It Never Rains in California? Amgen Tour of California Stage 2 Recap

After four years of February rain the organizers of the Amgen Tour of California, the state's largest sporting event, finally decided to move the event to May in order to showcase the beautiful weather of the sunshine state.  The gods blessed them with more rain. Still, this did not dampen the spirits of the thousands of spectators who lined the course from Davis to Santa  Rosa to see the tour wind through Napa and Sonoma counties.

Having ridden many of the climbs in question on today's stage I was especially excited to watch the pros ride through.  I had seen many stages of the Tour of California before but this would be the first time I could actually ride a bike to see the juiciest part of the race, so I woke up the morning of quivering with anticipation, and actual butterflies.  The dilemma of course was how best to watch the stage.  I could ride up to the intersection of Cavedale and Trinity roads and then return via bicycle...like a man.  Or I could pussy out and take my car.  I decided to label my inevitable decision to drive as "smart" rather than girlish, and my foresight to include a change of clothes no less than genius.

Here's some photos and videos to recap the day...

I drove up to the race via Cavedale road.  This in hindsight made no sense as Cavedale road is a much less direct route to the top of Trinity grade but the gradient is much more compatible for a bike.  So I ended up passing 20 stalwart cyclists in the rain and giving them little encouraging taps on the horn, which seemed to say "haha" every time.  After nearly getting stuck in the mud on the side of the road I found a place to park and walked down to what I knew would be the best viewing area, a steep right hand curve.

This series of bends was where I saw the majority of the spectators, although there were some that took to the high ground for optimum viewing as well.

There was motley assortment of characters from local towns and some for far-flung exotic locales like Wisconsin.  There were even visitors from the Caribbean.  

There were many intrepid cyclists from both Napa and Sonoma counties who battled the elements to be there at the summit and catch the action, but none were so prepared as these guys.  They had actually stashed a cooler under a camo tarp behind a tree.  They may have gone home cold after standing for two hours, but at least they were going home well lubricated.  

But the grandest of all the spectators was none other than the viking-esque spectator known only has "helmet man".  Here he is descending from on high like a Norse god leaving the vaulted halls of Valhalla.  

And then, as quickly as he descended to the mortal plane to hang out with us plebians, he returned from whence he came.  

By this point the spectators around me and I had thought of every ironic and semi-funny way to remark how wet and miserable we were and it was about time for the race to arrive.  We saw the long line of official vehicles and motorcycles before the two leaders came through.  These guys were not very well known and would certainly be caught by the main bunch coming up right behind them.  It wasn't more than a minute before we all saw what we came to witness -- Lance and Levi and the Radio Shack team pulling the rest of the peloton behind them.  Having tried to take lots of photos at these races before and each time being disappointed with the results (see that orange blur? That's Dave Zabriske eating a banana!) I decided to record the favorites via video.  I will say that I made a conscious decision to be merely an observer on video as to protect the journalistic integrity of the moment.  You can see how long that lasted.  

Now that everyone knew I was a crazy person I decided to stick to photos.  I think this is Chris Horner in this picture.

And I'm pretty sure you can see George Hincapie's butt in this picture.  

I had to go back to video for again though for the autobus group of all the sprinters that had fallen behind.  After completely making a fool of myself in the last video I didn't think it could get much worse.  That was until I saw Mark Cavendish a few lengths off the front and this popped out...

I don't know if he heard me or not as I didn't receive one of his trademark salutes in reply.  Although the other spectators up the road said he seemed to be smiling.

After the group of straggling sprinters it seemed as if it was all over, but a highway patrolman informed everyone that there was still one last dropped rider on the road.  Luckily our Caribbean friends were able to boost his spirits with some of their trademark island enthusiasm and zeal.

I was inspired by these spectators to change my upcoming vacation plans to visit their homeland sample some of their delicacies, such as "grog".  I never saw the helmetman again, so I'm going to assume he transformed back into human form elsewhere.  Despite the rain it was a beautiful stage and an awesome thing to see so many happy people celebrating bikes and racing and drinking beer and being fit and cool.  I feel proud to be a part of a real great California event and I look forward to seeing the race again next year.