Stage 4 – Seaside to San Luis Obispo (Feb 22)

Our original plan was that we’d go to the start of the stage in Seaside, so we had figured that to see the finish also would mean that we’d have to take the un-scenic freeway inland to SLO - since it would be already dark so we wouldn’t be able to take the scenic coastal highway 1 back afterwards, so it didn’t seem very practical. Then, we realized that as we’d *already* seen a start (in Sausalito), we could just skip this start entirely, and take the scenic highway to SLO - but we’d have to leave early and make sure we stayed well ahead of the race. That turned out to be one of the best decisions of our trip.

We heard afterwards, in SLO from a volunteer who’d been at Seaside and decided to drive down for the finish, that really nothing much happened in Seaside because of the rain – all the riders stayed inside the team vehicles until absolutely necessary, so there was none of the access to riders we had seen in Sausalito or San Francisco. And it was raining pretty hard then, so it wouldn’t have been pleasant to stand outside for any length of time.

Instead, we left Monterey at about 9 am (an hour ahead of the race). I was thinking that we might not actually see any of the scenic coastal views because of the rain and fog/mist, but it actually cleared up for the most part relatively quickly.

At the first few scenic viewpoints towards Big Sur and some of the bridges, we realized one of the benefits of our plan – we’d get to see some of what happens ahead of the race. All part of the overall experience, adding to the “atmosphere” of what was going on, and stuff we would have missed simply driving the express route to SLO. What we first noticed was all the photographers already staking out the prime spots for their “peloton along the coast” or “peloton going across the bridge” shots. There was even a local TV reporter interviewing one of them.

Then we started seeing some of the road signs, “25 km” or “5 km to 1st KOM”, “1 km to KOM”, “200 m to Sprint”, so that was interesting too – gave me a better appreciation of the overall race course for this stage. We also saw quite a number of cyclists, some in groups, riding the course ahead of the race as well (didn’t see Saul Raisin though I was watching out to see if he was there). As some went by at one point while we were stopped for a break, I overheard one calling to another “remember how last year this section was like doing cyclocross?” – when we started driving again, I realized what they meant as there was major construction going on, the road was really rough and down to one lane. There were also a lot of wet leaves on the road so I figured the descents could be quite treacherous.

And the scenery was spectacular. We stopped a few times to take pictures, including one stop for a rock formation just past a lighthouse – then realized that we had stopped where all the elephant seals were. So we spent some time there looking around and taking photos, ate our picnic lunch there as well.

We arrived in SLO at about 1:30 pm, almost 2 hours before the earliest predicted arrival time – enough time to check out the “Lifestyle Festival” again (and say hi to Dave Shields again) before staking out a vantage point at the 50 m to go banner. We thought about watching from the corner further back because of the crash possibility there if it was wet – in the end it had dried out and our chosen spot was great.

The riders certainly do come by quite fast in a sprint finish – all I could tell was that Ciolek (T-Mobile) seemed to be ahead and that Bettini was in there as well (Bettini won at the line). Looking back, my photo also had Brown, Hushovd, and a bit of Haedo in there as well. And then we cheered for all the other riders coming in later … too bad the guy beside me threw his hands in the air to cheer as Cancellara came by (and ruined my photo), by the time my camera could get another shot all that was left was his back half again (just like in the prologue).

We thought we were in a good spot to be able to get over to see the podium presentation, but couldn’t really move from where we were easily and then they opened up the course so all these people initially further away than we were could get right up to the presentation area – oh well. Ed’s camera has a good zoom so he got some good photos – mine had too many other cameras and hands and heads in the way.

Then, as everyone pretty much left, we looked around some more to see where the team vehicles would have been … ran into Bob Roll (TV commentator for Versus/OLN and former pro cyclist), then realized who the last few team cars were waiting for when we saw the Credit Agricole KOM jersey leader make a quick getaway – the Discovery car (driven by Ekimov) was likely waiting for Leipheimer as overall race leader and the Quick-Step car was likely waiting for Bettini as the stage winner (as they’d have to go to doping control plus do a press conference before leaving). And we were right – more photos and autographs.

We had a tasty dinner in SLO before driving back to Monterey (the inland route – would *not* want to drive the coastal route in the dark) – overall a really fun day. We’re thinking that next time we’ll have to plan to see more stages …