The Morning Briefing with The Chief Marshal

On almost every stage of the tour we had a morning briefing. I thought after the first couple of meetings that maybe you guys would be interested in what is talked about at these meetings. In this video clip we are discussing stage 2, the shorted course from Nevada City to Sacramento. Sorry about the shaky camera work but it's not what you see it's what you hear.

Take care and thanks for reading.

Stage 8... My final day as a traveling Marshal

Stage 8, Santa Clarita to Thousand Oaks. Stage 8 was a one drop day for us and we decided to drive the entire course to get to our post. We would be posted after the Balcom Canyon climb and just before the Norwegian Grade. Both climbs were rated category 4 due to how short they were.

My drop of the day was a large intersection with about 8 lanes coming from all directions. As the race approached I was having difficulty controlling all of the traffic. usually California Hwy Patrol comes in about 20 minutes before the race arrives and helps me shut down the road. Today was a little different. They didn't show up until maybe 10 minutes before. The CHP officer said to me that they didn't know how traffic was getting on course. I'll tell you how, any time I stopped traffic in one direction someone from another would try and sneak through. I'm no cop and these people weren't about to listen to me. Another issue I had was that the riders would be heading down hill towards my intersection. As they approached they were given the option of going left or right of the median into a left hand turn at the bottom of the hill. Since I was the only flagman at the bottom my job was made even more difficult. Do I flag the right or left line as they approach? What if they split and half take the right and half take the left? Luckily the chief marshal recognized that this was a problem. He went down the road and picked up another teammate who was then placed at the top of the hill/median. That marshal was abel to direct them towards the left and towards me. After all was said and done no one missed the turn!

After that I was picked up and we followed the peloton into Thousand Oaks. The course in Thousand Oaks was packed. We deviated from course and parked. At this time we were asked to assist in crowd control. I was placed on slight uphill near the finish. More specifically, as the peloton crossed the finish line they would take a quick right. It was just after that right that I was placed on a median. If you watched the coverage on Versus you could see me on the last lap of 5. I was wearing a blue shirt and red cap. I also had a camera obscuring my face. to the untrained eye you may have thought I wasn't doing my job. But if you listen closely to the broadcast I was blowing my whistle!

What a great week! being able to get behind the scene of the tour was great. I hope I can continue to do this because it was an excellent experience. Over the next couple of days I'll try and post a few more odds and ends.

Take care and thanks for reading.

The crowd waiting for Chris and Levi

Whole lot of Treks

HTC Highroad's caravan vehicle

Jonathan Vaughters excited to drive the teams new car!

Garmin-Cervelo's Carrera GTS

Actor Patrick Dempsey's Ride. It only costs $100,000 more than the Porsche!

The Break

The case

Peter Sagan - Green Jersey Winner

Christian Vande Velde

Bernhard Eisel happy his teammate one todays stage

Van and driver

The field as they past me during stage 8

Mount Baldy

The Tour of California's second mountain top finish this year. A few days ago I was sadly not able to make it to the top of the Sierra Road finish. So on stage 7 we learned that our 2 drops for the day would be the start in Claremont and then a sprint in the town of Glendora. I was once again disappointed to learn that we would not be up in the mountains at all for this stage. Luckily we made a deal for 2 people in my van to hop into one of the other team vans. Unfortunately they only had room for 2 people and a couple of my teammates were unable to come along. We needed to to decide which 2 it would be and my comment was I don't care who goes as long as one of them is me! One of them was me and we jumped into team 8's van and raced off down the road.

Now I have become used to the way our driver Lee has driven so far this tour. Lee drives fast enough to get us to our drops on time but not recklessly. Team 8 not so much! We had a limited amount of time to get up the mountain as to stay ahead of the peloton and make it up mount baldy. I'm not sure how fast we were going but we were definitely breaking some laws. Tires were squealing and bodies were flying. We would fly through intersections and everybody in the van would bounce up and hit the ceiling if your were not prepared. The ride to the top might have been to much for my motion sick teammate who jumped in the van with me. He wasn't looking so good when we got there, but he managed to hold it together.

A little about the climb - it is actually 2 climbs in one. You start of with the Glendora Mountain Road climb which is 6.6mi long with and average grade of about 5.4%. This is followed by about 14 miles of rolling to slightly uphill terrain. It is then topped of with 4.3 miles with an average grade of 9.8! for you and me that's about 25 miles of climbing!!

As we drove those last few miles the mountain was packed with crazies ready for a show. i wish I could have gotten more photos but when your sitting in a packed van it's next to impossible. we drove to just past the 1k. We all hopped out and began the hike to the top. I can tell you that the last section just before the switch back is insanely steep. I took a picture back down the road but it doesn't do it justice. I hiked up to about 200m to go before I was roped into marshaling all the crazy cycling fans at the top. Because of this I didn't get to take too many photos.

The trip down the mountain was just as crazy as going up. now we needed to contend with hundreds of cyclist as well as spectators trying to get off the mountain. I can see why some of my team didn't want to go to the top. Once were done in Glendora it was only 2:30pm. they got back to the hotel by 3pm. Since I went to the top I didn't get to the hotel until 6pm. But I was here to see the tour and on stage 7 I saw it.

