You surly have heard of “The Tour de France.” We spent today watching “The Tour of California.” It just so happened that the company that our son, Glen, works for, IBM, has volunteered their parking and entrance area as the staging area for the third leg of a new race called The Tour of California. Many of the riders in this race are top contenders in the Tour de France and other top rated bicycle races around the world.

We are staying just down the road in San Martin so we hopped on Path, our trusty recumbent, tandem bicycle and went to watch the races. We got to the races a good hour early because Glen had heard the road would close then. It turned out that there was nothing to worry about. Pedestrians and bicyclists ruled the day on the roads all over the area. They were pretty quick to shoo you off the race lane, but everything else was open season. We leaned Path against a convenient traffic sign post and started poking around. When I looked back, Path was the center of attention. Check out the photo below.

This was an individual time trial day for “The Tour.” The riders started out at one minute intervals for over two hours. The route was a demanding, hilly, seventeen mile stretch of Uvas Road and Willow Spring Road around Chesbro reservoir in the hills behind San Jose and Morgan Hill. Now our friends, Henry and Judy Lahore should remember those names. We rode some of the same roads around the same reservoir in November of 2004 when we put together a sixteen mile loop around Uvas reservoir and Chesbro reservoir. There is one difference, the winner, Floyd Landis from Southern California, did this ride in 35 minutes and 58.91 seconds at an average speed of 46.7 kilometers per hour, (29.0 MPH.) We did our ride in 93 minutes riding time at an average speed of 16.6 kilometers per hour, (10.3 MPH.) (And we stopped often to rest up.)

It was a glorious day for bicycling. The temperature was in the pleasant 60 degree range, and a slight breeze sprang up in the afternoon as a tail wind for the ten mile ride home. Bicyclists were out by the hundreds. Many of them rode the same roads home with us. Most of them passed us, and one guy even popped out his cell-phone and used the camera to snap a photo of us as he passed.

I don’t think we will be taking up bicycle racing anytime soon, but it sure was fun watching top professional teams from the USA and several other countries riding exotic bicycles that were weighing in at just over seventeen pounds. Poor Path was packing at least five pounds of tools, air pump and spare tubes plus a back pack with spare coats, shoes and lunch for Glen and ourselves. Our bicycle probably weighs seventy pounds.

Some of the top teams had big coaches and semi truck trailers packed with supplies, spare bikes by the dozens and lots of help to keep them in perfect working order. The bicycles go through a technical inspection just before the riders are launched from a starting ramp. It must fit within the limits of a frame measuring jig and each is weighed. One poor rider was having some hang-up in the technical inspection and was late for his launch time slot. He scrambled up at the last possible second and dove down the ramp and spent the first ten feet of the race getting his shoes clicked into the pedals. All other riders were able to spend the last thirty seconds on their bicycles all clicked in and with a helper balancing the bicycle so he could blast out in full afterburner. There will be a selection of photos to help visualize some of this.

So until we visit again, keep on bikin’. Love from Gary and Judy.

P.S. Tomorrow these same riders will tackle California Highway 1 down the coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo. We recently drove up that same road, and we are very glad that we don’t have a ride like that to look forward to tomorrow. It is 130 miles over some rugged and treacherous roads. We might do a nice ten mile ride tomorrow on nice level bike lanes in Gilroy CA.