ATOC update day 4 & 5

Trying to hit  highlights - its late and our morning starts early tomorrow...

- Squaw Valley = super cute but super snow-y ... too slick for stage 2 start. Start time delayed, race shortened to cut out Donners Pass and start place moved to Nevada City.

- Plenty of time to walk the quaint little tourist attraction of a town. They were so excited to have us there (last year they were the start city for an ATOC stage).

- FINALLY started a stage - I was in the back of the caravan collecting the course signs and markers along the route. Holy fast-pace: if we lose the end of the caravan by taking too long to pull down signs, the road closure ends and we're stuck navigating through the crowds and/or regular road traffic.

- I have never received so much applause and approval for taking down signs. Seriously, I was cracking up the whole time.

- Hanging out with Bob Roll in the hotel laundry/business center. Very funny guy, even remembered meeting me and the girls in PA a few years back. Offered to give me his rider-list but remembered he left it in the car.

- Up super early today for our first full stage. Out with the early crew to put up course signs and markers. No applause or approval for this job.

- AMAZING scenery on this stage. I mentioned out loud that at times it was like driving into a post card. First time to CA; this wasn't what I pictured, it's even better!

- if you ever have the experience of riding through one of those inflatable arches, please thank those operating it. Its not as easy as it looks, kids.

- Met Phil and Paul and yes, have pictures. Phil didn't want to introduce me to Paul because he wanted a pic with me all by himself (he's a smooth one, that Phil)

- Because I was on the early crew, we had time for a late lunch and hot-out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls from Lollipop Cafe in Modesto. Worth getting up early for.

- Because I was on the early crew, we had time to watch the circuits downtown... those boys were flying! So sad that Jens got taken out. Super pumped to see Andy.

- Live streaming of the race on my cell rocks.

More tomorrow, complete with some pics. 

ATOC Day 2 & 3

Wow. What a couple of days. The time difference was phenomenal on Saturday, allowing me to sleep in until 11am (EST) to make our 8am (PST) meeting time. The weather was still good, but things were cooling down and there was a lot of chatter about that 4-letter "s" word (snow) but we decided that denial was our best option so we started prepping for the first stage.

From ATOC

We made our game plan over a good breakfast and quickly went down to this "beach" area to sort signs and start loading trucks for distribution on the course. The views were awesome but we didn't really take into account the wind - so we quickly relocated to a much less scenic but more efficient parking lot. Oh, the glamour of bike racing.

From ATOC

From ATOC

Finally, we drove the entire course, setting out course arrows, marking sprint and KOM lines and generally exploring the course. The view from Tahoe City:

From ATOC

There's a phenomenal coffee shop very near the sprint line so we all know I was a happy kid!

After an "all hands" meeting at 9pm (? that late the day before the first stage?) we made it a pretty early night with the start team's impending 5am wakeup call. Then came Stage 1.

Holy cluster. Thats the only way to put it. Here's the nutshell version: we woke up to this outside our hotel balcony:

From ATOC

The call was supposed to be made by 9am whether we'd go off as planned. We knew by 730 am that the start would be postponed until 1:15pm. The weather was a complete mess at the start so we were sure the mountain and descent would be treacherous. We start pulling course signs to adjust for the shortened course. Then we hear they're eliminating the neutral laps so we have to adjust signs again. With nothing else to do, we sit in the hotel lobby (with everyone else) and ... wait.

From ATOC

Finally we're in the caravan just waiting for the start. There's the National Anthem and the call ups. The snow and sun have been alternating for the past several hours and at this point the snow was winning. We see the moto's start to roll out, then I see some riders. Ok! Ready - we're gonna finally get this party started!

From ATOC

But the caravan didn't move. We start seeing riders pop out of the parking lot of the hotel and I briefly wondered who screwed up and missed the start of the race. Then the call came over race radio about how we were going to disperse the caravan, where the motos should meet, which roads would remain closed until things got back under control. The race was off.

Now we have to go retrieve all the signs that we put out (for reuse in the next stage). We're going up toward the KOM and the weather is deteriorating FAST. I had heard that the riders protested the start and if they did, I totally support the call. We were following a big group of moto-marshalls when about 12 of them wiped out on a snowy, icy part of the descent. It was lucky we were going to slow and could stop before running them over. Luckily no one was hurt but can you imagine how the cyclists would have fared up there.

From ATOC

We stopped and directed traffic around the mess while they picked up bikes, assessed bike and bodily damage and determined how they would make it down to the fire station to regroup and get rides to their respective hotels.

Several plows and an hour later the moto's actually got back on all of the operating bikes (there were a few broken rides) and more or less coasted down the hill to the fire station. That could have been a lot worse.

We made sure everyone was square and headed on our way. Just getting up to speed, we saw two cyclists on the side of the road that resembled popsicles. I had seen them pass during the moto debacle at least a half hour earlier so they must've been standing there freezing for what seemed like hours. We stopped to pick them up and I'm not sure I've ever seen such grateful cyclists. The ice and snow had frozen on their wheels, brakes etc ... they couldn't even spin the wheels. We gave them lunch and dropped them in Tahoe City, finally heading on our way to reunite with our crew.

What a show.

ATOC - Day 1

I have been fortunate enough to land a pretty sweet gig helping out with the routing and signs crew at the Amgen Tour of California.

I had absolutely no idea what I was going to be in for - all I knew was that I'd likely be in one of the follow cars and the crew essentially set up and tore down courses. I figured - why not? I've never been to CA and being behind the scenes of a pro-race could be really cool. So, here I am, typing this right now on my phone from a quaint little lodge in South Tahoe on the eve of the first stage.

The trip out went as expected. Spending 8hrs - a full workday- playing planes, trains and automobiles is enough to make anyone lose some personality. I did have a partner in crime to travel with, but he spent most of the plane ride(s) trying to sleep. The one moment of panic came after we were already in the air on the first flight. I knew our connection was in Denver but the pilot welcomed us to 'a non-stop to St. Louis'.  At that point there was nothing to be done but I wondered how the super-duper security at BWI could possibly let us get on the wrong flight. Eventually we asked the stewardess (that had as much personality as those bland, processed cookies she was handing out) who looked at us like we were crazy but assured us we were on the right flight.

As an aside, when did airlines start hawking Monster energy drinks?

An hour layover in Denver gave us enough time to grab lunch and off we went to Reno.  I walked out of the walkway into the airport and didn't go 10 ft before seeing the first set of slot machines.  Welcome to Nevada! We both had a couple of quarters and figured we'd drop one in. Hey, when in Rome, right? Then we realized these slot machines don't take coins - what is this world coming to!?!?

Fast forward to meeting up with the rest of our 8-man crew ... great bunch of people with a collective wicked sense of humor. This is going to be fun!

Pick up official clothing. Pick up credentials. Sign forms for driving rental vehicles (in our case, brand new F150s). Start loading the gazillion signs and posts etc we'd need.  Finally food was in order so we went to the hotel casino/restaurant ... I forget how lucky we are in our area that you can't smoke indoors ... by the time we were finished, it was 1230am local time - 330 my time and I was fading fast.

I can't figure out how to post pics via phone yet ... day 2 update tomorrow.