Thursday, May 17, 2012

And just like that...


Photo from official Amgen Tour of California website


Dave Zabriskie is now the overall leader in the Amgen Tour of California.

Just as our circumstances in life can turn on a dime--we forget to clean the lint filter in the dryer a time or two and next thing you know, the house is on fire... or on a whim we pick up a single lotto ticket and the next thing you know, we're picking out a new Tesla Roadster--so go these stage races in cycling.  By tomorrow afternoon, people will have forgotten how much they talked about Peter Sagan in the past five days, and those fortunate enough to have gotten his autograph will be wishing they would have gotten Zabriskie's while there was still an opportunity to catch him away from the press.

Dave is a great cyclist with a lot of heart and courage, and I have enjoyed watching him battle it out in the Tour de France on quite a few occasions.  He'll be wearing the leader's jersey tomorrow... but Zabriskie is not the best mountain climber; time trialing is really his forte, as we saw today when he raced across the line with the fastest overall time.  I was hoping for more from Levi Leipheimer today, but it appears that he is indeed hampered by his still-knitting broken fibula, so I don't think we'll see him in the front of the pack on the climbs tomorrow and Saturday.  But who knows?  At this point, it's still anybody's race--though the pros will tell you that the spoils in this war will go to the man who is the best climber.

Tomorrow the guys will ride from Palmdale to Big Bear.  Good heavenly day--it's just one long, drawn out charge up a very steep hill, as it will be on Saturday when they come to Baldy.  Both days will offer some pretty dramatic scenarios.  Hang tough, DZ!

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