Amgen Tour of California 2014

Yesterday morning we got up early to drive to Sacramento to watch the start of this:

It took place downtown in front of this:

Around the side were a lot of tents set up for vendors and various organizations, nice to pick up some interesting loot. Amgen had several tents, handing out freebies and promoting their "Breakaway from Cancer" campaign. You could even get your cholesterol levels tested. No, thank you. Once a year is enough for me.

There were a lot of support trucks, team trucks parked along the roads, all of which were, of course, blocked off.

A long line of motorcycles who follow the riders along the way, some for cameras, some with support personnel.

There was quite a bit of security in various forms and, while we were walking around there the first time, a young man sat on the curb in front of the mounted police with his hands handcuffed behind his back. Didn't think it was PC to ask what he'd done.

L, being much more interested and informed in what's what and who's who, got us to the Sky team bus and we got some lucky shots.

Joseph Lloyd Dombrowski, one of three US riders on the team.

And Sir Bradley Wiggins, or Wiggo, who graciously signed autographs before the race. L, being much taller than I am, got several good shots.

Bissell Development team.

BMC Racing.

Cannondale.

Warming up together, wonder if they'll be as friendly during the race.

Garmin Sharp.

Giant Chimano.

Kristijan Koren on Team Canondale.

Maciej Bodnar, also Canondale.

Omega Quickstep.

Team Sky warming up.

More friendly talk before the race.

After the start of the men's race, there was a women's circuit race and some of the women warmed up along with the men while some preferred to warm up by themselves.

Getting ready to close off the roads in preparation for the start of the race.

We didn't stay around for the finish, that would have required us to stay put for 5 or so hours. Could have gotten better photos and better video (not uploaded yet) because the riders circled around 3 times. For the start, only once and they were off to Auburn. The roads, however, stayed closed and the barriers stayed up and getting from where we were to watch back to the tents and then to the car was quite an adventure and we were just a little worn out. I would have loved to have seen the finish, but mid-afternoon would have been hot and it's a long, long drive back home.

Amgen Tour of California

I'm a big fan of the Tour de France. There's practically no chance that I'll ever get to see it in person, but living in California, I did have the opportunity to watch the Amgen Tour of California live today, the very last leg in Santa Rosa.
I took both iPhone and SLR camera along and, since the riders did two turns in downtown Santa Rosa, I shot pictures with the camera the first time and did a video with the camera the second time they rode by.
Here are the pictures, well quite a few of them (and many more didn't make it):

Tejay van Garderen, winner of the Tour

 As much as I love the camera on my iPhone, I know that there's no way I could have gotten anything near as good with that camera. For the first time in a long time I used automatic focus again and the sports setting and just clicked away. Just about all of the pictures turned out well, except for the ones at the end, the awards ceremony. I was too far back in the crowd to get decent shots, so there is just one of Tejay van Garderen (and not the one where we brought his newborn daughter on stage) who is the overall winner. No picture of Peter Sagan who won the sprint finish and apparently had a really good time on stage or any of the other individual winners.
And here is a link to the video:
Amgen Tour of California