The poor bastards at the Amgen Tour of California are facing weather that the Chamber of Commerce would be cheering — if this were a ski race.
Alas, it’s a bike race, and with cyclo-cross season behind us it’s looking like the lads will face a shortened course. No word whether they’ll be running the Emerald Bay KOM.
Here in Bibleburg, meanwhile, it’s rain with temps just above freezing. Good for the trees, but also bad for cycling, if you’re a sissified geezer like me, anyway. I’m almost jealous of Herself, who is off to my old hometown of Alamosa this morning, where temps should hit the 70s by afternoon. She and a colleague have some work to do with the local biblioteca and plan a visit to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.
Me, I’m sentenced to rumormongery without parole today, with both the Giro and the AToC going on. Oh, well — it beats shoveling snow. Or racing in it.
• Late update: As you know already, organizers pulled the plug on the Amgen kickoff after the weather got ridiculous. My friend, colleague and fellow Bibleburger Casey B. Gibson, who’s shooting the race for VeloNews, says six motos went down 20 minutes after the race was canceled, so it seems organizers made the right call. So the racers got a day off, but I didn’t. You’d be astounded how much crap there is to post about a race that never was.
Mad Blog Media 
And The Badger – not to mention Lars Boom – cried at the wussies in Tahoe today. “Snow? Hail? Thunder and lightning?! That’s nothing….” Methinks it was more the state of Nevada being pricks about plowing their ‘half’ of the course than anything else.
Of course, I’m not out riding today due to a cracked clavicle but that is a more sound excuse than “it’s too cold” if you are racing at Tahoe in May. Or more accurately: being paid to race at Tahoe!
Sorry hear about the busted collar bone there, James. I can only assume it’s cycling related, right? Got a good story to tell? Pave? High speed descent? Or was it more like something that I would do, involving an embarrassing incident that starts out by saying “Hey guys, watch me do my awsome trackstand demonstration!”
85 degree in GJ this afternoon, and I just got in from a “quick” 45 miles. I lucked out too, as the forecasted high winds waited till I was five miles from home before cutting loose. I can now lounge around the house the rest of the day guilt free.
John, it was a mountain bike race at the local MX course area. Whoops on a dualie are not the same when you have 4 inches of travel as opposed to a foot or more. Needless to say that another 5 weeks and I ‘should’ be ready to go again. The toughest part is not riding…..but then again with the weather we are having today – another thunder clap! – I am not too ungrateful to be lounging.
As for the pros in Tahoe……geez a little rain, snow and ice, what a bunch of spoiled, Euro-pro wannabes. At least Lars was willing to ride…..
Well Super Spaniard sure did his thing over in the Democratic States of Europe today, so you sorta had that going for you. At least Friday’s finish was fun to watch. If you haven’t seen it yet, seek and find.
Vacation starts in one, two, three….see you never.
One of the wise old men that I ride with suggests that they should move ToC to across from the Vuelta. At least California might have a better chance of having good weather at that time. I’m thinking tomorrow may be hail and frogs… maybe some locust too.
Or maybe they need to get The Weather Channel as a title sponsor. I can hear Jim Cantore in place of Phil now….
Me like your cliche puddle-tree shot. No, really I do.
I want it, in fact. Can I?