Here are a couple of terrible photos and one video from stage 7.

A very steep section about 500m from finish

levi and Chris destroying the competition!

Mere Mortals! The Grupetto!

Take care and thanks for reading!

Solvang!

Today was the Individual Time Trial in Solvang. Solvang is a small Dutch community located in the Santa Ynez valley. It was a great day for racing with temps around 80 degrees. It was a long day for me since we needed to be on course for all of today's events. Which included an amateur and pro women's race along with the main event. My post was the back side of the opening climb as well as the top of the climb. I don't have too much to say but here are a few pictures from the day.






HTC bike set up


Emma Poole


George Hincapie


Peter Sagan


Linus Gerdeman


Rory Sutherland


Christian Vandevelde


Chris Horner


Christian coming through the Finish

Take care and thanks for reading.

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Schwag and more...

Stages 4 and 5 was a lot more of the same - hurry up and wait. Stage 4 started in Livermore. My team driver suggested to me that it was imperative that I get some schwag (free stuff) to hand out at our drops. So that morning I headed over to the Jelly Belly team bus in hopes of scoring bags and bags of beans! I was the first of our 8 teams to arrive at the Jelly Belly team bus. I quickly spoke to one of their directors about grabbing some schwag to hand out. He said it would be know problem but we needed to wait for the truck with all the cases of beans. The next thing I know 5 other teams are knocking looking for schwag as well. Originally he said no problem I'll get you 2 cases. But then theses girls who I guess know how to sweet talk an old man got 1 of my cases. Then mass confusion sets in with all the other schwag seekers. I hold my ground and walk away with a 1 gallon ziplock bag full of beans. I handed them out along the course to kids who were excited to see the race. Of course I may have saved a few for me!




Stage 4 ended on the Sierra road just outside San Jose. My last drop of the day was a right hand turn just 2 blocks from the base of the climb. The road leading up the mountain had been closed since the day before. I was only allowing authorized vehicles up until 2pm. At 2pm there just wasn't anymore room at the top! If you watched the coverage on Versus you may have seen me standing in the road waving the cyclist and cars through the turn with my orange flag. I watched a little bit of coverage on the news and saw that it was 10 deep at least at the top with spectators. All the crazies were out yesterday!

Today we started our day at 5am. My roommate got up an hour and fifteen minutes early due to the fact that our alarm clock in the room was wrong.(I had my own clock) He thought he was headed down to the lobby at 5:11am but in fact it was 3:45am. He walked all the way down before he realized it was so early! He came back to the room a few minutes later. And laid back down!

Eventually we got underway and it was a lumpy course through the Carmel Valley on the way to Paso Robles. Pretty straight forward stage, 2 drops and listen to the finish on race radio. The night ended with sushi in Paso and a crash of the VIP party afterwards. It was a good day in the sun!

Tomorrow is the TT in Solvang and It's going to be along day! We have a long transfer and the day starts early with amateurs, then the pro women's invite, followed by the men! Can't wait!

Here are a few random shots from the past couple of days.
















Thanks for reading and take care.

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The Cycling Nerd

The Internet and wifi is killing me! Last night in Sacramento we stayed in very nice Holiday Inn, but the Internet connection sucked. Today we are at a Clarion in Modesto and the Internet sucks! So I will type up this report and try to post it.

Yesterday was my first day actually doing what I came out here to do. My team had one drop that covered about 5 miles of the course since the race was shortened due to the snow we received in Tahoe. Again it was really disappointing that we did not get to cover the sierra mountains. The start was relocated to Nevada City and it was a madhouse! I was told that nearly ten thousand people turned out!

Our first and only drop of the day was in a tiny town just outside Beale Air Force base called Wheaton. Basically my job is really just crowed control. We try and keep everyone back from the road a safe distance. Obviously there is only so much you can do when the cycling crazies come out. But we try to do our best. Turns are little more fun because you need to direct everyone through the turn. Once the peloton and caravan come through your post you need to be looking for your van. They are usually just seconds behind. They come to screaming stop you hop in and your off to your next drop. This day however we were done so we made B line to the finish and watched Ben Swift take the sprint in Sacramento. It as a good day even if it was only one drop.

Today, we raced through the central valley to Modesto. The stage was rainy and windy. Our first drop was about 9 miles from the start. I had a small subdivision of people and cars that I needed to keep off the course. Most of the neighborhood came out to watch and they had lots of questions for me. The most exciting moment was when a women and her BMW got on course just down the road from me. We managed to get her off to the side of the road and flagged the peloton that a car was in the road. No harm no foul. Van came up and I jumped in for our next drop some 75 miles away. This drop was I'm the middle of nowhere as you can see from the photo below. This location was windy and cold! The cool part here was I needed to direct the Peloton away from a gravel median and towards the turn. They came right at me and as I waved my flag and blew my whistle they rode right past my left shoulder. I saw Hushovd, Hincapie, Horner, Schleck, Sagan and Zabriskie! The cycling nerd in me was very excited! I hopped in the van and hoped we could make it to the finish in time. However it didn't work out that way; and even though I know who won from the race radio you can bet I'll watch the replay tonight.

