Race: Angeles Forest Highway (Team Astana)

As soon as the peloton rode into view, I had a “Duh, of course” moment.

My nephew’s sage recommendation after the rainy stage we saw in Northern California was “Next time let’s do this when it’s sunny.” Check.

My brother and I talked about something else we both thought we’d do differently: It’s easy to spend more attention capturing a moment in life than living in that moment. When a pack of racers rockets by, if I focus on taking pictures, I don’t see the racers. He and I agreed that if we could go back and play that morning again, we’d both rather pay more attention to watching the race itself, trying to figure out what we were seeing going by, rather than blindly hurrying to preserve it.

On Tunitas Creek Road last weekend, he and I both stood there and took pictures while 100 of the best riders in the world fought past us, and we both know a lot of these riders by name and reputation. But between us both, I think only he recognized a single rider.

So I came out today thinking I was going to pay more attention to spotting Lance Armstrong, plus anyone else I could. If I got any pictures, that was fine, but it wasn’t going to be the main mission.

So the riders all come over the hill and around the bend, and I thought, “Duh.” On Tunitas Creek Road, the riders were a jumble of rain gear in no particular order. By now, though, with Levi Leipheimer in the overall lead, the Astana team is riding in a baby-blue bunch at the front of the pack, controlling the peloton’s speed and strategy as a leader’s team usually does.

Lance and Levi weren’t going to be buried back in the pack. Spotting them was going to be easy.

I had not been sure earlier which rider in the breakaway was George Hincapie. I saw the side of a jersey that said Hincapie, but that’s a brand of sportswear that other teams might also use, though I guess in retrospect they probably wouldn’t display the name so prominently on their outfits. Anyhow, I wasn’t sure I had seen George.

But I saw both Lance and Levi ride by me today, close enough to recognize them both, slow enough for me to glance down and check their bike numbers too, to make sure I had the right guys. Their numbers are easy: Levi’s bike number is 1; Lance is 2.

No way I’m going to recognize every rider as they go by, but I was pretty pleased with myself for being able to say I had seen them both riding—not just that a pack had gone by and they were somewhere in it.

You get a much better view of all the riders if you watch them on TV. But being there in person to hear them breathe as they ride by, working hard just a few feet away from you . . . it’s like having seats a few feet away from the pitcher’s mound, even if it’s just for a pitch or two. No TV picture can really be quite like being out there in the sun and the dust and the trees with them.

After the dust settled, I could pore over the pictures and figure out who else was who.

In order, from the front of the line to the back, you’re looking at:

6 Yaroslav Popovych (“Popo”)
8 Gregory Rast
3 Jani Brajkovic (white windbreaker over his jersey)
7 Jose Luis Rubiera Vigil
5 Steve Morabito
4 Chris Horner (yellow shoes)
1 Levi Leipheimer (yellow shoulders on his jersey, dark blue sleeves)
2 Lance Armstrong (black-and-yellow helmet, yellow Livestrong jersey)

A lot of these guys have gone multiple seasons with Lance, and Levi, and George, and Albert Contador (who is not riding the Tour of California this year, because he’s representing Astana in a different race this week). Racing solo, many are contenders in their own rights. Under Johan Bruyneel, a master strategist and manager, they work together in a legendary team formation.

As you can see, even though it isn’t a huge hill, they’re pulling mightily to get up it. Those bikes don’t move themselves.

Imagine being able to stand 10 feet from Babe Ruth as he swatted a homer. No instant replay. No circles and arrows drawn on the screen by a commentator to highlight form. In the flash of an eye he connects with the ball, and it’s gone. Watching the riders go by is like that.

The guy behind Lance, although his jersey is similar to the Astana jerseys, is from a different team: Garmin-Slipstream.

The day before, Levi had shown what it takes to stay in control of a race like this. In the individual time trial in Solvang—riding solo, with no team riders around to help carry the pace—he beat Dave Zabriskie, one of the world’s best time trial riders. They had started the day 28 seconds apart in the general classification, and Levi outrode his previous time and the time of Zabriskie, a three-time U.S. national time trial champ, to stretch that to 36 seconds.

