Tour of California - 2009

Today was the start of the Tour of California here in Sacramento. It was a pretty big deal, at least in the cycling world. This is the one of the best lineups of riders for any race on American soil that I am aware of. Of course having Lance Armstrong in his first race in the US since coming out of retirement and a hopefully clean Floyd Landis trying to re-establish himself with his new hip and new team helps an awful lot.


It was a little cool day, certainly for the spectators, but it was great to see these guys powering down the streets. Actually what was even more impressive for me was the motorcycle riders accompanying the cyclists. While the bicyclists just go as fast as they can and assume all will be clear in the road ahead, the motorcylists have to stay close, but not interfere in any way, while all the time on the watch out for errant spectators wondering into the streets - very impressive riding on their part.

There was a lot made of Lance's return to racing and there is a big media machine around his Livestrong organization. The scene around his team's warm up area was just ridiculous, with people climbing on vehicles, climbing up trees, just to get a glimpse of the man doing his warm up. The price of celebrity is a high one. Here he is in the photo below.


I actually got some half way decent photos after figuring out how to anticipate where the riders would be when my shutter clicked open. The first few I missed the rider completely and got the trailing cars.