So for those of you who missed my award winning 2012 ToC route analysis (here), our generous friends over at AEG and Amgen have released more details and given me another excuse to blather on pointlessly continue my crack analysis of the "greatest stage race the world has ever known being held in the greatest place on earth, ever"*, the Tour of California!

Now in order to write this properly, for the proper ambiance, it was necessary for me to pack my bags and move to Beverly... Hills that is... you know, that place with the swimming pools and the movie stars? Here's some video to help you orient yourself. Go on, I'll wait....

And since you all know how seriously I take my responsibility to really cover the story right, and also because Chris lent me the Cafe charge card (wOOt Chris!), I was able to come correct and rent one of these, and get one of these, and also there was this (don't judge me). Also, I'm working on a screenplay about a hooker with a heart of gold who meets an unhappy rich business man who needs a date for some business meetings, etc. and I'm having trouble with the ending. She either gets killed by evil drug dealers, or the rich guy marries her. The first seems more realistic but the second seems more box office. Hmm, decisions...

Wait, where was I? Oh, the race details! Sorry. Grab some snacks and join me after the jump...

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For those of you who are not familiar with the seasons in Northern California, we have four of them. They are Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall. Spring is cool and wet, Summer is warm and dry, Fall is cool and dry, and Winter is cold and wet. It's true...

"Brilliant, Jimbo" I can hear Drew thinking. "That's the way it is everywhere, you stupid git. Now stop wasting our time and show us some more pictures of French showgirls. And get me another Dogfish Head Punkin Ale and another can of wasabi peas, chop chop."

Shut your pie hole, Drewd, and listen up. Prepare your mind for the receiving of some knowledge! And grab a number 2 pencil, because you might want to take notes... 

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Way back during the cold and rainy spring cobbles season, we held a remarkably successful fundraiser for Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix raising over $1300 in defense of bad roads. Well after many months of me delivering newspapers to earn back all the money you fine people donated which I lost almost immediately at the dog track, I finally earned back every penny and wired it off to France in a moment of clarity. Whew. Well, guess what arrived from France in la poste today? This!

Want to know what was inside?...

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As some of you may know, our very own Gavia, (surfer chick, lover of crayons, hater of bacon) is busy playing hooky this week as an international cycling reporter for Cycling News covering the Tour of California. Check out her Stage 2 Report.

Some of you may recall CN as that place you go to lookup race results so you can keep your own VDS score card because you are either crazy, or you don't trust Ted, or both. Anyways, Gav is doing stage reports and other reporterly stuff, so check it out! She's pounding the pavement, chasing down every lead, looking for those nuggets of truth and insight man... and probably drinking coffee, and shivering, and.... umm.... sitting around in press rooms with other press people doing press people things, like tweeting and reading email, and talking shit about other press people who are tweeting and blogging and stuff. The ususal... Is that enough words yet? Yep!

The tragic news from today's Giro reminds us all how dangerous this sport can be, and how quickly a good day on the bike can go terribly wrong. I have few words to express my feelings about what happened today except to say that the news made me very, very sad. I am not very good at sad, so at the risk that this might offend some of you, I decided to do something that would cheer me up, and maybe, hopefully, have the same effect on you. Who knows...

Anyway, I have decided to tell you a story about a 44 year old out-of-shape cycling fool who, due to lack of brains, or  some combination of character flaws, or perhaps just poor math skills, decided to try to double his Spring road mileage, and quadruple his Spring climbing total, all in a single day! The day was last Saturday. Anyone care to guess who the fool was?... Please put your hand down, Jens....

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We did it people! We have met our goal, and then some! Collectively, we managed to raise a grand total of $1,389.52! Quite a remarkable sum, if I do say so myself. For those of you in the old country, this works out to €962.67, which, it just so happens, is enough for me to purchase a round-trip ticket from San Francisco to Brussels (coach) so I can present the remaining $26.32 to Les Amis in person tomorrow at their annual party at the Roubaix velodrome! Woo hoo!! Roubaix, here I come! Awesome! Totally awesome!... What? Hey, somebody has to deliver the money, right?

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Chris' excellent article about the fine people from Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix, and all the hard work they do preserving the pavé of northern France, got me thinking...

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The route details for the first three stages of the 2011 Tour of California have been revealed.Have a looksy...

Haven't had a chance to digest them in any detail, but first impressions are that stage 1 will be gorgeous (one and a half laps around Lake Tahoe), stage 2 will be downhill, and stage 3 will get progressively stinkier the closer they get to the finish line in Modesto (mucho cows).

This is good news. Live coverage is better than delayed coverage, and HD on my television is better than low def streaming crap. They also announced that Versus has signed a "multi-year agreement". Now I am not a lawyer, so keep that in mind, but my expectation is that such an agreement constitutes a rock solid guarantee that Lance will come back from retirement each year and ride the ToC naked, on fire, while juggling flaming chain saws. Pause and consider how cool that would look in HD...

Like the sun rising in the east, at any family gathering, without fail, one of my relatives who knows I'm into cycling will bring up Lance and doping. What do I think of this, what do I think of that, do I think he's guilty, do I think he's being framed, etc, etc. It never fails.

