an autograph. I even got to stand close enough to reach out an touch his bike that was leaning against the trailor. Motivation for touching it....it nearly fell over when he grabbed for it, and I prevented it meeting the pavement. We saw the last stage, and witnessed the win. It was way cool. Also got to chew the fat with Bob Roll. He is a wonderful character, and I recommend talking to him if you get the chance.

Side note, any mountain bikers out there, I recommend Bull Mountain in Dahlonega Georgia. Great and really beautiful ride.

[spazzdog]

VeloNews is touting "live" coverage beginning at 1:30 EDT today

web address: http://www.velonews.com/race/dom/articles/7892.0.html

then click LIVE COVERAGE


oh (side-step) ... and at 12:05 PM EDT we apparently have a new pope.

[skibum]

Thanks for the link. I'm going to have to keep that in the background while working so I can keep an eye on how the race is going.

[spazzdog]

1:30 has come and gone and the site now says LIVE will begin at 2:30 PM... I guess they forgot that the IT guys go out to lunch

[profàvélo]

Hey, y'all, get out and see any part of the Tour de Georgia that you can. The finish day is a blast--they set up a sort of sponsors' village with some freebies, plus food for purchase, and you can watch the racers do laps to finish out the race.

The following weekend (Aprill 30) is another really cool event: the Athens Twilight Criterium in Athens, GA (http://www.athenstwilight.com/). It's way cool, with lots of different races to watch: amateur cyclists, a kids' event, a one-mile $1000 run, hand cycles, PRO WOMEN, and ending with pro men. It's great--you can pick a spot on the route and watch the laps. Try to get close to a corner and be amazed at the speed at which these people take turns. It will motivate you to get out and ride...

[spazzdog]

According to the race site, in a full on group sprint, Robbie Hunter of Phonak has taken the 1st Stage.

No times listed yet.

spazz

[spazzdog]

Position No. Rider Team Country Time Gap
1 15 LANDIS Floyd Phonak Hearing Systems USA 11.14'19"
2 23 ZABRISKIE David Team CSC USA 11.14'38" 19"
3 61 BALDWIN Christopher Navigators Insurance Cycling Team USA 11.14'41" 22"
4 21 JULICH Bobby Team CSC USA 11.14'47" 28"
5 66 O'NEILL Nathan Navigators Insurance Cycling Team AUS 11.15'02" 43"
6 53 LEIPHEIMER Levi Gerolsteiner USA 11.15'09" 50"
7 5 DANIELSON Tom Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team USA 11.15'19" 1'00"
8 6 EKIMOV Viatcheslav Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team RUS 11.15'40" 1'21"
9 1 ARMSTRONG Lance Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team USA 11.16'01" 1'42"
10 25 VANDBORG Brian Team CSC DEN 11.16'06" 1'47"

[trekchic]

I was at the Tour this year and It was Fantastic! The Jittery Joe's team put on a show for sure. Trent Lowe was awesome in the mountains. I got there Friday afternoon just in time to see them get into Delonehga (sp?). WOW! Lance was so focused when he came around the bend under the Maxxis sprint to the finish marker! I was about 15 feet away from him---it was so cool!

Floyd made himself available for lots of autographs and pics all weekend, which I thought was cool. Sat. morning, when they headed up for the main climb, which was brutal to say the least--- one of the announcers made a statement that Floyd was kicked off the Discovery team. And within 15 minutes, he issued a statement that he LEFT the team and WASN'T kicked off! So there must have been some annimosity between him and Lance as that is where the announcer was going with that. The Phonak team looked pretty good, anyway. The Discovery team looked great! Danielson (Tom, I think) did great the whole weekend.

It was just a lot of fun to be there and get to see the riders, their equipment, their team cars and busses........the whole ambiance! Cool... I wonder if 100,000 people will show up next year when Lance won't be there. They should, GA put on a great race!

