inaugural tour of california!

An American 1-2-3 in the prologue kicks off the first Tour of California! Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) won the 3 kilometer assault of SanFransico w/ a time of 4:53. The rest of the podium was filled by Bobby Julich (CSC), and my man George Hincapie (Discovery Channel). Floyd Landis and David Zabriske rounded out the top five giving us a possible glimpse (minus Ivan Basso) of a July Tour battle. I can't wait to see how all these guys push themselves to take Lance's throne. 7 more stages and we'll know.

The bike choices varied by rider as they decided what would be best for the course. Most time-trials are ridden on flat courses but for this prologue they decided to add Telegraph Hill at the end which is a brutal climb. Time-trial bikes are designed for straight, FLAT speed, so many riders opted for their traditional road bikes outfitted w/ clip-on aero bars. That being said, Levi won on a true time-trial bike. Moot point I guess.

On an interesting note the tour's title sponsor, Amgen, is a major producer of the drug EPO (erythropoietin) which is also the blood booster of choice for those trying to get an edge in cycling. I'm siding w/ Amgen in that their sponsorship is in effort to bring light onto EPO's true medical use for anemic patients. Funny enough, if you dig through their website, you'll find that they also produce Aranesp which has been implicated in the doping scandal involving Johan Museeuw. I'll leave that one alone. That's sorta like when you start to figure out that Santa isn't real...

Photos courtesy of AbbiOrca by way of CyclingNews. Check 'em out!