Some thoughts on the Amgen Tour...

Had to work this morning...4 hours (10:30-2:30).  Put my bike in the back of the truck...Parked about 1/2 mile away from the finish of this leg's race (Modesto, CA) and looked at all the booths (went at 9:00 and back at 3:00).  As a casual bicyclist it was pretty cool.  My heart skipped a beat when I got to lift some of the primo bikes...THEY WEIGHED SO LITTLE!!  Yeah, there were a lot of sales stuff...Radio Shack, cancer research, hospitals, local radio stations blaring.  Grabbed a few freebees and talked a bunch of bike stuff with the really knowledgable people. 
It was like a bike trade show...That's the part I enjoyed most about it.  Bought my first pair of bike pants...They feel like I'm wearing Depends...It will take awhile to get used to them.  They are baggy shorts...Don't have the tight buns to show off.  Another cool thing I found (both for biking and WLS people)...Freeze Dried Crunchies Natural Snacks.  Freeze dried fruit you can put in your pockets!!  Things like blueberries and strawberries.  I am sure they are not cheap...but once in awhile they could be real cool in the pockets in the middle of nowhere.  Another thing that stood out were the bicycle seats...both aerodynamic and designed for protection of the urinary areas.  Smart smart designs.
Saw the bikers go by (they were doing 2 laps around downtown)...Took some photos and rode my bike back to the truck and beat the crowd out of town.  It was a good day...

It's fun to watch the race.
They aren't going through my home town this year, but next year we get the race start.

It's pretty cool to see and feel the atomosphere.  I enjoy looking at the cool bikes too.  I posted a picture last year of one that was sub pounds.  It was also in the 10+k price range.  The regular version of the bike was 6k, and weighted 3 pounds more.  So they spent over $1000 per kilogram weight reduction.  It's the cannondale not the felt that weighed in under 10 pounds.  But there were no pedals so it would have been probably been just over 10 pounds
c

I was out on Sierra Road yesterday. I tried to ride up it but ended up walking a lot of it.