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Swedish champ Emilia Fahlin wins a wet Amgen women’s criterium in Santa Rosa
Twenty-year-old Swedish national champion Emilia Fahlin (Team Columbia - High Road) received the perfect lead-out from veteran teammate, Kim Anderson, as she took the sprint win from a 13-woman break in the Amgen Tour of California’s Women’s Criterium in downtown Santa Rosa on Sunday. This put her two steps higher than she was on the podium at least year’s inaugural race just ahead of second placed Lauren Tamayo (Team Tibco) and Rachel Lloyd (Proman).
Saxo Bank team officials say Cancellara was sick even before his prologue win
Although he woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, Saxo Bank’s race leader Fabian Cancellara hoped to honor his Amgen Tour of California yellow jersey Sunday by pushing through his illness.
AToC Tech: Rock Racing has a new bike (and a new race leader)
From the beginning of this Amgen Tour of California, questions have surrounded Rock Racing. Up until a couple of weeks ago, one of the questions was simply, “What will they ride?” The answer arrived with an announcement that Kestrel would provide RT900 frames and forks, and Shimano would provide wheels and components. However, a visit to the team trailer to check out the new bikes invited only more mystery.
Rock Racing’s Francisco Mancebo wins after a long soggy day
Rock Racing's Francisco Mancebo won stage 1 of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California, a 107.6-mile stage held in brutal weather that not only affected racers, but the race itself. A long, Hail Mary solo effort earned Mancebo the stage and the leader’s jersey, and put Astana and the rest of the teams on the defensive, with a shattered field coming into the drenched finishing circuits in Santa Rosa. At day’s end, the list of general classification contenders shortened drastically, to those among the 18 riders who finished 67 seconds behind Mancebo.
AToC Tech Gallery: Zack Vestal ponders whether the Tour of California teams brought the best bikes ever seen in the U.S.
If the roster for this year’s Tour of California is being hailed as possibly the best ever assembled on North American soil, can the same be said of the menagerie of bikes? Without a doubt, a few hours of wandering the pits before and during the prologue turned up some exotic and attractive machinery. Here are a few highlights from the prologue, the likes of which have probably never been seen before in Sacramento.
Basso's Cannondale Slice
Prologue Power: Larsson’s file.
Prologue Power: Larsson's file. Complete view at Training Peaks.
Live Report Archive: 2009 AToC prologue
- 02:22 PM: Good day and welcome
to VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the Prologue Time Trial of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California.
Today's route is a largely flat 3.9-kilometer (2.4-mile for our conversion-challenged readers) route on the streets of California's capital city, Sacramento.
Riders will be lining up to start soon, with the first rider - Rock Racing's Glen Chadwick - rolling out of the starting gate at 1:30 p.m. local time.
The usual suspects.
The one in the middle was especially eager for a bike upgrade. The dude on the left is an innocent bystander.
Columnist Patrick O’Grady is on the case of the missing Trek, along with a gazillion Twitter wags.
“Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.” —Inspector Renault, “Casablanca”
Season’s Prologue: saddles
Season's Prologue: Saddles this white can mean one thing — the beginning of the season. Colavita-Sutter Home mechanics were working feverishly to assemble road and time trial bikes ahead of the race.