May 25 2010
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2010 Tour of California Wrap Up
With a new date on the race calendar as well as a harder route, the Amgen Tour of California promised to be the most competitive in years.
The fastest man in the final 200 meters, HTC-Columbia’s Mark Cavendish opened up this eight-stage race by taking the stage win and the race leader’s jersey in stage 1 – Nevada City to Sacramento. With a perfect leadout by his teammates, the rider known affectionately as the Manx Missile rocketed to a convincing stage win.
“If I’m delivered to the right place then I will cross the line first,” said a confident Cavendish. “The most satisfying thing about winning is knowing I can deliver to my teammates who did the hard work.”
Stage 2, Davis to Santa Rosa, was contested under intermittent rain and cold temperatures that tested the resolve of all the riders. Domestic squad Team Type 1 showed that their invitation to the Amgen Tour of California was warranted by the aggressive riding of Thomas Rabou. The Dutchman won all four of the King of the Mountain classification sprints on offer during this stage and as a result was awarded the red leader’s jersey of best climber. An even more poignant achievement, Robou won the Amgen’s Breaking Away from Cancer Most Courageous Rider award. His mother is battling cancer and he spoke about what the jersey would mean to her.
“I think she will be proud of me today, and I dedicate this jersey to her, of course, and I think it will help her to fight even harder to get rid of this disease.”
The fastest man in the final 200 meters, HTC-Columbia’s Mark Cavendish opened up this eight-stage race by taking the stage win and the race leader’s jersey in stage 1 – Nevada City to Sacramento. With a perfect leadout by his teammates, the rider known affectionately as the Manx Missile rocketed to a convincing stage win.
“If I’m delivered to the right place then I will cross the line first,” said a confident Cavendish. “The most satisfying thing about winning is knowing I can deliver to my teammates who did the hard work.”
Stage 2, Davis to Santa Rosa, was contested under intermittent rain and cold temperatures that tested the resolve of all the riders. Domestic squad Team Type 1 showed that their invitation to the Amgen Tour of California was warranted by the aggressive riding of Thomas Rabou. The Dutchman won all four of the King of the Mountain classification sprints on offer during this stage and as a result was awarded the red leader’s jersey of best climber. An even more poignant achievement, Robou won the Amgen’s Breaking Away from Cancer Most Courageous Rider award. His mother is battling cancer and he spoke about what the jersey would mean to her.
“I think she will be proud of me today, and I dedicate this jersey to her, of course, and I think it will help her to fight even harder to get rid of this disease.”
Stage 3, San Francisco to Santa Cruz, was going to shake up the general classification and determine who was serious about the overall classification. As expected the climb of Bonny Doon was the deciding factor of the day. After battling back from several attacks David Zabriskie (Garmin-Transitions), Michael Rogers (HTC-Columbia) and Levi Leipheimer (RadioShack) broke free on this famous climb. With the current national time trial champion doing the bulk of the work the threesome managed to elude capture by the hard chasing peloton by 17 seconds and the pay-off for his hard work was a stage win as well as the leader’s jersey.
“I’ve been the runner up at the Tour of California a couple of times, but I’ve never won a stage and never touched the leader’s jersey in the time the race has been going on. To touch the jersey is quite an honor,” said Zabriskie.
With just a handful of seconds separating the top three on general classification Rogers commented, “The race is far from over."
Status quo was retained during Stage 4. The one major climb of the day – Sierra Road, started just five miles into the 121 mile stage, giving the riders who had become unhitched ample opportunity to chase back to the group. Super-sprinter Mark Cavendish retained his green points jersey and Garmin-Transitions rider David Zabriskie continued to enjoy race leadership.
With just a handful of seconds separating all the favorites the time bonuses on the finish line were important. This was never more evident during stage 5 – Visalia to Bakersfield. Once again Rogers finished second in the charge for the line. However, when the time bonuses were calculated, he overtook Zabriskie for the race lead.
“It was another beautiful stage, everyone rode an aggressive race. Our team rode great all day,” Zabriskie told the assembled press. “We did everything we could to retain the jersey, hats off to Michael Rogers for his time bonuses and for capturing the yellow.”
“I’ve been the runner up at the Tour of California a couple of times, but I’ve never won a stage and never touched the leader’s jersey in the time the race has been going on. To touch the jersey is quite an honor,” said Zabriskie.
With just a handful of seconds separating the top three on general classification Rogers commented, “The race is far from over."
Status quo was retained during Stage 4. The one major climb of the day – Sierra Road, started just five miles into the 121 mile stage, giving the riders who had become unhitched ample opportunity to chase back to the group. Super-sprinter Mark Cavendish retained his green points jersey and Garmin-Transitions rider David Zabriskie continued to enjoy race leadership.
With just a handful of seconds separating all the favorites the time bonuses on the finish line were important. This was never more evident during stage 5 – Visalia to Bakersfield. Once again Rogers finished second in the charge for the line. However, when the time bonuses were calculated, he overtook Zabriskie for the race lead.
