Alpine Dam - 7 Sisters

It's been pretty rainy lately here in Northern California, and next week promises more of the same. Today was a dry day in between storms, and I was able to sneak out this morning for a quick ride. When time is tight, I always ride the default route -- Alpine Dam to 7 Sisters then back home. Is there any better "backyard" ride? Doubtful.

Stinson Beach and Bolinas Point from the 7 Sisters

The 2009 ToC - It's a wrap

Lots of rain, some snow over the climbs, then lots of sunshine as the tour moved southward. Levi takes his third GC in a row after fighting off a lot of attacks on a very hilly final stage. His Astana team wins the team GC. Jason McCartney takes the KOM jersey after Rock Racing's Francisco Mancebo (who had it in the bag) crashed out hard in Stage 6. Gesink wins best young rider (again), and Cav takes the points jersey (holy smokes he is fast). What I want to know is who the girls in the blue jerseys are.

Some notable crashes in this year's ToC too. In addition to Mancebo on Stage 6, Oscar Friere, Kim Kirchen and local Santa Rosa guy Scott Nydam wiped out bad on Stage 4. Kirchen and Nydam both ended up with some surgical work. Ouch. This was a tough race.

Lastly, what's up with all the dumbasses running alongside the riders and nearly taking them out? Today I saw the now famous "Antler Man", a guy in a fat sumo suit running about 15mph chasing the break, and a scary Borat-looking dude wearing nothing but a thong. The best was when Lance Armstrong stiff-armed the "LiveClean" heckler into a snowbank during stage 4. Classic move (captured, of course, on youtube). Here's the photo sequence.

Amgen ToC Prologue

My flight from Europe landed at SFO around 12:30pm today, so I jumped in my car and hightailed it up to Sacramento to catch some of the prologue time trial around the state capitol. I hit minimal traffic and found an easy parking spot near the courthouse. I had my bike in the back of the car, so I popped on my shoes and pedalled over. The first thing I saw was the Team Columbia / High Road tent. I cruised right up and there was Big George warming up for the TT. Sweet!

Next up was the Astana tent, which was mobbed with people trying to get a glimpse of Mr. Livestrong himself. I had my bike with me so I couldn't really fight into the crowd, but I did get a blurry shot from afar of LA working on the trainer.

The SaxoBank trailer had some pretty good riders milling about -- The Schleck brothers, Jens Voight, JJ Haedo, Jason McCartney and Fabian Cancellara (below, warming up). Even with the loss of Carlos Sastre this year, Bjarne Riis has put together a damn fine team. I'm guessing they will give Astana a run for their money in the team GC.

Next up, the BMC trailer. Since I ride a black and white BMC with DT Swiss wheels, I get pretty fired up when I see the back of a truck that looks like this. Holy smokes! Bumped into Charlie Livermore from EPTC outside the team truck and said hello.

I was heading over to the Garmin-Chipotle-Slipstream-WhateverThey'reCalled.com area when I saw the formerly moustachioed one, Dave Zabriskie, heading off to his start time. He ended up taking third in the TT, which is probably because my aura rubbed off on him as he rode past me.

Meanwhile, over at the team van, Christian VDV was warming up for his ride. From the schedule posted on the door, he's two minutes after DZ.

Having spent enough time ogling $15,000 bikes and watching dudes ride stationary trainers, I figured it was time to see some actual cycling.

The guys I saw fly by at 30mph were: Andy Schleck, Tyler Farrar, Big George, Dave Z, VDV, Lance(!), and Tyler Hamilton sporting the "love it or hate it" Rock Racing kit (for the record, I love it).

Lance

Andy Schleck. Look out for the brothers Schleck in the TdF this year. These guys are strong!

I had to get rolling up to Tahoe to meet my family, but as I was leaving down one of the backstreets I turned a corner and nearly ran into Tom Boonen. Naturally I followed him back to the Quick Step truck where he was having a quick photo op with a clearly stoked little Belgian kid. That's the biggest smile-to-face size ratio on that kid I think I've ever seen.

