POUR OF CALIFORNIA

I wanted to get a good picture of my new Flash-Point wheels but all of these other cyclists kept getting into the frame.

All week long I've been looking forward to taking my new wheels for their initial ride. I decided I would take them along my regular bike route down to Long Beach to see the final stage of the Tour of California. Unfortunately, I didn't quite get the ride I wanted: oh, the wheels were great and I'll talk about them in another post. The problem is that about 5 miles down the trail it started to pour rain. And of course, with the rain was all the wind from the storm. I wasn't really dressed for the weather and was a bit miserable for a while, but fortunately the rain lasted "only" for about 30 minutes and things cleared up by the time I got to the race.

This stage of the race was ten 7-mile out-and-back loops, which meant we got to see the riders about 20 times. I was surprised just how close we were to the bikers; we could literally feel the wind as the pack went by and at some points you could reach out and grab on to a racer if you were so inclined. (I was not so inclined.) It was a great race, very spectator-friendly, I'll be back next year.

So long as it doesn't rain.