The ToC in the LBC!

Over the past few years, Chris and I have gotten really into watching professional cycling, and certainly, working from home helps me indulge this passion (a four hour chunk of biking coverage is great background noise while working).  The Tour de France is the big race, held in July each year, but there are events around the rest of the calendar, from one day classic events (Paris-Roubaix) to multi-week grand tours (LaVuelta, Giro d'Italia).  California has its own week-long classic, and many professional riders and their teams use the Amgen Tour of California to gear up for the summer events, including the biggies over in Europe.

As I described on the blog, last year, Chris and I headed up to Pismo Beach to see the riders come through the central coast area, and we enjoyed a few days in that part of the state.  I was totally psyched a few months ago when I read that the Tour would be starting in our very own city of residence this year - Stage 1 would be in Long Beach!

While our early plans of sitting on our back wall, watching the riders whiz by, were crushed as soon as the official stage map came out, the looped course (12 loops!  That seems not super exciting for the riders!) would hopefully allow spectators to find a good spot somewhere on the road, chill out for a few hours, and see the cyclists speed past more than once.

Lotsa loops.

May I please request this elevation

profile for all of my upcoming races?

Thank you.

After studying the map and this year's start time, we planned to go down to the Belmont Shore area, about 20 minutes from our house, and try to set up shop right at the very end of the turnaround, all the way on the right side of the map.  Since we knew things might be kind of crazy with traffic (due to all of the closed streets), we figured we'd get to the area on the early side, find decent parking, and have brunch in one of our favorite local hangouts, Roe Seafood.  Since Stage 1 of the race also happened to coincide with Mother's Day, we made a reservation at Roe, and it was a darn good thing we did.  Although we didn't plan on the all you could eat buffet being the only offering available, it was the best buffet the two of us have ever enjoyed, and it seemed worth the price.

When our two-hour time limit at Roe was up, we waddled to the car to grab the big camera and our camp chairs, and we headed to our designated location.  It was pretty quiet there, but we figured things would get going pretty soon.

Eventually, a few other race fans walked past us, and we realized why it was so quiet in our chosen spot - because we weren't actually on the course map.  D'oh!  Thankfully, we had plenty of time to get back to the car, drive further down the beach, re-park, walk to the actual course, and set up there (cut to me being suddenly grateful for the 12 loops).  I think we made our way to the course right before the two breakaway leaders, Tanner Foot from UHC and Andre Krasilnikau from Holowesko, came through on their second lap (or maybe the third - I'm unsure).

I always enjoy seeing the amount of support

the Tour puts together for the riders...

official cars, medical vehicles,

police escorts, gear cars, and that's not

even including each team's car.

It's an army of vehicles.

Go, volunteer!

The neutral support car that goes along

with the stage leaders.

While each team has its own cars,

with replacement bikes and tires set up

perfectly for each rider,

they can also use items from the neutral support car.

It's not as great as having your own bike/parts,

but in circumstances when your team car

can't reach you (think the mountains in France),

the neutral vehicle can be a godsend.

Foot and Krasilnikau battle it out

Foot's United Healthcare team car

A few minutes after the breakaway leaders (who were eventually caught, but it took some time) passed our spot, the peloton roared by (well, the peloton swished by - the support vehicles properly roared).

Lots of cycling shots to come...

Looks like we've got some Team Sky, Quick-Step,

and potentially Rally/Trek folks here.

If you want to figure out names,

use this link and search for bib numbers.

For example, number 84 up there is Luke Rowe
(on the left, in the white and blue jersey).

Mike Teunissen and Thomas Leezer,

bringing up the rear of the pack

One of the teams had a support Mini!

We saw another loop go past in this location, and it was at that point I decided to venture to the median, to see if I could get shots of the front side of the riders, versus more from this vantage point.  First, though, some aerial shots:

What's that?

Blimp-hance!

The Goodyear folks came all the way from Carson.

The helicopter providing aerial shots of the race.

I settled in on the median and grabbed some practice snaps, to make sure I was lined up properly.

Look, a dog!

Peering toward downtown from my curbside spot

Look, another dog!

So busy, surfing on his phone

Feets!

Eventually, Foot (heh, see what I did there?) and Krasilnikau were headed toward us again, and I geared up for action shot time!

I hope to never be seeing a police car

bearing down like this in real life.

It was somewhat unnerving.

Here they come!

Swish!

Since we'd put ourselves on the apex of the curve, you could turn over your shoulder and watch the riders pop back up on the other side of the road, just a short distance away.

There they go!

A few minutes later, it was time for the peloton to go by again, and my spot ended up being pretty good for taking shots of the riders (although, looking at these shots the first time, it was somewhat unnerving) - they weren't looking at me, but instead at the curve, which was right behind me.

I love this shot - 

blow it up and look at all the riders

in the distance, getting ready to zoom past us.

Pretty sure Tejay Van Garderen is in this one

Taylor Phinney!

We loves us some Taylor Phinney in this house.

Oh, hey, is that Peter Sagan

peeking out behind his teammates?

Why, I do believe it is.

Check out the yawning EF rider -

see, I figured 12 laps wasn't the most thrilling thing ever.

Mark Cavendish

I also used my new perspective to grab some better shots of the team cars, in an attempt to show the scale of this operation:

See how many team cars and bikes?

So, this is the broom wagon,

and if you fall behind, your bike craps out,

or you get injured, it "sweeps" you up

and carts you to the finish line.

In running races, these are often called

SAG wagons, which stands for Support And Gear.

I always thought it was called the "SAD" wagon,

because if they scooped you up,

you weren't having a very good day.

More emergency vehicles.

After abandoning my post, I went back to sit with Chris, and we saw everyone go past one more time before packing up and heading out.  We made it home with 7 laps to go, so we got a chance to see the sprint finish on tv, which was quite exciting.  Before we left, I made sure to grab one more shot of some of our fellow spectators:

Best.spectators.ever!

Later!

Amy