Amgen excitement!

we went downtown Monday afternoon to see the pelaton race finish. 100 miles of varied terrain from Sausalito to Bolinas onto Bodega and then into Santa Rosa over the coastal mountains. We took up a spot on a grassy knoll under cherry trees in front of Federal Bankruptcy court. We had a view of the pelaton coming down Sonoma Avenue, cornering the intersection with E Street and then up E. Very exciting. T-mobile owned the lead the first lap, but the second lap we could see something had happened because the pelaton was broken up with the breakaway group a full minute ahead the rest of the pack. Turns out a big crash. you can go see here....

so this morning they came by our neighborhood!

we went out early and dodged cars to write greetings to hometown boy Levi Leipheimer, and cutie George Hincapie who both ride for the Discovery Team. My son's school is also two blocks from the race, and all the second and third grade classes are walking up to Bennett Valley Road to see the race flash by.

here comes the breakaway group, Christophe Laurent for Credit Agricole, Omer Kem for Priority Health, David McCann for Colavita.




It is really hard to get a good picture when the pack comes thru...I watched the riders and not my viewfinder, so i got some road rash pics


after they all passed...we heard sirens from an ambulance and one of the helicopters kept hanging on....it turns out one block down, my neighbor, who is a professional photographer had been paying more attention to her camera to where she was standing on the road, and she got knocked over by a Priority Health rider. The news is she is fine, but will probably be on the evening news. oh my. I see from the live cam action that same rider was involved in a crash coming down the trinity grade . I guess it is not his day.

I can see I am not going to get anything done today..thanks to the live cam. But how exciting!