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I made a pilgrimage up to Santa Rosa last night to check out the Gran La Fawnduh handmade bike show. It was dark by the time I got there, so no photos worth sharing, but I did manage to get a glimpse of bikes by Steve Rex, Cielo, Black Cat, Rock Lobster, Rebolledo, Bruce Gordon, Sycip, and Soulcraft. Every single bike I saw made me drool more than the last, which might explain why I'm feeling so dehydrated this morning despite my steady, disciplined beer intake. Got to spend a few minutes talking with Steve Rex, Sean Walling (Soulcraft), and Bruce Gordon. Nice guys all around. The next bike in my quiver has got to be a Soulcraft Groundskeeper, which I plan to order as soon as I find a bag of gold buried in my yard (Confidence is high). And yes, I will get it in that nice powder blue color despite the fact that Drew and Sui Juris will make fun of me for riding my wife's bike (they can both suck it).

The highlight, besides the awesome Whiskeydrome, which was open for all comers regardless of IQ/inebriation level, and the other assorted Handcar Regatta creations, was Bruce Gordon's stunning titanium lugged, carbon tube one of a kind concept bike. Full gallery here. It took Bruce, and one other guy, two months, full-time, to make it. The lugs are milled from solid titanium bar stock, the tubes are custom carbon by the Serotta guy (forgot his name, sorry Serotta guy), the brakes are custom, the seatpost is custom, as are the stem, the lights, the racks, the tires... it is an amazing thing to behold. Not wild about the 650b wheels, which look a little goofy (in my unworthy, lame-ass opinion), but that is my only comment that is not glowing. And if you want one, Bruce said he will gladly build you your very own for the low, low price of $45,000. That includes the decals. I plan to order mine when I find an armored car filled with gold buried in my neighbor's yard (Confidence is low).

Over at ESPN, Bonnie Ford delivers yet another fascinating article on legend, role model, marketing machine, and potential future IPO millionaire, Lance Armstrong. Go Lance! Given the federal investigation looking into fraud and systematic doping by Lance and his team, one might expect a regular human to lie low for a bit... to turn it down to "5" or "6" (from the normal "11")... to at least take a frickin long vacation while things cool down. Not Big Tex! Hell no! Love him, hate him, or despise him, if there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that Lance is most definitely not a regular human being.

No doubt others have posted this news elsewhere already, but today the mountains tried to take out Jens! Voigt, yet again, but this time the mountains failed! SHUT UP MOUNTAINS! You will not break Jens!

Apparently Jens! blew a tire 2 km down the descent of the Col de Peyresourde, at speed,  and down he went. Luckily he was able to solider on and finish with the groupetto. He tells the story in true Jens! style at his blog.

Check out the post-race interview here as well as a photo of Jens! on his temp bike that cannot be missed

Given all the Floyd news of late, here is an old story from the July, 2006 edition of Outside magazine. This was published after Floyd had won the inaugural ToC and Paris-Nice, but before he "won" the TdF and has some interesting insight into angry guy Floyd. If you are anything like me, a big former Floyd fan who resisted believing the guy was a doper until it all just got too fucking weird to stand any longer, this story will make you feel equal parts nostalgic and nauseous. Man, 2006 seems like a million years ago now, doesn't it?

"It's not over" sayeth Mic Rogers. Anyone believe him? Show of hands, please?... Today is circuit day at the 2010 ToC and the last chance to win Levi's golden pajamas. Is Roger's 9 second lead enough to keep DZ at bay? Can Levi find 35 seconds hiding somewhere in their four laps around the 21 mile circuit, which includes the famous Rock Store climb, a nice 2000 footer? Will Jay Leno let Conan have the tonight show back? Does God exist? Who invented Liquid Soap, and why?...

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Today is chrono day at the 2010 ToC. Today the big guns will fire (which in this part of LA is a regular kinda thing). Today is the day that matters. Who will do it? Well, Mick Rogers looked strong and sounded confident at yesterday's finish. The other two GC favs, DZ and Levi, will both bring it, no doubt, but when the jerseys are handed out, only one of them will be able to say that today was a good day...

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Today's stage rolls 135 miles (217 km) from Palmdale to Big Bear Lake, and includes a metric ass-load of climbing. Seven, count them seven, KOMs. Check out the official site for specifics, but the highest KOM is 7900 feet (2408 meters). The air is rare at that elevation. Needless to say, this stage is going to hurt and have a huge impact on the performance of the GC favorites in Saturday's TT, but will probably not be definitive in and of itself.

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Today's stage rolls 121 miles (195 km) from Visalia to Bakersfield, crossing pan-flat fields and orchards before venturing up the western slopes of the mighty Sierra Nevada. The stage peaks out at over 3,345 feet before descending back down into the dusty old oil town of Bakersfield. While this stage resembles stage 4 in total climbing, length and dustiness, the finish of this one is no flat sprinter's playground. Instead, the route planners tossed in a finishing circuit complete with a hairpin turn and a nasty little 10% climb near the end, which should make for some interesting hear rates and wattage numbers on the tourtracker. What will happen is anyone's guess. And since I was a little hard on poor Modesto yesterday, I'm going to take it easy on Bakersfield today, because, it turns out that Bakersfield is actually a pretty interesting place... Seriously...

