CYCLING: TOUR DE `LEFT COAST' LOCAL ENTHUSIASTS EXCITED ABOUT CYCLING TOUR.Byline: Gideon Rubin Staff Writer The first-ever major Tour de France-style stage race to be held on the West Coast opens today when the Amgen Tour of California The Amgen Tour of California is a professional cycling stage race on the UCI America Tour and USA Cycling Professional Tour that made its debut on February 19, 2006. Sponsored by the biotechnology company Amgen, the eight-day race covers between 650-700 miles (1,045 - 1,126 km). starts in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . The eight-day seven-stage, 600-mile race features 128 cyclists, including three top 10 finishers from last year's 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 . Sixteen elite teams, including Discovery, for which 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. competed, will participate in the tour, which will raise funds for cancer treatment and awareness. Area cyclist enthusiasts will have a chance to see some of the world's top competitors Saturday, when Stage 6 concludes at Amgen's corporate headquarters in Thousand Oaks Thousand Oaks, residential city (1990 pop. 104,352), Ventura co., S Calif., in a farm area; inc. 1964. Avocados, citrus, vegetables, strawberries, and nursery products are grown. . The tour concludes Feb. 26 with a circuit race in Redondo Beach. The tour features drastically varied topography. Stage 1 covers the valleys of Northern California's Sonoma County wine country. Riders will experience what many consider the world's most spectacular stretches of coastal road as they race along a grueling 130-mile stretch of Highway 1 between Monterey and San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo (săn l  `ĭs ōbĭs`pō), city (1990 pop. 41,958), seat of San Luis Obispo co., S Calif., near San Luis Obispo Bay; inc. 1856. .
Santa Rosa resident Levi Leipheimer, who competed in last year's Tour de France and is considered among the favorites to win the Tour of California, told the Associated Press the racing conditions are comparable to the Tour De France. ``It's a long stage race, there are climbs and wind and time trials. But, obviously, we don't quite have the severe levels of the Tour de France. But it is a mini-Tour de France in our back yard.'' Gideon Rubin, (818) 713-3607 gideon.rubin(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): map Map: AMGEN Tour of California |
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