Amgen Tour of California - Stage 8

Sunday, I volunteered to be a Course Marshall for the last stage of the Amgen Tour of California. The tour is in it's 4th year. As far as cycle races go, this is the real deal. Top teams from all over the world, including Astana, Saxo Bank, Liquigas along with the top domestic squads are competing. The Tour was kind enough to come to my backyard with the final stage, starting in Rancho Bernardo and ending in Escondido, both in the greater San Diego area.

The tour has been a very exciting race, particularly with the Lance Armstrong comeback. Crowds have been pretty big.

A teammate of mine, Lori and I both volunteered to help out at the race finish city. We got an early jump on the day and drove to the Start to check it out. We stumbled upon a parking lot with a few of the team busses. Team Jelly Belly,















Jelly Belly Team Bikes (love the paint job)

Colvita Sutter Home,
















and















Rock Racing.

We mostly saw the mechanics working on the bikes but we did see some racers, including the current US Road cycling champion,















Tyler Hamilton

During the race, I was charged with guarding the intersection of Gamble and El Norte in Escondido which is about 2 miles from the finish line.






























My responsibilities included keeping the road closed and keeping the spectators off the street while the racers came by. This was a residential neighborhood so the crowds were locals who knew next to nothing about cycling but thought they'd come out to see the show and maybe get a glimpse at Lance. I chatted with them for a couple of hours answering their cycling questions.

After a couple of hours on the side of the road, the racers sped by. I have to say that it was quite a let down for most of the people there as it was over in less than a minute. I did manage to grab a few good photos.















The breakaway (Vincezo Niballi and Frank Schleck). Schleck won the stage.















The leader chase group including Astana boys (Levi and Lance)





























After the blur was over, we packed up and I headed for the expo at the finish to look at some cool bikes including this incredible 11 lb one!















and my new dream bike















Trek Time Trial

The hastly made replica of Lance's stolen Time Trial bike that was also on display. Stunning bike.

















































After cruising the expo we headed home after an exhausting day on our feet. Good times!

Feb 27th edit!















The incomparable, Bob Roll

New Cycle Season!

Well, I'm at it again. I'm going back to Tahoe for another crack at America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride (aka Tahoe Century Bike Ride)! I've signed up for another Team in Training cycle season but this time with a twist. This time I am a volunteer mentor and will be doing my part to shepherd our participants. I've been assigned to the B3 team which is advanced intermediate. We will be riding in the 15-18 mph range.

The season officially started a few weeks ago with the Bike Expo. No riding but the Coaches and the rest of the Mentor team put together a little show and tell for the participants. There were several stations including

Bike Spin demonstraton with pace line signals;
Nutrition
Clothing
Bike Fit

The bike fit is particularly important to new riders. A couple of the local bike shops sent a few volunteers to help out and by the end of the day, everyone's saddle, pedals, shoe cleats, handlebars, etc were in the correct place. Can't ride a hundred miles with your handlebars in the wrong place.

Week Two: We were rained out. This was a big bummer as everyone was so eager to get on the road.

Week Three: We go a lucky break in the weather and took the Team on a spin around Fiesta Island. We took a stab of breaking into groups and did about 20 miles around the Island and practiced, pace line skills and hand signals.

Week Four : Today! We hit the road for 26 miles. The group had swelled in size from 3 the week before up to 9 riders. We had some people move up from the group they tried last week, a couple of guest riders and some new recruits. The first real road day is always a pretty interesting. It is the first time that we all ride together and there is a pretty diverse level of riding experience in the group. The pace lines are always a little loose as people get used to riding in proximity to other riders.

I'm riding with Coach Tom, who is a veteran Coach of more than a dozen cycle programs. He's teaching me a lot and let's me practice my mentoring skills where I try to give people the benefit of my experience and dole out my not so secret riding tips.

The Team did great today. By the end of the day, the pace lines had tightened up and the average speed had dramatically increased. We got up to over 18 MPH on the last leg of the trip. Impressive for a first session with a new group. We rolled into the parking lot in a beautifully tight single-file pace line already looking like a real team on the first day.

Afterwards, a few of us (Jack, Lori and me) did some more riding for "extra credit". I'm planning on riding the GranFondo, a local century next Sunday and haven't had an opportunity to ride long lately due to too much work, foul weather and a bad case of the flu. I needed to do some longer miles today to even have a chance of being ready.

We rode up Soledad Mountain, which is one ugly little climb. At the top, Lori decided to head back and Jack and I continued onwards, mostly up the coast. By the time it was all said and done, we had completed 70 miles of riding to go along with over 4,000 of climbing. I was starting to tire at the end of it, but definitely felt I could have gone the extra 30 to make the "century". That is encouraging news and makes me feel better about next week.

All and all, This was a very positive day for me. It was also very positive for Coach Jack, as this is his longest ride since his nasty crash of last season that put him out of commission for around 6 months. He's got the heart and courage of a lion. Very inspiring.

Signing off...

Bad blogger...

I've been seriously remiss in posting lately. Mainly for lack of time, not of interesting things to post about.

A few recent highlights:

1) Went to the opera (Tosca)
2) Went to the Symphony where they played the score to the 1929 silent movie, Phantom of the Opera.
3) Started a new Team in Training cycling season. Tahoe bound once more
4) I'm now a cycle mentor for the Tahoe Team. Yay!
5) Been playing the Wii, although not enough according to Christine
6) Bought another vintage bike. 1985 Team Miyata. High end road bike from back in the day.
7) Did another vintage bike ride with some of the locals.
8) Recently made contact with old dear friends that I had lost touch with via Facebook.

I promise to be better.