Tour of California in Clovis

The Tour of California is only a few days away starting on Sunday Feb. 15th in Sacramento, and will be rolling into Clovis next week on the 18th.







The TOC is perhaps the largest and most succesful road race in the United States and brings in some of the most succesful riders in the world. The race takes place Feb 14-22 and covers around 750 miles while going through 16 host cities.




The race this year will have an exceptional group of riders including; Lance Armstrong (Astana), Levi Leipheimer (Astana), Tyler Hamilton (Rock Racing), Floyd Landis (OUCH), Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell), Scott Nydam (Team BMC) plus many others.








Stage Four on the 18th is the Modesto- Clovis stage. Starting at Modesto's
City Hall near the intersection of N St. and 18th St. and finishing in Old Town Clovis near the intersection of Bullard Ave. and Pollasky Ave. You can see a map of the stage here: http://www.tourofcalifornia-clovis.com/docs/localMap.pdf.



The racers will be entering Fresno from the north at Friant and Willow Ave. They will be heading down Willow Ave until Copper Ave where they will head east. They go east on Copper Ave until Villa Ave and they turn south. From Villa Ave. they turn east on Shepherd Ave, and then south on Clovis Ave, where they will be racing right next to my house. They take Clovis Ave all the way into Old Town. Here is a map of the Clovis Finishing Stage: http://www.tourofcalifornia-clovis.com/docs/clovisFinishMap.pdf.

The race should be a lot of fun, Old Town is planning on having some events that day taking place along Woodward and Pollasky. If you're unable to make it to the finish line try to catch it on t.v.

The race will be broadcast live starting on February 7 with the Preview Show at 2PM PSTon the Versus Network (Comcast – Channel 38,DIRECTV – Channel 603, DISH - Channel 151). With races being as follows;
Saturday, Feb. 14 - Sacramento2PM PST (1 hour Preview, 1 hour Live)
Sunday, Feb. 15 - Davis to Santa Rosa3PM PST (Live)
Monday, Feb. 16 - Sausalito to Santa Cruz9:30AM PST (Live)8PM PST (Recap)
Tuesday, Feb. 17 - San Jose to Modesto2PM PST (Live)8PM PST (Recap)
Wednesday, Feb. 18 - Merced to Clovis1PM PST (Live)8PM PST (Recap)
Thursday, Feb. 19 - Visalia to Paso Robles1PM PST (Live)8PM PST (Recap)
Friday, Feb. 20 - Solvang1PM PST (Live)8PM PST (Recap)
Saturday, Feb. 21 - Santa Clarita to Pasadena2PM PST (Live)
Sunday, Feb. 22 - Rancho Bernardo to Escondido2PM PST (Live)

Other Sources of information;
http://www.tourofcalifornia-clovis.com/
http://bicycling.com/blogs/tourofcalifornia/
http://velonews.com/index.html
http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/

The city of Clovis has a page of locations to best view the race as it comes through town; http://www.tourofcalifornia-clovis.com/docs/viewingLocations.pdf

Lance Armstrong IN Clovis!

Well it is official, Lance will be coming to Clovis next February. He made his announcment after finishing the 22nd in the CrossVegas ride. He will be racing with team Astana which has a couple of his old teammates already riding for them.

Armstrong's comeback is to provide awareness to cancer, and raise money to help find a cure.

Go ahead and read the article from VeloNews here.

Lance Armstrong in Clovis?

Is Lance Armstrong coming to Clovis? Maybe reports the VeloNews, a cycling magazine. According to Velo, not only is Lance planning to race in the upcoming Tour de France, he'll be warming up by racing in a couple road races including the Tour of California. That's right the same Tour of California that has a stop-over in Clovis.

We've already heard how much of a boost the Tour of California has on it's host cities. Now just imagine if Lance actually competes in the race. This would bring quite a few more spectators into the city and would have quite a bit more press. It would be a nice little boost for our city.

Armstong, who turns 37 this month, is going to be racing again to raise awareness for cancer.

Read more about it in Vanity Fair, and the Fresno Bee.