Tour of California February 2009 - better late than never!

Back in February 2007, this race was the first bike race we'd ever been to, and it made us even more excited about our then-upcoming trip to the Tour de France in July 2007. This year, while we planned a vacation to the Bay Area during the week of the race, the race was not at all our main focus - I'm expecting a baby in May, so this was pretty much our last chance for a vacation before our lives change drastically, and being six months' pregnant doesn't really allow for a lot of race-chasing and autograph-seeking, etc. We had a few ideas about possible race-watching opportunities depending on how the rest of our schedule turned out, but it seemed as though the race start in San Jose for stage 3 would be our best bet (seeing as we already had tickets for the Edmonton Oilers versus San Jose Sharks hockey game that night in San Jose).

As it turned out, the weather over the first part of the week was not great, to say the least. The thought of standing around waiting for a stage start in cold rainy weather wasn't particularly appealing, particularly since we knew that the riders weren't exactly going to be waiting around outside mingling with fans prior to the race if the weather was awful. And we would have had to get up and leave rather early (for a vacation) for the 1-hour drive from my brother's place in the East Bay area to San Jose. But then, looking more closely at the race profile, we realized that one of the sprint points was outside of Livermore, a lot closer than San Jose so we'd have more time to get there. So, that became our goal.

The race log/schedule suggested the racers would get to the sprint point by about 1:30 pm or later. We got to Livermore and had a bit of difficulty trying to find where exactly the sprint point was - we did find the race route, but no indication where the sprint would be (or else we were already past it at that point). It was almost 12:30 pm, so we went for lunch first then came back towards the route - the roads had already been blocked off, so we ended up at a corner past the sprint point (with a convenient parking lot for a park and school nearby). There were some people starting to gather, and best yet, it had stopped raining! Before any of the race came through, it appeared as if many of the classes at the nearby school came out to watch as well.

Pretty soon, a Livestrong van pulled up and they started handing out yellow Livestrong chalk and Lance posters. Ed got busy writing on the road with the chalk, not an approved Livestrong message but appreciated by PdC'ers...

And underneath, one for the DPF'ers out there:

I was monitoring the race progress on my Blackberry via the CN ticker; overall race leader Levi Leipheimer had apparently crashed before the sprint and we weren't sure if he would have caught up by the time he got to us. There was a breakaway of 4 riders, and before they arrived there were several rounds of CHP and other police and official vehicles. It was useful that they had one race vehicle giving some updates over a loudspeaker to the crowd. And then the break was there: Bauke Mollema (Rabobank), Brad White (OUCH-Maxxis), Jeff Louder (BMC Racing) and Brian Vandborg (Liquigas).

A few minutes later, the peloton came through (Levi had apparently caught up by then but we couldn't really see him) - Ed put his camera on auto-repeat shooting, which means then later you get to try to figure out who exactly you have photos of. You can't really see any of the race numbers because of the angle and all the rain jackets, so resorting to face recognition (and other characteristics such as Lance rides a different coloured bike than the rest of his team):

Chris Horner 3rd from left at the front, in black, with Lance Armstrong (yellow and black helmet) just behind:

Lance Armstrong at the far left (and Mark Cavendish further back, 2nd from the right):

Mark Cavendish on the left not looking too happy(#22), and I think George Hincapie 3rd from the left:

Peloton rounding the corner:

And then it was all over. In case there was any doubt that the publicity for the race was entirely based on Lance Armstrong, here's a photo of one of the banners in downtown San Jose that we saw later that day, as well as one of the billboard on top of Niketown on Union Square in San Francisco.


(at some point, Ed will probably get around to posting all of our vacation pics at the usual smugmug location...)

Olympics catch-up - miscellaneous articles and stuff.

report from Michael Barry about the mens' RR, where he finished 9th.

NYT reporter rents and rides bikes through Beijing with pro riders Jason McCartney and Michael Barry.

After working hard to help Mick Rogers finish 6th in the Olympic RR, and then coming 5th in the time trial, Cadel Evans revealed that his injury after the Tour de France was actually a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his knee. Luckily as cyclists don't need the stability and pivoting ability you'd need for volleyball, skiing, or similar, he won't need surgery. There was then some confusion about his condition, with the Vuelta organizers announcing he was racing in the Vuelta and rumours that he was named to the Silence-Lotto team for the Vuelta - almost seemed as if the communication between Evans' people and his team was lacking somewhat. Now again, he's been named to the long list team for the World Championships - maybe the Australian team managers know that he's recovering well even though all the prior announcements suggested he was out for the season.

And, an interview with Svein Tuft after he came 7th in the Olympic time trial.

(now I can try to keep more up-to-date with posting articles I found interesting).

Canadian Olympian Svein Tuft

Cool biographical article about Tuft, who rides for the Canadian Symmetrics team ... all his bike touring (with his dog in a trailer behind) in his late teens, even to Alaska and back; and some of his experiences as a pro rider.

“As humans we’ve gotten so far from what we were supposed to do that we’re always searching for something that makes us real again, that gives us that feeling of doing what we’re meant to do. For me, bike racing is that.”

Books and reading about cycling

A few years ago, I read Michael Barry's book "Inside the Postal Bus" and really enjoyed it. IMO, Barry is an excellent writer - instead of just writing about race or training details, or a few humourous anecdotes, he manages to capture the spirit of a race or of cycling in general with his diary entries and columns for his own site and others (Pedal, Velonews, even the New York Times)- he is even poetic at times. And better yet, he's a Canadian - I'm still disappointed he didn't make it to the Tour de France this year (he's still recovering his form after a serious bout of pneumonia last year, so hopefully next year he'll finally get to the Tour), but I'll be cheering for him in the Olympics next month!

