Tour of California

World class bicyclists descended on San Diego Sunday, February 22, for the last leg of AMGEN's Tour of California. The race started here in Rancho Bernardo and went north on Pomerado Road where I took these photos. For San Diego it went out through the country side through Valley Center, up Palomar Mountain and down into Escondido for the finish.

Unfortunately, it was all over much too quickly. I had anticipated that since this was a race, the riders would be somewhat strung out. But, as you can see, they were all bunched up, so there was probably less than 15 seconds of photo opportunity. (I tried to get them to circle around and come by again, but they wouldn't do it.)

Technically, the timed portion of the race hadn't started yet, and didn't until about a mile north of us when they turned onto Highland Valley Road. This portion was sort of like the pacing lap prior to an auto race. Actually, if you look closely at some of these photos, the cyclists appear to be chatting away much like ordinary cyclists would while out on a typical Sunday afternoon ride. You'd not suspect they were about to take on a grueling 90 mile race, including a mile high run up Palomar Mountain!