Armstrong to return to revamped Tour of California in 2010Seven-time Tour de France Tour de France World's most prestigious and difficult bicycle race. Staged for three weeks each July—usually in some 20 daylong stages—the Tour typically comprises 20 professional teams of nine riders each and covers some 3,600 km (2,235 miles) of flat and winner Lance Armstrong Lance Armstrong (born Lance Edward Gunderson on September 18, 1971) is a retired American professional road racing cyclist. He won the Tour de France—cycling's most prestigious race—seven consecutive times, from 1999 to 2005. will compete in the 2010 Tour of California, which will boast a new route and new dates to avoid the West Coast's wet winter weather. Sixteen host communities were announced on Thursday morning via an exchange on the Twitter A Web site and service that lets users send short text messages from their cellphones to a group of friends. Launched in 2006, Twitter (www.twitter.com) was designed for people to broadcast their current activities and thoughts. micro-blogging site that included California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Armstrong and three-time Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer. Leipheimer will be joining Armstrong in the newly formed Team RadioShack. The race will be held from May 16-23, so riders can expect balmy weather, a marked change from the wet, chilly conditions that prevailed for much of this year's race in February. For the first time the event will begin with a road stage, from Nevada City, California Nevada City is the county seat of Nevada County, California, USA, 166 miles (267 km) northeast of San Francisco. In 1900, 3,250 people lived in Nevada City, California; in 1910, 2,689 lived there. The population was 3,001 at the 2000 census. , to the state capital of Sacramento. It will pass through Davis, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Modesto, Visalia, Bakersfield, Pasadena, Big Bear Lake, Los Angeles and end in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks, home of title sponsor Amgen. Stage seven will be the individual time trial in downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or next to the Staples Center arena - home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. "For the 2010 Tour of California we had the unique opportunity to move our race to a part of the year when we are almost guaranteed great weather in California," said Andrew Messick, president of AEG AEG Aeger (Latin: Sick) AEG Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (Common Electricity Company) AEG Aircraft Evaluation Group AEG Association of Engineering Geologists AEG Air Expeditionary Group Sports. "This timing will help us to better showcase the beautiful features the state of California has to offer, while allowing us to travel to parts of the state that just weren't feasible in previous years." Organizers said the use of Twitter to announce the schedule was a first for an event of this stature. Twitter was much in evidence in the 2009 edition of the race, as Armstrong mobilized his army of followers on the networking site to be on the lookout for in search of; looking for. See also: Lookout his stolen time trial bike, which was eventually turned in to police in Sacramento. 
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