Snoo-zer. Aside from the final five seconds of the race, the most exciting part of Thursday's Stage 4 in the 2007 Amgen Tour of California was the scenery. Relatively undistinguished topography and the desire of most riders to save themselves for tomorrow's critical individual time trial turned yesterday's stage into little more than a placeholder in the week-long tour.

It was a day of defensive rest, with everybody working extra hard to do the least amount necessary to maintain the status quo and playing it as safe as possible while doing so.

There was some nominal bad weather to keep the racers on their toes, a lukewarm breakaway led by Hilton Clarke of the Navigators Insurance team, a minimal response from Discovery Channel and the peloton, and a rather pedestrian, if not historic, sprint finish capped by Paolo "the Cricket" Bettini's (Quick Step-Innergetic) technically brilliant track throw to nip Gerald Coilek (T-Mobile) at the tape. Other than that, we loved it, thanks for asking.

Pretty much a ho-hum day at the office for the peloton in Stage 4. Hey, is that Slipstream rider in the second row checking out SFist on his Blackberry?. Photo by Mark Shimahara.

No doubt that the star of the day was California. Following Highway 1 south for 213 kilometers from Seaside to San Luis Obispo (SLO), Stage 4 passed by quintessential California icons Bixby Creek Bridge, Hearst Castle, and Morro Rock. After the brief squall north of Big Sur about 25 to 30 kilometers into the stage, racers were treated to intermittent sunshine and blue skies for the rest of the day. Kolley-phone-ya!

Other than Clarke's seven-man breakaway and the final 500 meters of the sprint finish, the entire 127-man peloton rode en masse for nearly every kilometer of the race. It was exactly the kind of stage that non-fans think of when they think of cycling: a bunch of guys riding in a huge group that doesn't ever seem to do anything except pedal at the same speed for five hours. Gripping, gripping stuff for the uninitiated.

One bright spot on the day was the jousting between King of the Mountain (KOM) aspirant Christophe Laurent (Credit Agricole) and Slipstream's Lucas Euser for the day's KOM points. Like teammate William Frischkorn before him, Euser's job today was to take as many points away from Laurent as possible to help teammate Thomas Peterson's KOM chances. In their two-man battle, Laurent nabbed two of the KOM sprints, while SLO-boy Euser picked up one. Peterson was MIA again today, while Laurent picked up enough points to don the "sunshine" jersey as the overall KOM points leader.