Back in May during the Giro, the book "The Giro d'Italia: Coppi versus Bartali at the 1949 Tour of Italy" was highly recommended at Podium Cafe. I found that our library had one copy in the system, so I put a hold on it and picked it up in early June. The author, Buzzati, was an Italian writer who worked as a journalist on the 1949 Giro, writing daily columns about the race at a time when fans either watched along the side of the road, listened on radio, or read the next day's paper for updates on the race. Again, I found the writing to be quite poetic and captured the spirit inherent in the race ... not just basic details, but stories about a lesser racer who goes on a breakaway so that his mamma will be proud when she watches in the finishing stadium, or about those who come in so far after the maximum time that all the trappings of the race have already been taken down, or about the scenes of post-WW2 Italy they were racing through, or about the epic battle won in the end by Coppi. Again, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to other cycling fans.

The spectators...do they not perceive in the extraordinary abilities of the two men ... the presence of something mysterious, sacred, a kind of grace, the sign of a supernatural authority? And this may explain the immense attraction of sport. This would justify what otherwise would seem absurd: to wit, that reasonable, well-educated people can lose their heads and get upset and scream over a football player or a cyclist. But there are those who will say: But isn't it frightening that the modern world gives vent to its secret charge of mysticism in the terraces of a stadium? Isn't it humiliating? It is difficult to answer, to be sure. It may be, however, that sports fanaticism, with all its extravagance, is a lot less vulgar than it seems at first glance. (p 60)

Does something as crazy and preposterous as the Giro d'Italia by bicycle serve a purpose, then? Of course it does: it's one of the last meccas of the imagination, a stronghold of romanticism, beseiged by the gloomy forces of progress, and it refuses to surrender. (p 185)

The following seems fitting on this second rest day of the 2008 Tour de France, with 2 mountainous days in the Alps to come starting tomorrow (and with Oscar Pereiro's crash over a guardrail down to the road below fresh in their minds still):

Tonight, those peaks, arrogant and threatening, loom over the sleeping racers: visions of horrendous precipices, roads that make the blood run cold, without guardrails, and carved out of solid rock; and a monster follows them as they struggle up the slopes above the abyss, and salvation is up at the top, where there is a passage between the cliffs, where one never arrives. (p 105)

And then there's the Tour. I've just started reading "The Tour de France: A Cultural History" by Christopher S. Thompson, which so far seems quite interesting - since being at the Tour last year I've been somewhat fascinated by how much of a cultural event the Tour is rather than just a sporting one. Particularly when there are positive doping tests coming out and unknowing North American journalists seem to think that the Tour should just be shut down - that's never going to happen because it isn't just about the race, it's so much more than that. Which is essentially what I wrote last year in this article once I came back from France. I'll post more about this book once I've read more than the first chapter ;-).

Tour de France Art

I posted at Podium Cafe about 2 recent art exhibits that we went to see, featuring paintings depicting the 2005 Tour de France. Here are a few photos: us with one of the paintings at the AGA, the photo on Toti's business card, a photo from the original AGA description of the exhibit, and the newspaper clipping of yesterday's article.

Another year, another Tour de France

but we're not there in France this year :-(. Which is too bad, because my favourite rider is one of the favourites to win this year (Cadel Evans), and there's a Canadian in the race for the first time in over 10 years (Ryder Hesjedal of the Garmin-Chipotle team).

As for my own riding, I had major unexpected surgery in March, and really I'm only just now starting to get back on track regarding cycling - no way I'd be riding up Alpe d'Huez anytime soon.

So, instead, I'm always finding articles and bits about cycling and my favourite riders that I want to share, sometimes I do that on various internet cycling forums - but I thought perhaps I'd share various links here as well. We'll see how long I actually keep this up ...

North American Cyclo-crossers in Europe

Since last season, I've been particularly interested to follow the experiences of various North Americans racing cyclo-cross in Europe. I think initially it was that a Belgian friend pointed out how American Jonathan Page was living and training in Europe (rather than racing in the US and only coming to Europe for the World Championships and maybe 1-2 World Cups just prior) that got me intrigued - then I saw some local TV clips and internet articles where I found out that there were some local racers going to Worlds last January and I started reading several of their blogs (thanks Shaun and Spencer).

So, I was concerned to read various articles about Jonathan Page's difficulties this year - he won a silver medal at Worlds after coming back from injury and got signed to a Belgian team, but seemed to be having some disagreements with his team recently. It appeared to culminate with the team claiming he couldn't handle the pressure (and they even sent a doctor to check up on him when he said he was ill and couldn't race), whereas Page claimed team management was putting inappropriate pressure on him and other riders which adversely affected his performance. More recently, they seem to have (temporarily) resolved their differences, in part by shortening his contract to the end of this season (rather than including next season as well).

I've been impressed reading about another American, Jonathan Baker, who is also living in Belgium this season to race cyclocross - I'd noticed his name in some of the results and wondered who this other American in Europe was (the other top American 'cross racers are mostly racing in the US at this point and will only go to Europe after Christmas if at all). An interview at Velonews with Baker showed that he has a admirable attitude, taking a leave of absence from his job as a software engineer and taking his wife and 2 kids with him:

I just wanted to see where I stack up if I give it 100 percent. If that is 40th, whatever. But I think I could get in the top 30 at a World Cup. I'd be pretty happy with that. And obviously I wouldn't be doing it if I weren't having fun. I'm not looking to make a job out of it. But at the same time I'm not just here on vacation. I take it very seriously.

He's also written a diary-style update for Velonews.

And it sounds like several locals are again planning to race in Europe in December-January including Worlds - I'll be reading the results on the internet and probably watching Worlds again on cycling.tv like I did last year (if I manage to get up early enough - so far I haven't managed that for the World Cup races).