Tour of California Prologue

Rick and I were on hand for the action today - he brought his son and I brought my daughter and they're about the same age and they're both experienced bike race spectators... my daughter was at all five SF Grand Prixs and has been at all three Tours of California with me.


We started, appropriately enough, near the start. We walked around some of the team RV's and then made our way to the main drag. I should have gotten a photo of Michael Ball's Rolls Royce.

Some of the early guys didn't have full-on time trial bikes.

There were no crowd barriers in the beginning of the parcourse.

You know it's a big race when the helicopters show up.

My shutter finger was too slow to capture some of the faster guys. My daughter thought it was hilarious that I got so many photos of butts. This one obviously belongs to Dave Z.

Australian National Time Trial Champion Adam Hansen's Butt

The parcourse went under El Camino Real - it was loud in there!

Rick and son cheer on a Quickstep rider just inside Stanford's campus.

PAOLO !!!

Most everybody made their way up to the finish area by the time the big names got started.

Fabian Cancellara was also too fast for my trigger finger. Dear daughter suggested I take photos of things that weren't moving!

I missed Tom Boonen altogether, but got him on the cool-down section after the finish. Neither he nor Bettini have rainbow trim on their skinsuits - I DID NOT KNOW THAT !

Palm Drive on the Stanford Campus.

Parking was no problem. We never did find the schwag distribution center though. Palo Alto ain't no San Francisco but they did manage to put on a good show.

And for the first time ever - some embedded video from my still camera... it's a brave new world, blog readers. This is Swedish National Time Trial Champion Gustav Larsson.