On a mountain stage, if you fall behind, it’s easy to lose not just seconds but whole minutes to your competition. So if Levi chokes on a climb, he could easily fall from first place overall to tenth or worse. He’s riding in a well-protected position here, with a blue train of six guys in front of him to create a pocket of air to suck him along, and Lance Armstrong, who knows something about race strategy, riding practically at his elbow, covering the rear.

There was more race after Astana went by, but nothing that would match the thrill of seeing the Blue Train go by, one after another.

After it was all over, I got back in my car and headed for home. All the way, my cell phone serenaded me (once I got back into tower range) with a steady stream of updates from my brother, who was watching the end of the race on TV across the continent.

All in all, an outstanding afternoon.

Race: Angeles Forest Breakaway

Long story short: Did my homework last night, so when I pulled up to the Highway Patrol car blocking the main road in to the spot where I hoped to watch, I already had a backup route in mind.

Took me a touch longer to get there, but as you see, I beat the racers to my perch.


There might have been a couple dozen other folks standing around. No teeming crowd, nobody standing in front of anyone else. You can see folks in the picture above chalking the street: “Lance + Levi Livestrong,” “Go Big George,” that kind of thing. Great crowd, everyone in a good mood. We were all way out in the middle of nowhere (no cell reception—not even TXT!), and we knew we had a plum spot.


The racers were going to come around a bend about a half-mile away (on the left in the first picture above, obscured by some treetops), then down a slight hill, then climb up toward us. We would have plenty of warning, and we’d catch them working uphill, so going more slowly. This was after the big King of the Mountain summit for the day, which again would make for slower (more tired) riders.


The usual vehicles patrolled the route: Coupla Highway Patrol cars, some race vehicles, some CHP motorcycles. A car came through with loudspeakers and gave us a thorough update on the race status: 10 breakaway riders, and they rattled off names of each one. George Hincapie was in the break, and I did the math fast and realized he was going to try to repeat his win of the same stage last year. (Last year this route was the final stage, and George won it in the pouring rain. This year, same route, but there’s still one more stage to go tomorrow.)


The car with the loudspeakers headed on about 25 yards up the road and asked, using the loudspeakers, if they were giving away any of those chocolate chip cookies. It was that kind of crowd—nobody taking anything too seriously, nobody in a hurry to be anywhere else but here. Nobody jockeying for position: Everyone had a great seat.

Oddly, there was no rain.


When the chopper started moving around overhead, I knew the racers were getting close. The air team provides video as well as support for race radio communications, which can be very tricky in mountain canyons.

And then the break was here.


As predicted, we had a generous amount of time from when we first saw them till the moment they rode right by us. I was even a little surprised that it took them as long to reach us as it did. But I wasn’t disappointed.


Second from the left in this picture, #21 is George Hincapie. He’s a remarkable powerhouse, the only guy who can say he rode with Lance Armstrong on every single Tour de France victory (so far). In his own right, he’s a strong racer, with multiple national championships under his belt and some other hard-won victories. And he works hard, publicly, in the fight against cancer. I’ll admit it was a thrill to meet him last year as part of that fight.

I was pleased that he was in the breakaway.

The main course was yet to come.

Race: Peloton

Again the entourage precedes the cyclists.

The road is still wet, but the rain has stopped.

Around the bend comes a moto, driver facing forward, cameraman on the rear facing the riders.

Strung out along the hill, the pack is a whir of shifting gears, whispering chains, rustling rain gear, tires hissing along pavement, multiplied by a hundred riders.

Somewhere in the forest of flailing legs are the riders you’ve come to watch: Lance and Levi and Chechu and Popo and Tyler and George and Mick and Carlos and all the others.

A fast eye familiar with every team color and distinctive cues on bike frames, or a faster eye with a knack for remembering every rider’s number, might pick out individual riders from the crowd.

