Whorl of Confusion: Tour de California

Showing posts with label Tour de California. Show all posts

Thursday, March 1, 2007

The race is on!

Every Easter Sunday folks gather at the top of Lombard Street and race Bigwheels down the hill...
check it out!

Sunday, February 25, 2007

George Hincapie was involved in a crash just 3 miles into the race yesterday (Saturday). He got back on his bike, dropped back to have a visit with the doctor in the team car, and caught back up to the peloton. We can only imagine that he was either full of endorphins, adrenalin, pissed off that the timeout was ignored, or all of the above because he gave a big "fuck you" to the other teams as he pumped it up to lead the recapture of the breakaway group and assure the defense of the yellow jersey. Stuart O'Grady had taken the jersey for most of the stage, but in the end had to give it back as Discovery Team successfully kept Levi in yellow.

This morning it was revealed that big Georgie broke his wrist in that fall and went under the knife earlier today to put a plate and screws in his wrist. For this act of completely unselfish bravery and determination, he is the absolute hero of the tour!

Here's hoping for a speedy mending so he can participate in his beloved Paris-Roubaix this year.

Today's circuit race in Long Beach was perhaps a bit anti-climatic. I'm sure, as the eighth day of racing got underway, the riders were grateful not to face anymore mountains! But gawd, it's not very scenic, kind-of ugly actually, and I can't help but believe that if it were someplace else, more folks would have turned out. Bit alas, it was all about the sprinters, and at the end Graeme Brown made the big lunge a split second too early, causing him to lose his chance at the stage win.

I'm thrilled that Ivan Domingues, the Cuban from Toyota United, a non-pro team, grabbed the victory in the end.

Here are the three GC winners- Jason, Levi and Jens

The team winners enjoying themselves- CSC

Vive la Tour of California! I'll miss the daily excitement, but I know all things pass and there's so much more cycling coming up now. There are rumors that it might be expanded into 10 days next year, which would allow for some time perhaps in the Sierra or desert areas. It's exciting to see so many folks get turned on to cycling. And now that teams are taking the lead in anti-doping, I think it will only get more respected in the public eye. (I wish baseball would do the same)

Friday, February 23, 2007

Time Trial results

While we are waiting for results... some yummy yum pics for you!
Ivan Basso

Paolo Bettini

Tom Danielson- OMG I'm gonna faint!

the above pics thanks to Coda2
the following pics thanks to KWC
Georgie and Lance

OK we just had an earthquake....but it wasn't very big...
So now to the official results:
Stage individual results:
1. Levi DSC

2. Jens CSC

3. Jason McCartney DSC

4. Cancellera CSC
5. Georgie DSC
6. Julich CSC
9. Basso DSC
14. Danielson DSC

Overall GC Standings:
1. Levi DSC
2. Jens CSC
3. Jason DSC
4. Bobby CSC
5. Van de Velde CSC
6. O'Grady CSC

Overall Team Standings:
1. CSC
2. DSC
3. TMO

Race leaders:
KOM- Christophe Laurent CA
Sprint- JJ Haedo CSC
GC Leader- Levi Leipheimer DSC
Best young rider- Robert Gesink RAB

Jens and Levi beat everyone else by a huge margin! It's all out war between these 2 now for the yellow jersey. But Jens is a full 21 seconds behind, so it's not so easy. Discovery team finished strong! See ya tomorrow!

Solvang Time Trial

It's a gorgeous day in Solvang and this is the day Levi could lose the lead...
With the top of the standings crowded with guys within seconds from Levi in the overall GC classification, today's individual time trials could upset the field considerably.
Jens Voight and Chris Horner will be looking to make their way to first place....
World time trial champion Fabian Cancellera is the favored rider to win the stage.
Usual time trial fav David Zabrinske is out of the race, having been caught in the disastrous crash-up in Santa Rosa on Monday.
Updates as they come...

BTW, Google and Adobe has provided an amazing coverage of the race online... otherwise you can catch an edited replay on the Versus cable channel at 8PM.

