Tour of California - Cycling

man, sweet pics.   so, did he have some special access pass?  Or is all this stuff (riders, bikes, buses, gear) just really that accessible?   I'm surprised how easy it was for him to maneuver around and take pics.

crazy he got a pic of that Armstrong bike that got stolen later that night.

borringgggggggggg

LOL, haha.  I sort of thought the same thing trankiet.  Not enough gasoline involved for me.  The most interesting part is the craftsmanship and technology in the bikes, but what good without a motor.  :)

haha, kiet you suck!  So today was AMAZING!  We went downtown San Jose, and yes Geoff...you can pretty much walk up and grab their bikes and ride off if you wanted to. All the team RVs are just sitting there, with all the bikes out front, and the riders just kinda wander around. I took a couple pictures with some of the riders today, they were super nice. I'll post a link to them later. We hung out at the start line for about 25 minutes, wish we had more time.

 

Then we drove back over to the eastside to the foothills where they'd be riding to..and we got there JUST in time, literrally...we ran up to the corner of Mabury and Piedmont JUST as the riders were coming down the road...was pretty awesome even though we only got to see them for 10 seconds.

 

Then we jumped back in the car and drove down 680 N to calevaras and up the road to the junction where sierra meets caleveras. We parked, there was tons of cars there, and ran up the road to get a good spot on the side of the road. The weather was AWFUL! Rain was really coming down, but there were TONS of people out, very cool to see all the support. Stood there and waited maybe 20 minutes, until the riders showed up...4 man breakaway at first...then came the peleton about a minute behind them with Lance Armstrong and the current leader Levi Leipheimer.

 

Was pretty amazing watching those guys fly up the mountain in that horrible weather, completely soaked. Where we were at was at the bottom of a short descent, hard bend to the right, and then steep climb...so lots of guys were switching gears and you could hear lots of them grinding the gears. One rider dropped his chain (chain came off the gears) and then the most amazing thing happened....even though there were hundreds of people on the sides of the road...nobody helped him...he got it back on pretty quick but because of the steep hill, he was having problems clipping back into his pedals...so yes...i sprinted down the hill...and gave him a nice long push to get him going...and then had to jump outta the way of a couple riders coming up behind. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES???!!  I got to push a rider...what a cool experience!

 

As I write this those guys are still out on the roads, for another 90 miles, in pouring rain. Sucks for them. Can't wait to go watch the broadcast which starts in about 15 minutes.

haha, awesome. 

Pretty sweet.  They picked a great week for the race didn't they?

Wow, that is a lot of spokes and wheels.  So it is ok and not cheating to push someone?  That would have been so neat to go see them.  I would have done it in the rain.  How exciting.  So glad you got to do it. 

Great pictures, Jay.  Thanks for posting.  What a fun day you had today!  Cool.

u pushed a dude's butt?

someone sounds jealous....or thirteen....

HAHA

My friend Scotty posted the pictures he took from downtown San Jose.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/scottyperkins/AToC2009Stage3Start#

 

sweet

Nice pictures.

All those pics and not one of Armstrong? 

I was thinking the same thing.

The paintjobs/graphics on some of those bikes is pretty nice.

I like the yellow outfit with the matching hat the best.  Oh, are we supposed to talk about bikes?  Who did you go with Jay?

friend from church Scotty Perkins.

jay touched a doodes butt with spandex and liked it. I'm jealous!

Awesome photos and fun write up.  I had to forward onto a biking friend.