Amgen Tour of California, Stage 3

Well the Amgen Tour of California came to town on Tuesday. My oldest son and I went down to have a look at what was going on. I've been meaning to make it down to the race the last couple years when it passed through but have just never had the opportunity. I made sure to make time to get down to it this year (despite battling with the flu). And I'm really glad we got to go.

We made sure to get Downtown early, about 2 hours before the race was scheduled to make it in to town. This gave us an opportunity to find a good place to park and make it to the vedor booths before finding a good place at the barriers to watch the riders come by.

After we checked out the booths down the street from the Start/Finish line we made our way down to find a good spot to watch the action. We found a place about 100 meters from the Finish line where we could watch the final sprint, but we could also watch the big screen of the race footage as the riders got closer to town.

When the riders arrived, their first pass was pretty much a blur, the riders took up pretty much the entire width of the road, and flew on down past the Start/Finish. They completed 2 cicuits around Downtown Modesto, there were a couple of small crashes on the course but nothing that looked too bad. We were able to continue watching the race as it went on on the big screen behind us. When it was all said and done Ben Henderson from the Sky team dominated the Peloton beating Juan José Haedo (Saxo Bank) and Thor Hushovd (Garmin Cervelo) for the win.

Ben Henderson (Sky) dominated the peloton in a sprint aided by a fairly strong
tailwind. Henderson took the sprint from a little more than 300 meters out
and never relinquished.

Modesto is said to be one of the favorite stops for the Amgen Tour of California... A favorite for promoters and riders alike. This years stop didn't look like it dissappointed. The crowd control was great, the course was baricaded to Pro Tour standards. The crowd turn out was awesome... I'm glad my home town can play host to a stage of a truely top notch Pro Tour event and I hope it continues to do so in the future.

(There are more pictures of the event on my Facebook page.... The Prodigal Cyclist)