Results tagged “tourofcalifornia”

As we noted yesterday, downtown Los Angeles and Thousand Oaks/Westlake Village/Agoura Hills will be hosts for the 2010 Amgen Tour of California (it will also include a stage from Pasadena to Big Bear Lake). Announced this morning, here is the full route and all of its 750-mile glory:

Although it has not been officially announced, LAist has learned that the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race will go through at least two Southern California cities next year during its new date in May. Downtown Los Angeles and the cities of Thousand Oaks (home to the sponsor, Amgen), Agoura Hills, Westlake will play host to the race's fifth year. The full route is expected to be announced tomorrow morning at a series of events throughout the state, but organizers are encouraging fans of the race to follow four Twitter accounts tomorrow morning to be up to date on the latest news.

              

The Tour of California's 750-mile route through the state took nine days and drew an estimated two million fans. And most appropriately a California native, Levi Leipheimer, won it for the third consecutive time in the tour's four-year history (Floyd Landis, also from California, won the first tour) with teammate Lance Armstrong making his first U.S. comeback and placing seventh overall.

           

Yesterday's 88-mile stage whipped from Santa Clarita through and over the San Grabriel Mountains in the Angeles National Forest to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Californian Levi Leipheimer kept his overall lead while teammate Lance Armstrong dropped down to 6th place.

Two-time defending champion of the Tour of California, Levi Leipheimer won Friday's 15-mile time trial from Solvang through the Santa Ynez Valley and back, helping inching him closer to a third victory. Now in a lead of 36 seconds, all eyes are on him.

       

Noon tomorrow is the beginning of the Tour of California's penultimate stage, which is the only portion of the race that goes through the Los Angeles region. And with Lance Armstrong making a comeback, expect large crowds.

     

For the second day in a row, 23-year-old Mark Cavendish of Britain won yesterday's stage, a 134-mile route from Visalia to Paso Robles, mostly on the San Joaquin Valley floor.

       

Overall, the Tour of California's fourth stage--115 miles from Merced to Clovis--was much better when it came to the weather yesterday (sunny and snow covered mountains!). But with three days of straight cold rain, organizers and bicyclists are considering changing the dates to later in the year.

Even though the majority of eyes are focused on Sunday's Oscars, this Saturday, the Writers Guild of America will be doling out their awards and a sampling of scuttlebutt with regards to TV leaders include "Mad Men", "30 Rock", "The Office", "The Wire", and "True Blood".

Stage 3 of the Tour of California between San Jose and Modesto tested riders endurance and will to take another onslaught of cold rain on their 101 mile journey. However, there's good news today: "The forecast for the Central Valley calls for mostly sunny skies, which will improve the riders' dispositions and the television broadcast," the Mercury News reports.

Today AMC launched the beginning of a series of webisodes for its excellent series, "Breaking Bad", in advance of its new season starting on March 8th.

              

The Tour of California exemplified the state's beauty yesterday, running 116 miles from Sausalito to Santa Cruz over the Golden Gate Bridge, along the ocean (close enough for waves to spray riders) and through redwood tree lined arteries. "This was certainly a great showcase for two iconic locations in the state of California," said Andrew Messick, president, AEG Sports, referring to the bridge and the finish line in Santa Cruz, both which are firsts for the race.

       

"Holy hell. That was terrible. Maybe one of the toughest days I've had on a bike, purely based on the conditions. I'm still freezing." That's Lance Armstrong on Twitter after yesterday's first rainy and cold stage of the Tour of California, a 107 mile, about 5 hour ride, from Davis to Santa Rosa in Sonoma County.

San Francisco based photographer Matt Cohen reports from yesterday's Tour of California with photos and explanations of what happened:

This weekend, the AMGEN Tour of California hit two Los Angeles area cities, Santa Clarita, yesterday, and Pasadena, today. Photographer Scott Groller was kind enough to share some photos from the finish line of Stage 6 in the Valencia neighborhood of Santa Clarita. The cyclists traveled 105.4 miles from Santa Barbara for a ride that lasted over four hours.

OK so the PBS examination of the Haditha massacre is going to be pretty heavy duty tonight, there's a couple options for lighter fare, and of course the season finale of Nip/Tuck will be the pornographic prime time finish.

The AMGEN Tour of California has returned and it started a couple days ago with a time trial in Palo Alto. The tour makes its way to Sacramento today and then starts heading south towards Los Angeles. The race concludes on Sunday, February 24th with Stage 7 which starts in Santa Clarita and finishes in Pasadena.

Now that the writers' strike is over and it's full-steam ahead with the Oscars, you can bet that just about every TV channel is going to dogpile on the gala event. Yeah, the Grammys went ahead without interference but the Grammys are nothing compared to the Oscars. E! and CNN already have several shows lined up (look for Oscar host, Jon Stewart, on Larry King this Wednesday night) ready to tackle the exciting topics of: what will be in the gift bags? Who is Prince going to have perform at his Oscar bash? Where do the stars detox before and after the Oscars? etc.