Levi Leipheimer successfully defended his gold leader's jersey yesterday in Stage 6 of the 2007 Amgen Tour of California (TOC), but it was Team CSC that commanded everybody's attention. Refusing to concede a single pedal stroke to Leipheimer or his Discovery Channel team, CSC kept the stage hopping with steady pressure on the front from veteran scrappers like Bobby Julich and Stuey O'Grady. For their efforts, CSC locked up the overall team classification and propelled their TOC sprint man Juan Jose "JJ" Haedo to his second stage victory of the tour.

Running 169.6 kilometers (km) from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita across challenging terrain that included four King of the Mountain (KOM) category climbs, two points sprints, and three 5.6-km circuits to finish, Saturday's Stage 6 featured nonstop, granular action motivated by visions of personal glory and dedication to team and teammates.

Brilliant teamwork like this from Discovery Channel helped their man Levi Leipheimer fend off attacks from CSC in Stage 6 and keep the overall race lead. Check out the CSC team catching a free ride at the end of the Blue Train. Photo from Mark Shimahara -- BikeZen.com.

The peloton barely had time to wipe that silly Santa Barbara grin off their collective face before getting peppered with attacks by the likes of Tom Zirbel (Priority Health), Shawn Milne (Health Net), Mauricio Alberto Ardila Cano (Rabbobank), and others less than 20 km into the race. These riders were hoping to catch the peloton napping and build a huge breakaway lead early, gambling that teams like CSC and Discovery Channel might concede the stage and let them go in favor of protecting their General Classification (GC) men.

Reports from the field indicated that Leipheimer was not pleased about the early breaks. It's hard to believe he was expecting everybody else to lay down for him, but maybe he read our story yesterday and figured the final two stages of the TOC were just a formality.

Despite his consternation, Levi apparently was relaxed enough to stop and take a whiz at the 20-km mark. Yes, it does happen, especially with all that hydrating that bicycle racers do. Make it quick Levi, anything more than a shake constitutes pleasure.

In fact, Discovery was perfectly content to let the early breakaways ebb and flow. After the first KOM line, taken by Ardila Cano, a large pack of KOM riders, including Christophe Laurent (Credit Agricole), Thomas Peterson (Slipstream), Jurgen Van de Walle (Quick Step-Innergetic), Adam Hansen (T-Mobile), and Mario Aerts (Predictor), broke off the front of the peloton and gapped up to Ardila Cano and Milne.

The field sprint finishes might get all the headlines, but for our money, the KOM competition is the heart and soul of any stage race. From the official Amgen Tour of California media guide, "For many cyclists, this jersey [KOM jersey] displays the badge of suffering through the most pain." Pain and suffering, now that's what we're talking about!

Just call him Mr. February, because JJ Haedo owns the Tour of California. Photo from Graham Watson -- VeloNews.

Today's four KOM points contests did not fail to thrill. Laurent and Van de Walle, top contenders for this year's KOM title, battled each other for every last point. At the second KOM, Van de Walle willed himself up the Cat 4 climb on Highway 150 to snag two points for third place; scrapping for every last point, Laurent snagged the single point for fourth place. With that last point, Laurent extended his KOM lead over Van de Walle to seven points. Later, Van de Walle took four points at the third KOM checkpoint to pull within three points of Laurent in the overall standings. As of press time, the Amgen website did not have the official Stage 6 KOM results posted, so it is unclear right now who leads the overall KOM classification. Tomorrow's circuit stage offers no KOM points.

Discovery's leisurely spin through the countryside ended just after the second KOM checkpoint. Once the peloton absorbed the KOM boys, CSC started a barrage of attacks that would harass Leipheimer and Discovery all the way to the streets of Santa Clarita. CSC was conceding nothing, not the stage, not the team classification, not the gold jersey. With CSC attacks popping off the front of the peloton like popcorn, Discovery had no choice but to get involved.

Led by Julich, Stage 3 winner Jens Voigt, and O'Grady, the CSC attacks split the peloton into two main groups, with O'Grady's break eventually carving out a 3'00" lead over Leipheimer with less than 60 km to go. O'Grady's lead actually made him the virtual Tour leader and forced Discovery to hammer the pace the rest of the way home.

Just when it seemed that fighting the breakaways and CSC's incessant pressure all by themselves might not be enough, Discovery finally got some help from the HealthNet squad as they hit the streets of Santa Clarita. With HealthNet's help, Discovery quickly cut the gap to less than a minute, and by the bell lap (three 5.6-km circuit laps to finish), the lead was down to 30 seconds.

By that time, the usual sprinting suspects like T-Mobile, Credit Agricole, and yes, CSC, were building up a head of steam for their sprinters. Taking the lead was the Gerolsteiner team, which provided a brilliant leadout for their sprinter Robert Forster, but Forster faded in the last 100 meters.

Coming out of nowhere from the inside to take his second stage in this tour and his fourth TOC stage in the last two years was CSC's JJ Haedo. The dude knows how to win in the TOC. He is the only rider to win multiple stages in both years of the TOC, he has won the most stages in TOC history, and he holds a formidable lead in the 2007 TOC Sprint Points Leader classification. Just call him Mr. February.

In addition to the strategic jockeying and intriguing plot lines that played out on Saturday, Stage 6 offered a few other tasty cycling nuggets. At one point along the Santa Clara River with 50 km to go, the road turned to gravel and the riders had to flow some cyclocross action for several hundred meters. Surprisingly, no flats.

When the course turned to gravel, racers weren't sure whether they were riding the Tour of California or the Paris-Roubaix. Photo from Mark Shimahara -- BikeZen.com.

Georgie Hincapie went down early in the race when teammate Tony Cruz rubbed wheels with Ivan Basso. Hincapie rejoined the field, but was bumped by a fan as he approached the Balcom Canyon KOM line and nearly went down again. After the race, X-rays revealed a broken radius bone in Hincapie's forearm. He will not be able to ride in today's finishing stage.

The Balcom Canyon summit also featured a BBQ party organized by Amgen. Guests at the party included a couple of crazy fans dressed as the Pope and the Grim Reaper. The deliciously ironic odd couple made the scene complete by running crazily alongside the riders and screaming unintelligibly. Now that's real bicycle racing.

The 2007 Amgen Tour of California concludes today with Stage 7, a 124-km circuit race around the streets of Long Beach. Barring a horrible crash or elevated testosterone, Levi Leipheimer will go wire-to-wire as the overall tour leader and become the 2007 Tour of California champion.