The Pasadena Southwest Passage

After finding out yesterday and today, that two of the three Grand Tours are excluding Team Astana, the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, I was more than a little pissed. In fact, ASO, which owns the Tour de France and several other French races, has excluded Astana from all of its races. This makes it impossible for Alberto Contador, the Tour de France winner, to defend not only his Grand Tour title, but also his Paris-Nice title from last year. Unsurprisingly, the Spanish organizers of the Vuelta a España have welcomed their young Spanish cycling superstar, so no problems there. It seems to me that the Tours' response to the doping violations of Astana last year, especially those of suspended blood dopers Vinokourov and Kaschechkin, are more of a way to make sure another team led by Johan Bruyneel doesn't win again. Bah, whatever, at least the Amgen Tour of California doesn't care about witch hunt tactics like this. Of course, last year's winner is a native Santa Rosa boy, Levi Leipheimer, so I'm putting Astana's inclusion on the race roster in the same batch of motivations with the Spaniards asking Contador to come to the Vuelta.

Speaking of the Amgen Tour of California, it starts this Sunday in Palo Alto, and will make its way down to the finish in Pasadena. And what a finish in Pasadena: 6 circuits around the Rose Bowl! Now, I pretty much do this ride everyday, so I was excited to see what the actual route would be. After finding the route slip, I plugged in the circuit into Google maps, and well, just take a look.

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At point A is where the race dips down into the bowl, racing down Salvia Cañon, and then begins the 4.5 mile circuit, 6 laps totalling 27 miles. I did this circuit twice this morning, and it is not easy, especially with all the climbing on the southern end. I was also pretty worried about the hairpin turn down at the bottom. Take a closer look at that hairy left turn uphill.

In traffic, dealing with cars, that was pretty bad. On race day, it will be much better, since all the traffic will be closed off. But on any other day, there's an uphill left turn onto Holly to cross the bridge over the Arroyo, with a left turn signal, no less. You cross the bridge, and then you have a steep straight climb, before you have to cross a wide street to make that left turn onto Grand. Thankfully, it's downhill after that. Oh, you see that pretty sharp right turn at Point B? I took a picture!

Yeah, the riders better not take that turn too fast, or pow! Right into the fence! If you look hard enough, you can see the Aquatic Center's pools and the Rose Bowl itself in the distance. The last worrisome turn is at Point C, with a hard left onto Rosemont. There it is!

Now, Rosemont is fun going down it. It's pretty much a railgun that launches you down into the bowl. But on this circuit, the climbing's not quite done yet. The route sends the riders up a short, steep incline before another short, steep descent into a left turn up at the north end. That bit of incline is at Point D, and unfortunately, Point D has looked like this since November:

You see those orange barriers? The cyclists have to go right through those things, according to the planned route. With little more than a week to go, the construction better be complete. Actually, the work does look very close to done, so maybe they will be ready. Then the riders take a couple more left turns, and then they do that route 5 more times. The finish line is somewhere on West Drive, south of the Salvia turn, so I'm going to guess it's at the intersection of West and Seco. That parking lot, Lot K to the locals, has plenty of room for booths, stages, and parking for the team buses.

The last stage of the Tour of California begins in Santa Clarita, and joins Angeles Crest Highway for the descent into La Cañada. It's just so fun to know that the roads through La Cañada and Pasadena are pretty much the roads I see on my bike everyday. Cool stuff.