I hit the road at 6am in order to make it to Palmdale with some extra time before the Tour started at 9:30
I arrived with time to look around. As I pulled into town I rode along with one of the pro teams who were riding their bikes from their hotel to the start line. They were riding along them main drag in Palmdale, no bike lane, in a large group, thinking nothing of it. Once they got there they went to the team bus. I took pics of few of the buses.
Not surprisingly the Radio Shack bus was mobbed.
I saw several interviews as I walked around.
I staked out a pretty good place at the start line.
Levi and a few other notable riders line up.
And they are off!
Here is how fast these guys are. You will need to look at Google maps to get an idea of scale. I wanted to intercept these guys at Mount Emma Road and Angeles Forest Highway. I took a few minutes to walk back to my bike, stopped to get 2 gal of gas with no wait, stopped about 1 min to look at a map, made a wrong turn that cost me maybe 2 min, and by the time I got to the intercept point, they had just passed it so I missed them. Now the riders don't have to stop for lights, and I cannot take the same route the do so my route is longer and full of traffic and lights, but even so, these guys are flying. I started to rethink my strategy for leapfrogging them.
I paralleled the riders route. They took Angeles Crest Hwy and I took Big Pine road which was beautiful and a lot of fun. There were a lot of amateur cyclists along Big Pine, too. I tried to find road 4N12 that connected Angeles Crest and Big Pine according to Google. Yeah, I know Google is not that accurate with dirt roads. There were a lot of labeled state forest roads along the way, but no 4N12. The road that I think was 4N12 was gated. I did explore around the area and found myself on single track a few times. So I gave up on that intercept and continued to where Big Pine Hwy intersected Angeles Crest Hwy 2.
This turned out to be a popular spectating spot.
I parked at what I hoped was a good vantage point.
This announcer car came by. The announcer did not seem to be in the car, it was kind of strange. But the announcer was very professional and gave a good race update.
And finally the inevitable breakaway group showed up. George Hincapie was amongst them, and I am a big fan of Big George. Go George!
Then the main peloton. At this point the peloton was already starting to lose some of the sprinters and such and some of them came straggling in after.
I was going to be hard pressed to make to to Big Bear in time for the finish line. I chose to head back up Big Pine, get to Hwy 18 and work my way to the north entrance to Big Bear. This gave me the opportunity to take a short cut and make a real dual sport ride out of this.
Google showed Mescal Creek road as a shortcut. I found a local amongst the spectators who knew of the road. I don't think the locals call is Mescal road, but it was for real.
Back to Jackson Lake
And sure enough, there it is. The paved road was gated. Mescal Road was the dirt road.
There were a couple of recent rock slides that were cleared away enough for the road. Mescal Creek paralleled to road, probably fed by Jackson Lake.
This view let me know I was going the right direction. No, I don't have a GPS. Soon, but not yet. I just carried a bungle of Google printouts.
I had to negotiate a few of these.
The road descends to the desert basin below. There are a few homes along this road as well as local traffic, which included a Honda Civic. I don't think this saved me any time, but it was fun. I made my way to Big Bear knowing I was pressed for time, so no pictures until then.
I got to the finish line with only minutes to spare, so I did not get any good pics of the finish. For some reason, though, I found myself thinking about starting a school for women plumbers.
This is a fraction of the bikes, er bicycles, waiting at the finish line.
There was a big festival atmosphere with lots of sponsor booths set up.
The Nissan Leaf, electric car. Not a hybrid. All electric. After the Honda electric and the GM EV-1 it will be interesting to see how it goes. Maybe the technology, price and infrastructure are there by now.
Camera crews, interviews and cycling celebrities were amongst the mass of humanity.
That was basically it for the day, no more pics. I made my way out through the heavy traffic and back home.
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