ToC – Levi Makes His Move

Stage Three: Modesto – San José, 152.2 km 

The sun was shining on a warmer and drier peloton today as they set out from Modesto; likely a welcome change for the riders who spent hours in the cold rain yesterday.  

Today was the first day of the race when the GC board was expected to start to take shape and where the real contenders for the overall win would begin to come shining through.  The big climb on today’s course was an HC climb called Mt Hamilton.  Four smaller Category 4 climbs lead up to Mount Hamilton.  The other substantial climb today on today’s course was Sierra Road, a Category 1 climb near the end of the stage.  There was only one intermediate sprint today in the town of Patterson just before the hills.   

A flurry of attacks marked the first few kilometers as rider after rider from all different teams tried to get away but each was checked by the peloton. 

Finally, around the 15 km mark, a break away group including Paul Martens (Rabobank), Scott Nydam (BMC) and Cyril Lemoine (Credit Agricole) made it away and opened up a gap of almost a minute.  They went through the intermediate sprint with Martens in first and Lemoine in second. 

Steven Cozza (Slipstream) made a move shortly after the sprint and managed to get away from the pack and pull himself up to the break joining the trio of leaders who had built up a gap of just over 5 minutes.  Levi Leipheimer was keeping his Astana boys up at the front, pushing the pace, making sure that the gap didn’t grow too much.  This was an important day for Levi to make a move. 

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2008 Amgen Tour of California – Prologue

Prologue: Palo Alto – Stanford University, 3.4 km

It was a short, flat and wickedly fast route that lay before the riders as they lined up in the starting hut today under sunny skies in Southern California to kick off the third Amgen Tour of California.

Riders began in Palo Altoand flew through a 3.4 km (2.1 mile) flat route ending with a full 360 degree loop around the Stanford Oval on the StanfordUniversitycampus before heading into the finish line.

132 riders were out to race today – 45 of them from the US.  American Levi Leipheimer (Astana) won last year’s prologue and he was the heavy favorite to take the win today as well. However, today’s short, fast course was very reminiscent of the kind of course yo’d see at an individual pursuit event on the track and Team High Road just happens to have brought with them the current world pursuit champion, Bradley Wiggins, who is sitting out the Copenhagen track world cup to be here in California.

The first rider to start today was Iker Camao of Saunier Duval-Scott. Health Net’s John Murphy came out of the gate shortly afterwards and set the fastest time with 4’04 but he didn’t hold onto the lead for very long once Dave Zabriskie (Slipstream) hit the road and set the new time to beat of 3’59.58. The saddle on Zabriskie’s bike today was decked out with an American flag – a man happy to be riding at home.

But Zabriskie’s time turned out to not be enough when Swedish rider Gustav Larsson (CSC) shaved a few tenths of second off of his time hitting the line at 3.59.19.

An American favorite, Tom Danielson (Slipstream) has been struggling with some injury and illness, and was supposed to be in Europe racing this month but his team decided this would be a better race for him. He rode a time of 4’11. And his former Discovery teammate, Jason McCartney, now riding with Team CSC, clocked in at 4’10.52.

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