Even on the uphill, climbing relatively slowly, they move too fast for a roadside spectator to recognize a face hidden under a helmet.

All you can do is wave and shout, “Go! Go!” and know that somewhere in there are your favorites.

As fast as they came, away they go, on up the road toward the next bend and out of sight again, on to the next stretch, the next hill, the next feed zone, the next sprint, miles away the finish.

Somebody has to be last in the bunch. Behind him come dozens of support cars, motos, more medics, officials, and everyone else.

Stragglers come along every few minutes after that, dropped on the hill climb. A couple of slower riders have let the team car catch up, so they can get fresh water bottles to carry forward to the rest of their mates.

Then comes a car marked “End of Convoy,” and it’s done.

You shake your head, and look down at your camera, and wonder what you just saw. Around you people are packing up their gear, unfolding umbrellas, buttoning jackets. And then you realize your brother is already a half-mile up the road with a freezing kid who wanted to be here and is trying desperately to be a rock star about it but won’t stop sniffling or shivering uncontrollably till he gets back inside the warm car. And you stuff your camera back into your jacket pocket and start hustling uphill on the rain-soaked pavement.

Race: Breakaway Leaders

First come the motorcycles. The Highway Patrol convoy, the team cars, the race marshal’s car, more motorcycles, a medic, more cars with team labels. An announcer car comes around the far bend and moves up the road, thanking everyone for coming out and letting us know the racers are on their way.

Then, down the road, a shadow, and there they are. Cell phone updates have let us know the stage leaders are a few minutes ahead of the pack. None are contenders for the overall race lead, but this handful of riders has decided to pour it on today, to try for a stage win or to rack up points in one of the intermediate contests.

After a long wait and many false alarms, this is the real deal, climbing up the road toward us.

They come by quietly, working hard, hunched over their wheels, while everyone around shouts, “Go! Go! Allez! You’re almost there!” Cow bells ring. Cameras flash.

In no time they are upon us . . .

. . . whizzing through the trees . . .

. . . and then, just as fast . . .

. . . they are past, followed by mechanics with spare parts, and we won’t see them again until we check race updates after we get home.

We settle back into regular heartbeats, check our cameras, and feel the anticipation tighten as we realize that this was just the precursor: The peloton is on its way. We check our cameras again, and make any last-minute adjustments.

Race: Spectators

At the top of Tunitas Creek Road, a rated race climb, eligible for points in the “King of the Mountains” competition. At the end of a week of racing, there will be an overall winner and a winning team, but awards will also be handed out for riders who climbed mountains fastest, who rode in front of the peloton the most, and a few other ranked categories.

The corner is familiar to a lot of Bay Area cyclists. This picture looks down Skyline Boulevard, the highway that runs the ridge of the Peninsula separating San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. The racers were coming up from the Pacific side to the ridge. Directly across Skyline Boulevard at the same intersection is Kings Mountain Road, which climbs up from the Bay. Both are popular cycling routes.

(I have been past this corner a few times on rides, but only on the way down: I usually climb to the ridge on Page Mill Road, further south of here. Kings Mountain is a “technical” descent, steep but with lots of tight curves preventing a rider from gaining much speed. I always feel for the riders huffing up it as I whiz down.)

My brother and nephew

Many drivers had parked on Skyline Blvd. and walked down the top part of the climb. Some riders had cycled up the hill in the rain to watch the race. Tunitas Creek Road itself didn’t offer much parking along the road, but a few people had camped out in what spots there were. Many pedestrians walked up and down the road, picking a place to wait and watch. Race vehicles came up now and then, checking road conditions and now and then letting us know how far back the racers were.

Star Hill Road meets Tunitas Creek Road about a mile down from the summit. We meandered down this far, took a look around, then started heading back up to find a spot to perch. We wanted to keep moving, to keep warm. The drizzle was not helping my nephew’s spirits. He had set out enthusiastic about watching the bike race, but the longer we wandered in the rain, the more emphatic he got about wanting to go back to the car.

“Next time, we should see bike races when it’s sunny.”

We all agreed.