Tour of California - spoilers allowed

[jobob]

Leebob and I are heading off for Sierra Road.

The way I've been riding lately, the best I might be able to manage is the first very steep (but thankfully short) climb up to the church where I'm told the Lifestyle Festival is taking place.

Must do some shopping for the Birthday Girl (Hi Mel!!!) -- yeah, that's my excuse.



I'll be wearing my Amici Veloci jersey (gee, it must have shrunk in the wash ...)

[ny biker]

HORNER!!! Amazing ride.

I love to see the "old guys" dominate. He'll be 40 in October.

[redrhodie]

That was a great ride! Woo-hoo! He rode like his saddle was on fire!

[ny biker]

And that's what Snickers bars, Coke and Little Debbie Brownies will do for ya...

[azfiddle]

Yesterday I hooked up my computer to my classroom projector and watched the end of the stage on a big screen! Fun. A few students in there were trying to do a little work but - they didn't get that much done....

[Jo-n-NY]

Thanks for the info on the Radio Shack tracker. I got prompted to down load something and I don't want to do that at work so I am reading it live on Cycling News.com.

[alice]

Leebob and I are heading off for Sierra Road.

The way I've been riding lately, the best I might be able to manage is the first very steep (but thankfully short) climb up to the church where I'm told the Lifestyle Festival is taking place.

Did you make it all the way up? It was killer! I walked up... surprised at the respect I got from people going up on two (or more) wheels.

I was also suprised by the ratio of men to women (at least up at the finish). Are women underrepresented in the field of cycling (the professional sport) fans? I had no idea.

[TrekTheKaty]

I lost track. How many flats has Andy had now?

Jobob, did you make it?

[redrhodie]

While commenting after the stage, Phil mentioned that Chris Horner would make a good tv commentator. Yes Please! He'd be great! I've read his blog, and he can write, too.

But I guess with the way he's still racing, he may not be retiring any time soon. Must be all the junk food that keeps him so young.

[ny biker]

DZ's son is a cutie.

I loved seeing coverage of the women's TT today. Kristin Armstrong had a baby 8 months ago!!

[redrhodie]

Great stage today! Nice teamwork. Poor Andy seemed off.

Noticed a shock of pink hair running along side on Versus, and wondered if that was Gnat?

[ny biker]

Love the black and white photo at the bottom of this page:

http://www.livestrong.com/teamradios...t-mount-baldy/

That was quite the steep climb. Fun to watch. Especially when teammates cross the line in solidarity like they did today.

Was sorry that Rory Sutherland was dropped. I'm rooting for the continental teams in this race.

I suspect "the bald men on Mount Baldy" had the edge over Andy in part because they were training in California and knew the climb better.

[loopybunny]

I made the drive last Sunday to Tahoe... which seems like it would have been a waste, but it was pretty darn awesome.

Bunch of the guys were hanging around in the lobby of Montbleu before the start and it was kind of fun seeing them. An acquaintance that knows Ted King sent him a text and got Ted to meet me. I was starstruck. I'd just won some stuff (hat, socks, and signed gloves) from Teddy earlier in the week so I got to thank him in person. He's much taller than I expected.

I managed to get some decent shots of the sign in and staging before they officially called it off.

Ted King was in good spirits.


Vaughters had a heated discussion with Andrew Messick and Linus Gerdemann about safety.


Chris Horner finding a good place to "start".


Will Dugan was a bit cold.


The rest of my stage 1 shots can be found here.

I also went to the stage 3 finish in Modesto. I didn't have the same luck photo wise, but I did finally track down Burke Swindlehurst thereby avoiding 2 months of endless guilt that would be piled on me for not saying hi.

I like Thor... he supposedly wasn't feeling well but he was definitely in a better mood.


This is what he did after the race.


My other stage 3 shots (only 5 right now) are here.

[emily_in_nc]

Lovely photos, Michelle! Thanks for sharing them. How wonderful to get so up close and personal with the pros.

[jobob]

Sorry I haven't posted!

Yes, Leebob & I rode up Sierra Road. I haven't ridden up there in quite a while (since well before my crash 2 years ago), and my oh my it showed. I lost track of how many times I stopped to catch my breath. We finally made it about 2/3 of the way up, to a part of the road that has a good view of the road below (we were right near the Belgian flags, you may have noticed them on the Versus telecast.)

Competitors who made it up in the early groups had started riding back down even before the (very large!) autobus made its way up. Most (not all) of the spectators waited until the broom wagon passed to start back down.

It was a creepy descent down Sierra Road. There were a lot of pedestrians walking down and timid cyclists tentatively descending, and the pedestrians in particular weren't very good at staying over to the right. We'd often get stuck behind them, but it was difficult to pass them because there were many corners with limited visibility, and there were plenty of cars already heading up the road.

And to top it off, there were lots of competitors bombing back down Sierra Road to get to their team buses parked at the bottom. On one hand, it was cool to see famous pros riding right next to me, but on the other hand, there were moments I'd be stuck behind some slow rollers spread out over the road, and due to the limited visibility both in front and behind me, I'd be reluctant or unable to to pull around and pass them. All I could think of was that I didn't want to be the one to take out Jens or Thor or Levi or Andy!!! (or anyone else of course)

Next day (Thursday) we headed down to Solvang. Paso Robles was along the way, we figured if we timed it right we'd stop there to see the finish. I had noticed on the course map that much of the route paralleled or crossed Highway 101. Our timing was superb. We stopped for lunch at a great little cafe at the outskirts of King City and finished our lunch right before the peleton came by. And then, we got back onto 101 and, thanks to some road work going on at the time, we were delayed enough so that we were able to see the peleton go underneath us at three of the four overpasses we drove over. There is no way we could have planned that. We continued on and rolled into Paso Robles well before the race arrived.

More later. I took lots of photos; I haven't had a chance to go through them yet. I'll see if there are any worth posting.