Kim

[skibum]

Glad you made it to the race, Kim. I was there too and I agree, it was awesome! I went up to the mountains Fri morning. Our home base was in a tiny town called Suches. We hopped on our bikes and planned to ride the four climbs that were part of that days stage (Woody Gap, Neel's Gap, Wolfpen Gap, back to Woody Gap). We were going to watch them go by on the top of Woody Gap and then ride the reverse route back to Wolfpen and hope to get there before they did so we could see them a second time. Well, I had a little mishap on the Neel's climb that slowed us up and changed the plans. During the climb, my chain fell off. Man, you lose momentum so quickly under those circumstances. I got a foot clipped out but not in time to keep myself from falling over. I was so embarrassed to fall like that in front of all the cyclists around me that I rushed to put the chain back on and hopped back on the bike. Bad move... I maybe made it 20ft up the road and the chain dropped again. Since I hadn't gained any speed yet, I fell over immediately, completely clipped in. Ouch!! The bike was ok but I scraped up my knee and elbow, some nice bruises appeared later. This time, I decided to examine the bike to try to understand why I was dropping the chain. I discovered a bad link in the chain and knew I had to remove it before I would be able to ride any further. I don't carry a chain tool because my BF has one. But, guess what?? I told him it was okay to ride ahead of me as long as he waited at the top. There were hundreds of cyclists riding around there and I got plenty of offers of help but no one had a chain tool. I saw some people I knew and they said they would try to find my BF and send him back down the mountain to help out. He arrived just after I finally found a couple of guys who could help me. They popped the bad link out and I was back on the road. We made it to the top of Neel's and continued on to Wolfpen in time to get hit with the thunderstorm and hail that passed through the area. At that point, we decided we would just stop at the top of Wolfpen to watch the race. I was wet and cold but it was all worth it. I got a spot on the side of the road with my toes on the KOM finish line. I could literally have reached out and touched the riders as they went by if I had wanted to. It was so cool!!

We had planned to ride our bikes from Suches over to the stage finish on Brasstown Bald on Sat. but it was soooo cold and windy that we wimped out and drove over. The crowds were immense, lots of people on their bikes and cars lining the roads for several miles on either side of the turn up to Brasstown Bald. We had thought about walking up to the top or at least to the spot that they call 'The Wall' because of its steepness but decided we might see better if we were away from the crowds. We weren't disappointed. We were able to get right up to the edge of the road and the riders passed within a few feet of us. Danielson and Leipheimer attacked just after they passed us and we could see Lance and Landis trying to stay with them. Then as some of the other riders came along, we could see the pain in their faces as they struggled up the climb. So exciting!

I think it was a good thing that Lance didn't win this year. That allowed some other riders to be in the spotlight. I'm hoping that people realize that there are a lot of other great riders out there and that they still will come out to watch in future years. I know I will!

[spazzdog]

OK... so I didn't get to watch this years Tour, nor did I see last year's so I went to the Tour's website shop and bought the CD of 2004's race.

$25.00... right! Very inexpensive, and I should have known you get what you pay for. The CD "covering" 7 stages of a premier U.S. stage race was 60 minutes long... including commercials. Yes, I said commercials. Whomever put this CD together didn't feel it necessary to edit them out.

I am absolutely disgusted! I sent a little nasty gram to both the marketing group and the Media Director for the Tour.

If you were contemplating this purchase, don't bother. The online "words only" coverage provided this year by cyclingnews.com was worth double the money.

OK... I'm done now. Sorry for the rant.

spazz

[Deanna]

OK... so I didn't get to watch this years Tour

If you get OLN, they are not showing their coverage of the Tour de Georgia until theic "Cyclysm" episode airing Sunday, May 1st. True, it will be condensed down to 1-1/2 hours and there will be commercials, but it'll cost you less than $25.00!

[spazzdog]

No OLN in my part of town. A friend abt 15 mi away gets it and if possible I may go up to her place Saunday so I can catch it.

Anything will be better than what I got for 2004. Those folks need a better Media Director.

Oh... thanks for listening Deanna

spazz