Tomorrow is sierra road! It a steep up hill finish just outside San Jose. The captains are meeting right now, so in a few hours we will know which team gets the finish! please be me!!!

Here are a few photos I took over the last few days



Squaw Valley - Home of the 1960 Olympics



Big BMC Truck - I saw Eric Heiden at dinner the other night, he's the reason I'm a cycling nerd. I first saw Eric when he came to Appleton with team 7-Eleven and I've been hooked ever since!



My location just outside Modesto and in the middle of nowhere!

Take care and thanks for reading.

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Delays, Delays, Delays

Sadly as you may know stage one of the tour has been canceled. After delaying the start until 1:15pm the snow wasn't going to go away. Prior to the cancellation we were told it was a go. So all 8 marshal teams headed out on course. As I said yesterday we would be in Tahoe City. I was to be placed on a corner were 2 highways came together. As we drove up hwy 89 we drove up past the first KOM and there were a lot of spectators on the course. For them it was a long day of waiting since they had delayed the start from 10:30am. It was exciting to see all the fans. A few miles down the road we finally made it our snowy little part of the course. We pulled over had a little lunch and listen to race radio for the start. That's when we heard "1 minute to start". A few minutes passed and then we heard " race is cancelled, rider protest". It was a big let down for everyone. I personally have been looking forward to this for a while. But safety for the riders is paramount. That is why myself a 80 other people are here.

As I write this the snow is still falling. I am now at squaw valley and enjoying the free wifi. Tomorrow doesn't look any better from my point of view. It should be a lot of hurry up and wait. Lets keep our fingers crossed that mother nature will look down on us favorably.

One note about last night, some stats that we were told during the meeting.

1000 people in the entourage
200 cars in the caravan
70 hotels used through out the tour
270 turns and chances to go off course



View from the marshal van



This stage and the pictures Versus would have gotten would have made for an awesome race! Too bad it didn't happen.

Thanks for reading and take care.

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Marshal Meeting

Just finished up with our marshals meeting. Chief marshal gave us lots of good information and basically told us to be safe!






We got our uniforms and were assigned to teams. I'm on team number 7. If tomorrow's race goes off I'll be placed on course in Tahoe City. So let's hope that it's a go for stage 1!







Here's my blurry shot of Ted King and Liquigas! I'm such a dork!

Now I'm off to the last meeting of the night that will include all of the staff for the tour.

Thanks again for reading.
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Planes, Trains and Buses!

Well my day started at 5am and it include all of the above. The problems didn't start until I tried to check in at my hotel. Since I signed up late to be a marshal the hotel didn't have my info. 3 phone calls later they had me assigned to a room. So off I go to my room to only find out that some people had done some switching on their own. So I went along with the plans and made the switch with them to a new room up on the 7th floor. However this room had not been made up. The sheets and comforter were laying on the floor. Back down to lobby and to the women who had helped the first time. I told her the story and she apologized, I said that sounds like free Internet! She replied with "I'm sorry that's still $11". But on the bright side she did find me a clean room!

Next on my agenda was to get my race credentials. The race headquarters are located across the street. Sadly they also didn't have a record of me either. But she seemed to believe my story and issued them to me anyway. The best part is after all that I get to the desk where the per diem is handed out and guess what, I'm on that list!

Since access to wifi is $11 I searched out some free internets. I found them at Baja Fresh! I'm enjoying a burrito and typing out this post.

So in the end after 12 hours of travel, I made it! Tomorrow is meeting day so I should have more info on what I'm actually doing here!

Take care and thanks for reading.







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More details

Just wanted to share some more details of my upcoming trip to the Tour of California.

Starting May 13th I will travel to Reno, NV. From there I catch a shuttle to South Lake Tahoe where the first stage of the tour will start. That first day I will just be getting my hotel assignments for the entire tour and I will also get my official tour uniform. I'll show some pix of the shirt and hat once I get them. From the last email I received with information on lake Tahoe hotels we will be taking up 6 hotels in S. Tahoe. The logistics behind a race of this magnitude are mind boggling. I can only guess at what it's like at the Tour de France. Saturday will be a day filled with some downtime and meetings. I will have a specific marshal meeting along with a 600 strong team meeting. But from the 30 page manual it looks as though they have meetings all day. If all goes well we will be ready to go for stage 1 on Sunday May 15th. Remember that Versus will be televising the tour live, so who knows you might just see me on TV. For the complete schedule go to

http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/docroot/media/2011/ATOC-Detailed-Map-2011.pdf?06


And stay tuned for more updates from The Tour of California.

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The Marshal Plan

Hello and welcome to the The Traveling Marshal Blog. With this blog I am going to try and share my experience as a traveling course marshal with the Tour of California. I will be posting daily photos and insights into the tour. Please follow me May 13th through the 23rd as I travel 800 miles across California with the 1000 strong entourage.