Despite a few anxious laps during the climactic Stage 7, wire-to-wire overall race leader Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) found just enough energy to fend off a cheeky breakaway from Danny Pate (Slipstream) and win the 2007 Amgen Tour of California (TOC) . A seven-man group including Pate broke out from the main peloton very early in the race and worked a beautiful pace line to stretch the lead out to 2'50". Pate came into......

It was poetry in motion out there in Stage 3 of the Amgen Tour of California, like a ragged stream of consciousness.

Hills, . . . hills-hills mark the stage most crucial to date, elevation profile like an EKG.

Under the merciless stare of giant windmills stoic 17 riders breaking away BEWARE! the false summit of Patterson Pass, Van de Walle caught out as Peterson's debt to William Frischkorn grows. Over the top jersey stuffing newspapers, protection against the windy descent.

Yeah, yeah, we know.

You had Oscar Pereiro in the office Tour de France pool until you watched the OLN Tour Preview show and Bob Roll convinced you to change it to Floyd Landis. Right, and you had Carlos Sastre on the podium too until your buddy Joao from Portugal got you thinking that Jose Azevedo had this one dialed in. And you've always been a huge Cyril Dessel fan, but you thought he was still a year or two away from going big time; this was going to be finally going to be Georgie Hincapie's year.

Sure you did. We guarantee that nobody had Pereiro, Sastre, and Andreas Kloden in the top three (well, maybe Kloden) before the Tour started.