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Today's stage rolls 121 miles (195 km) from San Jose to lovely Modesto. Modesto, Spanish for "modest", was named by the German/Dutch ostrich farmers who settled there in the late 1760's looking for religious freedom and dust. The town also boasts the world's largest ball of  jute twine (in Stanislaus County), and an amusement park called "Beigeland". 1960's Modesto was immortalized in George Lucas' 1973 classic American Graffiti, a coming-of-age film about growing up in small town America. All right, I made most of that Modesto shit up, except for the American Graffiti part. That part is totally true. Go on, Google it. In fact, check out this oddly prophetic clip in which local bad ass and speed demon "John", played by Paul Le Mat, the guy with the biggest rep and fastest car in Modesto, is challenged by interloper Bob Falfa (played by little know actor Harry Ford), where they exchange pleasantries, and then... um, well... you see where I'm going with this, right?

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Today's stage rolls 113 miles (181 km) south from San Francsico to Santa Cruz which means lots of exposed coastal highway and big onshore winds, and we all know what big onshore winds can mean, right? Echelons, that's what! Probably not actually going to be a factor, but I mention it because "echelons" just happens to be my third favorite word in cycling, right behind "bonifications" and "chamois-cream", which I am counting as one word in this instance because I used a hyphen. Yay punctuation. And speaking of chamois cream, check out DZ giving us a demo on proper application of said unguent during last years ToC. That is solid gold cycling entertainment right there, peoples... Oh the race preview. I forgot... So, long coastal road followed by some medium mountains, followed by a screaming descent into Santa Cruz. And unlike yesterday's deja vu stage, rain is not in the forecast. So a screaming descent is a virtual certainty. And we may actually get to watch it!

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Today's stage rolls 109 miles (176 km) from Davis to Santa Rosa. Word on the street is that Levi lives in or around this Santa Rosa place! Who knew... Unlike yesterday's downhill parade to what appeared to my eyes to be a very expensive office-park Cat 4/5 crit, today's stage promises some real racing complete with climbing (yeah) and vineyards (yum) and rain (yuk)...

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So imagine you had the opportunity to attend a major international cycling race in person in a town that shares the second half of its name with a famous pink jersey and the first half of its name with Bruce's toy-delivering, elf-exploiting, reindeer loving, jolly alter-ego. Now, say you had the opportunity to ask your favorite pro cyclist any question you wanted. Seriously, any question... no hurry... chew on it for a sec... no rush... any question... Actually, any question except that one about shaving vs waxing (sorry Albertina). That would be pretty cool, right? Well, my friend, today is your lucky day! Post your question in a comment below and I will do my best to get you an answer. No guarantee I will be successful, but I will try. And if you write your question on a new Pinarello DOGMA 60.1, or better yet, on a Guru Photon and overnight it to me, I guarantee your question will gets asked. Hell, send both and I will dress up in the Borat bathing suit while I ask your question. Imagine...

Bongiorno cycling peoples. So we all know that that other Giro is underway, with all of its glorious tradition, and gorgeous vistas, and that prosecco alla tappa business... mucho respecto... but in my 'hood, there is another race worth following this May, and that race is the 2010 Tour of California.

What, you may ask, does the ToC have that the Giro doesn't, besides fewer stages and less pink crap? Well, for one thing, the ToC has none of that wide open GC battle nonsense. Let's face it, Levi owns this race. The little man's pajamas say "Three Time ToC Winner" on them (I bet) and dude's won those three ToC's with barely a hair out of place. And you can bet your BMB that he aims to win it again.

But, for shits and giggles, lets take a look at who might want to steal Levi's pajamas. What? It could happen...

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It's official, or at least "official" in an asterisked *all-rosters-subject-to-change sort of way. Armstrong, Jens! Cancellara, Schlecket, Boonen, Stuey, Barbie Barbie, The Manx Missle, Slappy, Mr. Bubbles, Little Peetey, Big Peetey... OK, I made up those last few. But seriously, that's a lot of talent for a little provincial race in the outer colonies. Yay us.. Full details can be found here.

From the press release...

Tour de France Overall Podium Finishers
Lance Armstrong (USA), Team RadioShack; first 1999-2005, third 2009
Andy Schleck (LUX), Team Saxo Bank; second 2009
Levi Leipheimer (USA) Team RadioShack; third 2007

Tour de France Stage Winners
Lance Armstrong (USA), Team RadioShack (22)
Mark Cavendish (GBR), Team HTC-Columbia (10)
Tom Boonen (BEL), Quick Step (6)
Fabian Cancellara (SUI), Team Saxo Bank (5)
Stuart O’Grady (AUS), Team Saxo Bank (3)
Yaroslav Popovych (UKR), Team RadioShack (3)
Jens Voigt (GER), Team Saxo Bank (3)
Heinrich Haussler (GER), Cervélo TestTeam (1)
David Zabriskie (USA), Garmin-Transitions (1)

Complete Final Rosters* on the flip...

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