Amgen Tour of California

We found out that Lance Armstrong was going to riding right through our neighborhood on Saturday so of course we had to watch. This race is similar to the Tour de France as it starts in Sacramento and ends is Escondido equaling 9 days in all. The 7th stage was going through Pasadena, making up 88.2 miles in total.

The race was going down Angeles Crest which is the major street by our house. There were signs on the street that said "Special Event Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m." So we carry our gear uphill to the corner to watch the race at 10 a.m. This was especially hard for me since I couldn't breath through my nose and my throat felt like it was closing in on me. I finally made it to the corner and set up camp and this is what we saw. No one and nothing.

Luckily we had our handy dandy iPhones to look up the race details. We found out it didn't start until noon up in Valencia followed by a long climb uphill in the mountains. We decided to go home and try again later. I'm glad we did because we would have been sitting there for 3 1/2 hours.

On our second attempt we drove down to a neighborhood to watch the race. Here are some pictures we took. I got some good pictures of Lance Armstrong even though I didn't know it was him at the time.  He is the last one in this picture. 

Here is one with his whole team in front of the peloton.

The riders flew past us bringing lost of wind and dirt with them. My hair was blowing all over the place. Just after the riders were the cars carrying extra bikes and tires. It was pretty cool to see the cars racing down a neighborhood hill at 40 miles per hour when the speed limit is normally 25. 

After this part of the race we drove down to the end of the race at the Rose Bowl. Luckily for us they rode around the Rose Bowl 5 times so we were able to see them 3 of the 5. Apparently after a rider is done with his water bottle he throws is off to the side. The first time around Ja was struck with one which surprised him. We got another bottle the next time they came around.  Lance Armstrong is the third man in this picture.

Here are some other cool pictures I took. If you want too see all of them you can go to our Web Gallery.

It was really fun to see a professional bike race in person. It really wore me out though and I was on the couch with a fever the rest of the night trying to get comfort but to no avail. I'm still glad I went to the race, it might be a once in a lifetime experience.