Tour of CA Stage 2 (Tuesday)

[SadieKate]

Is that profile just Sierra Road?

On Scene Reporter Jobob said Thom and V rode by them all the way to the top, but she was mighty pleased that she and Mr. LeeBob made it farther up today than they did yesterday.

[Adventure Girl]

On Scene Reporter Jobob said Thom and V rode by them all the way to the top, but she was mightly pleased that she and Mr. LeeBob made it farther up today than they did yesterday.

I wonder if they did it at 15mph, too... Wow!

The feed through velonews made a point to tell us that many of the riders were using a 27 tooth cassette today for the Sierra Road climb. What a bunch of babies!

[snapdragen]

The up is all Sierra, then Felter (pretty flat), and down Caleveras. According to my BikeMaster program - from Piedmont up to the summit is 3.78 miles, 1830' climbing.

Is that profile just Sierra Road?

On Scene Reporter Jobob said Thom and V rode by them all the way to the top, but she was mightly pleased that she and Mr. LeeBob made it farther up today than they did yesterday.

[snapdragen]

I wonder how far I'd actually make it, in my present condition!

[SadieKate]

The feed through velonews made a point to tell us that many of the riders were using a 27 tooth cassette today for the Sierra Road climb. What a bunch of babies!

Cream Puffs! Ok, that's still one tooth larger than my inner chainring.

So, Ms Media Sleuth Snap, do you suppose there will be streaming video of the TT tomorrow?

How to tax your computer and DSL - one window open for video and two for velo news and cycling news.

[Adventure Girl]

I wonder how far I'd actually make it, in my present condition!

I'm pretty sure I could make it in my car. And I could do better than 15mph!

[SadieKate]

The up is all Sierra, then Felter (pretty flat), and down Caleveras. According to my BikeMaster program - from Piedmont up to the summit is 3.78 miles, 1830' climbing.

When I was talking to Buzz earlier, my long lost friend who met up with Jo and Lee today, he described the road as pretty brutal and he was/is a Cat 2.

[snapdragen]

I would think so, as long as they're in the bay area I think Channel 5 will follow. I wonder if any other stations will do the same as they travel down the state? (And isn't it nice I just had my DSL installed last week!)

Cream Puffs! Ok, that's still one tooth larger than my inner chainring.

So, Ms Media Sleuth Snap, do you suppose there will be streaming video of the TT tomorrow?

How to tax your computer and DSL - one window open for video and two for velo news and cycling news.

[jobob]

I wonder if they did it at 15mph, too... Wow!

Bwah hah hah, right !

More like 3 mph, hovering around 2 mph in the hard(er) parts. Yes, one can stay upright moving at 2 mph, I am living proof of that

We had an absolute blast !!!! We didn't go to the very top, we made it maybe 2/3 of the way up, past where we went yesterday so a moral victory in that. I felt so much better today than yesterday. We stopped at a really good switchback where we could see Piedmont road and the base of the climb below us (waaaay below us ) and we had a good view of parts of the road leading up to us. We figured that would do nicely, we had no burning desire to go further.

I had stopped along the way up to peel off a few layers, it was much warmer than I expected, when Veronica (aka demi-god in training) & Thom whizzed past us on the way up. But once we reached our ultimate destination, there was a cool breeze so I'm glad I had a bunch of layers to put back on !

A lot of people congregated at the switchback, it was a big fun bunch. And it was so neat to run into SK's friend Buzz there. He had his blackberry so he was able to log on to the cyclingnews live feed, so between him and our intrepid SadieKate we were reasonably well informed of the goings on.

Some people had gone to the top but came back down to our area, saying it was more crowed up there and the view wasn't quite as good. So our laziness paid off !

It was so cool watching the peleton snake up towards us. Once they they reached us they went by in a flash, at least the first couple of groups, and then there were the stragglers, then the poor guys waaaayyyy back. We cheered them all.

Once the last one went by, we were allowed to bike back down the hill. Another big advantage to not being at the top was that we had a much shorter ride down, and we arrived at the corner of Sierra & Piedmont in plenty of time to see the second pass on Piedmont Ave. I was a little bit apprehensive about the ride down, I was envisioning a crazy-fast mass descent but in reality it was very orderly and people went down at a reasonably cautious pace, which was good since there were a lot of people walking down the road as well as riding down. I heard afterwards that the people at the very top weren't allowed down until much later - V, is that so?

Deep thought of the day: you get a real feel for how steep a climb is when you go back down it. In a few parts it seemed like my front wheel was tipping waaaaay down in front of me.

We had a short wait before the racers whent whizzing by on Piedmont - lordy, the front guys were absolutely flying ! At that point Levi was up front with Floyd plus a third guy whose name I don't recall. Then there were a couple of bunches close behind, then a significant gap before the next groups came through.

My Missed Kodak Moment of the Day was when one of those later groups came by at a decidedly less intense pace. Fabian Cancellara of CSC sat up and waved both arms at the crowd as he passed by - too funny !

That's all I can think of to tell you off the top of my head. I have a half of a PB&J waiting for me and I'm feelinga bit peckish. I'll see how my photos came out (do NOT get your hopes up!!) and I'll post any that are worthy.

Boy, I had such a great time!

- Jo.

[SadieKate]

Oh, I am feeling so vindicated. After all the intense discussion of the climbs on the TopHat including Reliez and Pig Farm, the only climb that really surprised me was Upper Happy Valley Road. Now, it appears the race route was backwards from what we did but photos that I've found on the internet show that those boys didn't have any more fun on Happy Valley Road today than I did. I feel so-oo much better.