And meanwhile.... can I just say word about Discovery Channel? Last year they pretty much sucked in the Tour de France. Maybe it was the loss of Lance, their formidable leader for so many years, maybe it was the drug allegations. This year they have reassembled a strong and very disciplined team. No one does strategy like Bruyneel's team. This year, in the Tour of California, here at the very beginning of the cycling season, they are making their re-emergence known.
Right now the team is in 8th place, but really they can't really do much except protect the yellow jersey. Things could change with the time trial.
Jason McCartney is only 17 seconds behind Levi, and he's 6th in the KOM race. After a bout with food poisoning on Monday, he's back proving himself to the team.
Hincapie is the current American Road Racing champion, and is focused on the Paris-Roubaix in April.
Basso, who returns to racing after being cleared of the Spanish drug scandal last year, will defend his Tour of Italy title in May. His leg got banged in the crash on Monday, so he's lagging a bit lately.
Tom Danielson, a young American rider, won the Tour of Austria last year and will lead Discovery in this year's Tour of Georgia in April.

Rainy day races

What started as a very stormy day...

Ended up being an amazing race!

It was a day for the GC leaders to remain safe, and rested during the 131 mile, 5 hour ride down the Pacific Coast Highway. And a day for some guys with no chance of winning the GC to jump forward and capture a King of the Mountain, Sprint or Stage victory to take home. All photos courtesy of the San Luis Obispo Tribune

Here are the boys riding to the finish in SLO. What a great turnout to welcome them in!

There was another long breakaway, that eventually, right at the last minute, got swallowed up and the World Champion Paolo Bettini lunged his bike forward to win by, what I believe must have been an inch, and take home his first ever win in America. Poor Gerald Cioleck, the T-Mobile rider who lost by such a close margin. Such is the world of cycling- where one guy can work hard to get at the front of the pack,only to have victory ripped from his hands in the last millisecond by a rider waiting in the slipstream to lunge out at the last moment! It's very exciting.

Speaking of Slipstream, they win for the most "styley" outfits and for singlehandedly bringing argyle back into fashion...

Here's a nice story from CA Slipstream rider, Lucas Euser, currently in 4th place for the KOM jersey.

So the day ended, Levi stayed safe with no accidents and his Discovery team protected him well. He is thinking of nothing but Friday's time trial, I'm sure.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Tour updates...

How exciting can it get? It makes me feel lucky that I got up close to the stage winners on the very first day!
Let's see- Graeme Brown won stage 1

and

Jens Voight won stage 3! Look at him on that low rider! Heeheeheehee

I didn't get any pics of JJ Haedo, who won stage 2. But I saw him win stage 1 last year, and that was cool for him to win a stage two years in a row!
Today, Stage 3, was the most exciting yet. Spoiler ahead...

So I haven't been following cycling but 3 years now, and I haven't had the fortune to see an early breakaway succeed like it did today. And the amazing thing is that, after absolutely no-one would help Levi move the peloton up to catch the breakaway, he did it all by himself. He had to prove to the others that he really did deserve the yellow (gold/mustard/whatever) jersey after the rules were changed yesterday.
For a while there I really thought that Levi was going to be stuck in the peloton and lose the lead. BTW, what's up with Mr. Sexy Ivan Basso? Where is he? Being a good teammate, I guess. I was wondering who Team Discovery was going to get behind, and I guess we have our answer now. LEVI! Maybe Basso's saving up for later in the season.
Levi's performance was brilliant. It really comes down to mental toughness, strategy, training and absolute hunger for the win. Unless he stuck a testosterone patch on his balls... well, he was tested right away, so we'll see.
Congrats to our man Chris Horner for being right up front to the very finish! And to Jens Voight for the win. He deserves it!

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Tour De California

Today was a fun, fun morning and afternoon spent at the starting area of the Amgen Tour De California bicycle race. We got there early to visit all the booths, get a bunch of free swag, and watch the guys warming up. Once the race started we rang our cowbells and cheered the racers on. The predicted rain stayed at bay in San Francisco, and it turned out to be a great start to what should be and exciting week of cycling.

Try to ignore the guy's head, (I'm short, what can I say) and you can see what a gorgeous day it was.