“It was another beautiful stage, everyone rode an aggressive race. Our team rode great all day,” Zabriskie told the assembled press. “We did everything we could to retain the jersey, hats off to Michael Rogers for his time bonuses and for capturing the yellow.”
Stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California, with 12,000 feet of climbing, was the Queen Stage of the race. With the goal of taking back the King of the Mountain’s jersey, Team Type 1’s Thomas Rabou broke away with seven other riders and won six of the seven available mountain classification sprints. When the Dutchman crossed the finish line in Big Bear his point lead in the competition was large enough to assure ownership of the red jersey for the remainder of the race.
Michael Rogers continued to hold onto the yellow leader’s jersey.
Los Angeles was the next stop of the Amgen Tour of California and Tony Martin of HTC-Columbia scorched the downtown streets. Hunched low over his machine, Martin posted the fastest split time at the halfway point with a scintillating time of 20 minutes and 52 seconds. With a final push to the line the German crossed the finish line with a time of 41 minutes and 41 seconds. Only David Zabriskie and Michael Rogers came close to pushing Martin off the top step of the podium .
“The course was almost flat and with just two little climbs, not too many corners. It was not too difficult,” said the stage winner. “I saw the route in the morning and I knew it would be a pretty good course for me.”
Amgen Tour of California leader Rogers retained his race lead by finishing in second place, just 22 seconds slower than Martin and five seconds faster than American time trial champion David Zabriskie. With only nine seconds time separating first and second on the general classification the following day’s race in Thousand Oaks was going to decide the overall winner.
The fifth edition of the Amgen Tour of California was turning into a nail biter right down to the final stage. Stage 8 was a 21-mile circuit ridden four times and included the famous Rock Store climb. The crowds on this challenging section of the course rivaled Tour de France mountain stages in both numbers and enthusiasm.
As expected an early break went up the road. However Garmin-Transitions caught the group with the fallout being riders shelled out the back and returning to their team buses.
King of the Mountain leader Rabou continued to pad his points lead in that competition by winning the second and third KOM classification sprints.
On the final lap all of the riders who were still a threat to Rogers’ lead remained in what was left of the peloton. Everyone knew that the attacks were going to occur on the Rock Store climb. Sure enough, Rogers, who was isolated, had to repel multiple attacks by both Zabriskie and Leipheimer. While the battle for race leadership was being fought on the slopes of the climb, almost forgotten was three riders who were still dangling off the front.
Canadian, Ryder Hesjedal, blasted out of the Rogers group and was followed by RadioShack’s Chris Horner. The two bridged up to the three lead riders and it became apparent that the stage winner was going to come from this group.
Back in the yellow leader’s group Rogers continued to defend his jersey like a champion and never allowed his RadioShack and Garmin-Transition rivals more than a few meters advantage. Even on the descent into Thousand Oaks the Australian was forced to counter body blow after body blow.
As expected an early break went up the road. However Garmin-Transitions caught the group with the fallout being riders shelled out the back and returning to their team buses.
King of the Mountain leader Rabou continued to pad his points lead in that competition by winning the second and third KOM classification sprints.
On the final lap all of the riders who were still a threat to Rogers’ lead remained in what was left of the peloton. Everyone knew that the attacks were going to occur on the Rock Store climb. Sure enough, Rogers, who was isolated, had to repel multiple attacks by both Zabriskie and Leipheimer. While the battle for race leadership was being fought on the slopes of the climb, almost forgotten was three riders who were still dangling off the front.
Canadian, Ryder Hesjedal, blasted out of the Rogers group and was followed by RadioShack’s Chris Horner. The two bridged up to the three lead riders and it became apparent that the stage winner was going to come from this group.
Back in the yellow leader’s group Rogers continued to defend his jersey like a champion and never allowed his RadioShack and Garmin-Transition rivals more than a few meters advantage. Even on the descent into Thousand Oaks the Australian was forced to counter body blow after body blow.
Up the road the five riders approached the finish line and Hesjedal, who just miles previously bridged up to the three riders, had a little bit more in the tank and out sprinted George Hincapie to the line.
Coming around the final turn to the finish line the main protagonists were still together as neither Zabriskie or Leipheimer were able to dislodge Rogers from his race leadership.
“This is a very big day for us,” said overall race winner Rogers. "With HTC-Columbia being an American Team based in California, this race is second only to the Tour de France in importance. I’m really happy that I could rely so much on my team this week. It’s amazing what a team can do together when they have the yellow jersey. They really stepped up to the occasion to win this race.”
In what was the hardest edition ever of the Amgen Tour of California, Shimano sponsored riders took four stage wins, the King of the Mountain (Thomas Rabou Team Type 1), the team classification with Garmin-Transitions as well as first and second on the final general classification.