Road Ride Report ToC TT Report (yeah, so its a little late)

Got to downtown around 9am to scope out the course and look for the best spots to check out the action. Both sides of the finish line and Chick Hearn court were off-limits except for VIP's...and Chick Hearn court was empty all day...guess there weren't enough people who decided to pony up the $$ for the premium viewing packages.

While TV showed a lot of the course was deserted, the start/finish was pretty well packed with people starting with the first riders going off, and with them doing two laps of the circuit, there was never more than a minute or so with someone going by on either their first or second lap of the course. The finishing straight was a wall of people going all the way to the last turn about 1/2 mile from the finish...and because of the buildings on both sides and the two-way race traffic through that section, it was really loud all day.

The team warm-up area was incredible...some of them didn't even have a rope to keep people away...Only SaxoBank, Radioshack, Garmin, and HTC-Columbia had a rope to keep people a few feet away. Even then, riders were either coming into the area from their hotel, going out onto the course to get a preview before the TT started (a bunch did a few laps at an easy pace), or just rolling to the start through the crowd.

Even those that had dropped out were just kind of around in the crowd...Cavendish was hanging around the start area for while outside of the VIP area with the masses.

The cars and motos had trouble keeping up with these guys on some of the tighter turns...guess an SUV with bikes on it has trouble with a tight right-hander at 35+ mph.

Anyway, the pics.



^^ The finishing straight....


^^ Hincapie out on the course

^^ Levi rolling to the start


^^ Levi coming down to the finish...

^^ Zabriskie rolling to the start house..




^^ and "Captain America" pinning it down the finishing straight.

^^ Michael Rogers to the start house...

^^ And nailing down a strong finish to add to his lead over David Z. and Levi...

I would say that for anyone who's a fan of cycling, this was a great opportunity to get closer to world-class athletes, at least closer than I thought I'd ever get. Wherever the TT is next year...I'm in.

 

I was at 500 meters from the finish with my dogs. What a great environment. With riders going both directions a minute apart; it was constant action most of the time.
Haven't dl'd my pics yet, so my account may not have happened, LOL.

 

My only grip about the TT event was the beer gardens were for VIP's only! And the restaurants in the area had a silly soccer game on instead of the race.

 

"Silly" soccer game ended before the meat of the field...and just about all inside the yardhouse watching it were there for the TT except for one tiny corner where about 4-5 people were interested in hockey...btw...the staff who were there before opening had the TV's tuned to the morning's Giro coverage...

Would have been great if the LA Live! propaganda screens showed the race instead of ESPN adverts...

 

Very nice pictures. FFW and I went to stage 6 in Palmdale. I was also surprised how we just rolled into the team bus area on our bikes and were riding/walking around that area.

 

We were at the Yard and only saw the soccer game, must have left before soccer was over. Watching live was way better anyways!