Tomorrow is Stage 1 from Davis to Santa Rosa and the forecast calls for heavy rain (heavy pain?). It should be miserable.

In Paris...

I'm over in France on a business trip and walked all over the city today after my last meeting. Found a pretty cool bike shop on a bustling corner near the Place de Republic in Paris. Cycles Laurent, its called, and they carry some nice bikes and a good selection of team and shop jerseys and kit. They also have some cool old school cycling photos on the walls. I wouldn't fly 5,000 miles just for this shop, but its worth a visit if you're in the neighborhood.

I fly home at 6am tomorrow, then straight from the airport to the ToC prologue in Sacto, then to Tahoe for some powder skiing. As predicted, the rain and snow is coming. The tour should have a few miserable days for sure.

There's always a cycling angle in France.

Astana Training Camp in Santa Rosa

A few miles north of here, the Astana team is doing a week long training camp. Lance and Levi are getting ready for the Amgen Tour, while Alberto is getting ready for the Tour de Algarve in Spain. Pretty cool that we have two TdF winners (including a 7x'er, and a guy who won both the Vuelta and the Giro last year) and the defending Amgen champ riding the local roads. There's a great photo set up on Flickr of a ride the team did this week over King Ridge/Coleman Valley with BMC's Scott Nydam. Check it out.

Who's the guy in the middle in the goofy black/yellow kit?

The Pros are in Town

Great commute rides yesterday. I had a bunch of early work calls from home so I didn't hit the road until around 9am. The streets were pretty empty and the air was very warm for February. As I got to the bottom of my hill, a guy on a very nice looking BMC Pro Machine whizzed by. He was sporting team issue Assos BMC bibs and jacket, so I figured it was probably one of the pros out for a light training ride in advance of the Amgen Tour. Unfortunately I was on my commuter bike and not my shiny BMC. Still, I caught up to him and it looked like it was Ian McKissick, who is not a local guy but does do some training and events with Endurance PTC in Mill Valley. It's always cool to see the pros out there (yes, they do ride the same roads we do), and after we rode our separate ways I ended up pushing a bit harder than normal over the bridge and to the office. I'm guessing that as we get closer to the ToC, more and more pros will be out on local rides -- but probably mostly up in Sonoma and down south.

The afternoon ride home was more of the same great weather. I met Tom at the normal group spot along the Embarcadero and we ended up having five strong riders all the way into Mill Valley. I peeled off towards Tiburon, and the other four headed up over Camino Alto towards the Larkspur Ferry. One of the guys, Ken, was riding a fixie back home to Olema on his regular commute (burly!).

Trackhead posted a video of Matt Dixon's group ride last weekend at an "undisclosed local spot" (you'll know it if you watch). Be sure to watch the HD version. Some of the helicopter mounted shots are fantastic.

The End of June-u-ary

I returned home from Kauai to some incredible weather in Northern California. The mid-January "thaw" (or "June-u-ary", as my skiing friends like to call it) is always fairly predictable around here after the equally predictable New Year's storms. But this year it is ridiculous. Long rides with no leg warmers or vest. 65-70 degree high temps. Crazy. I could get used to this global warming thing if it weren't for the loss of the polar bears and the Maldives. Friday afternoon's ride home over the bridge was about as good as it gets.

But all good things must come to an end. Of course nothing is guaranteed to make the weather turn foul like the staging of a major bike race in California. Last year's ToC sported some crazy rain and winds, especially on the Big Sur coast stage. Phil Liggett called it "absolutely diabolical" and Levi said it was one of his top three worst days on a bike. Well, Levi (and Lance!) are back this week for an Astana training camp in Santa Rosa getting ready for the ToC. This means rain is in the forecast. Weds through Saturday is gonna be wet. Have fun guys!

Levi and team on the miserable Stage 4 of last year's ToC

In addition to the rain, and contributing to the damper on the fine local riding, Loren reports on a lame tack throwing incident somewhere in a local bike lane. I hate flats, especially when caused by thoughtless jackasses.