- Feb. 18, 2009
- Congrats to Tom & the Team—Here’s to an exciting & wet ToCA
Eric, Matt & I have been on the roads the last few days following the Amgen Tour of California.
On our end it’s been a busy week. We started the ToCA ball rolling with a TCB Presents event in the Clif Bar Theater on Wednesday the 11th.
The entire Garmin-Slipstream ToCA squad took the stage and over 250 guests had a chance to learn a little bit more about the guys they’d be cheering for on the roads of California. Of all the guys on stage, it’s funny that the one who said the least has left the biggest mark on the race so far for the Garmin-Slipstream squad. Tom Peterson let Dave Z speak for him on stage and Dave spun a completely reasonable & believable story about how Tom got his start in the sport of cycling. Then, later in the evening, Christian almost predicted Tom’s upcoming ToCA success when, in response to a question about preparing for the race, he said, “… or you can just be like Tom and carry a really big stick.”
Monday afternoon, on the beautiful roads leading into downtown Santa Cruz, Tom Peterson carried the biggest stick. I can clearly remember cheering for Tom down in SoCal during year-one of the ToCA when he won the Best Young Rider competition and stood on the stage trying to pop the cork out of a large bottle of champagne.
Over here at Team Clif Bar, we’re going to guess that Tom, who is still only 22, will end up getting pretty good at popping corks out of bottles from the tops of podiums in the years to come.
More details about Tom’s big win can be found on the team’s site.
In addition to enjoying watching Tom and the Garmin-Slipstream crew leave their mark on the race, we’ve also had the pleasure of following the BMC Racing team’s efforts during the first few stages of the ToCA. Jeff Louder spent nearly all of Stage 3 (from San Jose to Modesto) off the front in a break that ended up getting caught about 2K from the finish. Check out the day’s recap on the BMC site.
And just to keep things completely scattered and nuts, Eric and I committed to riding up the Sierra Road climb with Gary & the Capo bunch on Tuesday morning before Stage 3.
When I commit to riding up any significant climb in a rain storm you can bet I’m not thinking quite right. Probably just a case of bad judgment brought on by the overwhelming excitement that is the Tour of California. Fortunately, a writer from PezCyclingNews.com joined the mix, so I had some incentive to put on my best hill-climber facade as we tackled the grades of Sierra Road.
Read the Pez story here.
After a hefty climb like Sierra Road and our fair share of very wet & stormy miles, Eric & I savored every frothy sip of our recovery beverages.
And now, back to the Tour of CA…
- Posted by:
- Le Sensation American
- Category:
- Team Clif Bar
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