Sunday, March 1, 2009

Viva the Tour (of California, that is)


It's been a couple of weeks since the Amgen Tour of California, but I thought that it would be worthwhile to talk about it, since Montana native, Levi Leipheimer, won it for the third year straight. I could hear "go Levi go," from Butte Montana to Quincy California to our vantage spot on the Capitol Mall in Sacramento. Yes, we were there for the Prologue in Sacramento on Valentine's Day. What a perfect Valentine's gift from my wife, a trip to see many of the world's Pro's duke it out for the golden, leader's jersey! And for the record, I made sure to get my wife a BIG bar of chocolate. Thanks again honey.

Okay, so back to the race. Wow! We got there before the start and were able to check out the Expo and all of the teams' RV's. We got within a few feet of the guys as they were warming up and we also saw Patrick Dempsey from Grey's Anatomy as he hung around the Quick Step team van. It was too cool for this wanna be Lance Armstrong to mingle with the Big Boys.

As for Lance, he was completely mobbed and we couldn't get within 20 feet of him (and behind 10 rows of fans.) It was incredible to see. Poor Dempsey didn't even get the Rockstar welcome that was given to Lance.

The Prologue was a 2.4 mile long course through downtown Sacramento and was a time trial. A TT is a race against the clock and the fastest man wins. It was won by Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara, but Levi finished 2nd, only a few seconds back. Lance broke the top ten in his first real test since retiring three years ago. Not too shabby, if you ask me. So here are a few pictures to whet your whistle and give you a sense of the atmosphere.




























I've posted a few more pics on the Team Stampede Blog at http://www.ts5vvraves.blogspot.com/

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