This last weekend marked the end of the 2010 Amgen Tour of California, one of the largest cycling races in the USA. This year the race featured elite riders such as Levi Leipheimer, Michael Rogers, Chris Horner, David Zabriskie, Ryder Hesjedal, Yaroslav Popovych, Fabian Cancellara, Jens Voight, Rory Sutherland, Andy Schleck, George Hincapie, Jonathan Cantwell and of course Lance Armstrong.
Josh and I were only able to make one stage of the race this year, stage 7: time trials in downtown Los Angeles. We had so much fun hanging out around the Staples Center at the sponsor booths prior to the race. We even did a little shopping at George Hincapie’s booth. I got awesome, and might I add discounted, George Hincapie jeans and Josh got some long awaited George Hincapie sunscreen (can you tell he’s one of our fav’s?).
Two of the HTC Columbia riders on a pre-race cruise around the course.
Fabian Cancellara , the Swiss time trial champion, races through the course on his first lap, flying by the riders that started before him.
Once the race got started we cruised up the Los Angeles streets while capturing images of some of the tour’s greats. We tried to get more photographs with the Los Angeles city background, but ran into some crowd issues and framing problems. We were able to capture these with the awesome old buildings.
This is one of HTC Columbia’s riders turning down the hill with the Walt Disney Concert Hall behind him.
Here we have one rider passing another as they race down the hill at the end of their 2nd lap. Look at all the press! Yes, Josh is one of those photographers on the side of the road. I’ll have to post some of his images soon too. I can’t tell who these riders are, but they must be important.
Here we have one of the Fly V Australia riders. Check out the sweet reflection in his sunglasses of his hands. I’ll admit I didn’t even notice this at first. Josh pointed it out and said he thought it was cool because the position of the hands is important in a time trial.
Chris Horner! Smiling as he rides up the hill on his 2nd lap around the course. Okay, he’s not actually smiling for the camera. Chris is known for looking like he’s smiling when he’s working really hard.
Levi Leipheimer from Lance Armstrong’s new Radio Shack team is seen here racing up the hill with the team car close behind.
Yellow jersey Michael Rogers is coming into the final portion of his last lap.
Michael Rogers making his last turn down the hill. He performed really well in this years Tour of California and took home the yellow jersey as overall race leader after Sunday’s final stage!
It was a bummer that crowd favorite Lance Armstrong got hurt in a previous stage and could not be there for the time trial, but Josh and I were a little more disappointed about something else. Stage 6, set in Big Bear, proved to be to difficult for some of the sprinters. Mark Cavendish, winner of Stage 1, and Jonathan Cantwell were just two of the sprinters that ended the race after Stage 6 because they did not make the time cut. Unfortunately, the sprinters are very good at time trials and they did not get to ride. Josh and I really wanted to see these two guys and were super bummed to hear they were out of the race.
We were impressed with LA though. The city was able to shut down multiple streets in downtown Los Angeles around the Staples Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and USC. There was still a lot of traffic, but it was impressive nonetheless.
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