Tour of California

A few weeks ago the Tour of California bicycle race came through San Diego.  For those who don’t know, this is a pro 8-day stage race like those in Europe…Tour de France style.  Lance Armstrong has made a comeback. Levi Leipheimer has won the race for the last two years. Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton were back in the peloton. Chris Horner, Christian Vandevelde, and George Hincapie were there.   All the big pro racers were in town.  This year’s final stage was a 100+ mile ride from Rancho Bernardo, over Mt. Palomar, up Cole Grade, and finishing in Escondido. What made is extra cool for me and a few friends is that we ride a very similar route a few times a year….only not quite at the same speed.  Even though I haven’t been on my bike much recently, my buddies convinced me to go with them to go watch the race. Doug’s plans started out sounding manageable, but by the time we got there that morning, he’d adapted things.  We were going to ride about 70 mi today with about 7000 feet of climbing total….I felt like I was going to throw-up before we started.  His plans always work out though. We left Kit Carson park around 7:30ish, rode up and over Lake Wohlford road and then made the torturous climb up Palomar. Mt. Palomar is a legendary climb in San Diego. It’s sometimes compared to Alpe d’Huez in France.  In all, it’s about 12 miles and just over 5000 feet up.  My legs were screaming by the first mile up.  Like I said, I hadn’t been on the bike in a while and I dont’ think I’ve ever worked so hard to go 4.5 mph.   All the guys in the guys in the group eventually made it to the top. The snow at the top added a cool effect.  It felt like a full Tour de France style mountain top ride with chalk on the roads and crazy’s on the side ringing cowbells and running next to me as I passed.  After we were all at the top, we cruised back half-way down through the maze of people and waited for the race to pass by.  We got an up-close look at how incredibly fast they ride up the mountain that I had just trudged up.  Then we blazed over to Cole Grade (a wall of a hill) and rode half way up to wait again for the group to come by.  Afterwards, we rode back to the finish and caught the end of the awards ceremony.  It was an epic day. 

Here’s a collage of some shots i took with my point-n-shoot.  you can see some of the fans with capes and running shoes, me at the top, and close-ups of the riders as they rode right by. I just love the photo on the bottom right of Lance leading the group up Cole Grade.