Cycling: Stage 1 Ends with a Walk-off Homer
Stage 1 of the Amgen Tour of California (TOC) started out in the brilliant sunshine of Sausalito but ended 156.2 kilometers (km) later under a cloud of controversy in downtown Santa Rosa. In between, riders faced heavy winds, multiple crashes, and an entertaining collection of breakaways and points sprints. When it was all said and done though, Levi Leipheimer was still the hometown golden boy.
This was a stage for cycling geeks to Tivo and watch over and over. From a rolling start, the peloton quickly pulled a Category 4 climb up and over the shoulder of Mt. Tam and down the Panoramic Highway to Stinson Beach, following Highway 1 through beautiful West Marin. Local roadies finally got a chance to see how the international cycling elite handle our regular rides. On the Versus network television coverage, legend Phil Liggett praised the beauty of the Panoramic Highway, but commented that it was a little narrow to ride when open to vehicle traffic. Ha!
By the way, Monday was our first chance to see the Versus coverage and it was excellent. Truncated into an hour yes, but it was all cycling coverage, no marketing fluff, rider personal interest stories, or gratuitous product placement BS. Just racing footage and lots of Phil and Paul Sherwen. Tip o' the helmet to Versus.
In addition to a minor dustup involving Christian Vandevelde and Omer Kem that briefly clogged the peloton on the rolling flats of Highway 1, and a one-bike accident that forced race favorite Dave Zabriskie to abandon the tour, there was a major imbroglio as the main peloton entered the final portion of the course, two circuit laps through downtown Santa Rosa.
Just as the lead pack surged into town, two riders went down at the front of the peloton and took out at least 20 riders, including race leader and Santa Rosa resident Levi Leipheimer. The crash cost Leipheimer and others at least 45 seconds and really disrupted the flow and strategy of the teams, especially those with sprinters in the mix.
With close quarters and tight turns like these on the streets of Santa Rosa, it's surprising there weren't more crashes in the furious lead out to the final sprint finish. Check out the crowds. Photo from SFgate.com.
Leipheimer seemed a little dazed after his fall and finished the race with his ass hanging out of his ripped bicycle shorts. While bad for Levi, his crash actually was a very exciting development for fans because the Discovery Channel team and Leipheimer really hammered the two circuit laps hard to ride him back into the lead pack. It became a race within the race, and it was great to see the sense of urgency with which Leipheimer and his teammates rode.
But Discovery Channel's urgency was matched by the Quick Step, T-Mobile, and Rabbobank teams, who were desperate to get a stage win for their sprinters. The crowd was treated to some fantastic sprinting tactics and action in the last 8 km. The lads were really laying themselves out in the tight, cobbled corners, and watching the T-Mobile boys blow by at 50, 55, 60 km (on the flats!) was a real rush -- we may get the whole NASCAR thing now.
The final sprint to the finish line climaxed with a brilliant photo-finish between Graeme Brown (Rabobank) and Greg Henderson (T-Mobile), with Brown's track throw just outstretching Henderson's by an estimated 4 centimeters!
In addition to the exciting finish, the day was jam-packed with cycling spectacles for fans and residents in West Marin, including points sprints in Point Reyes Station, Tomales, and Bodega Bay, as well as King of the Mountain checkpoints on Mt. Tam and at the top of the Coleman Valley Road climb. Great stuff for the loc's.
There was no rain today, but brutal westerlies offered spectators a chance to see the world's best cyclists executing wind tactics, both with their team and with other riders. It was very interesting to watch the precision and formations involved with group road riding in the wind, especially at speed.
But back to the story of the day.
Nobody seems too upset by the homer ruling that allowed Leipheimer to keep his one-second overall lead (with maybe a few isolated Euro exceptions), and no protests have been filed. Phil Liggett expressed some dismay, lamenting that he thought the race officials took advantage of the rules and unnecessarily negated the circuit laps.
Consider that the crash occurred right under the finish line banner as the peloton came storming into town for two circuit laps totaling approximately 10 km. From the official race website: "Typically, crashes that occur within the final 3km result in an automatic same-time designation; this ruling was based solely on the commissaires' discretion." Yah think?
It seems fairly obvious that the judges' decision was probably affected by the fact that Leipheimer is from Santa Rosa and "has been adopted by all North Bay cycling fans." But it also seems fairly obvious that everybody is OK with it, because it's good for the event, which is good for cycling. Conversely, if the leader had been one of the day's Coleman Valley Road breakaway boys, Theo Eltink (Rabbobank), Adam Hanson (T-Mobile), Jurgen Van de Walle (Quick Step-Innergetic), or Thomas Peterson (Team Slipstream), it seems unlikely the same decision would have been made.
Just before the crash that took out Leipheimer, we were thinking about Leipheimer's history in stage races. He is a perennial GC challenger in the Tour de France and other international stage races, and has numerous top-10 finishes, but he always seems to have one bad stage that takes him out of contention. For a few minutes today, it seemed as if Leipheimer would once again be submarined by a single bad stage, but a home-field call has given him a reprieve in the 2007 TOC. It will be interesting to see if this ruling gives him the break he needs to finally win out.
Next up: Stage 2, a 186.4-km jaunt through Sonoma and Napa vineyards on the way to Sacramento.