spare cycles

Stage 3 of the Tour of California is shaping up to be a gem. Here's the approximate route:

• Sausalito
• Golden Gate
• Highway 1 to Half Moon Bay
• Up Tunitas Creek to Skyline and La Honda Road
• Back to Highway 1 via Pescadero Road
• Bonny Doon Road climb
• Down Empire Grade Road to Santa Cruz

More details in the Merc (thanks AV list)

We've begged for it and now we have it: the 2009 Tour of California will finish atop Mt. Palomar.

Here's the route:

• Stage 1 (Feb 14): Sacramento
• Stage 2 (Feb 15): Davis - Santa Rosa
• Stage 3 (Feb 16): Sausalito - Santa Cruz
• Stage 4 (Feb 17): San Jose - Modesto
• Stage 5 (Feb 18): Merced - Clovis
• Stage 6 (Feb 19): Visalia - Paso Robles
• Stage 7 (Feb 20): Solvang
• Stage 8 (Feb 21): Santa Clarita
• Stage 9 (Feb 22): Rancho Bernardo - Escondido

The big standouts:

• 1 more stage, no more prologue
• The race finally makes it to San Diego (County) with a finish in Escondido.
• Sausalito - Santa Cruz! I'm excited to see the Cruzians get their stage finish, even if it means that Palo Alto lost the bid.
• No more Big Sur route (Monterrey - SLO), perhaps due to last year's death march. Sausalito - Santa Cruz will probably provide some Pacific Coast Highway scenery to compensate
• Most of the stage routes are brand new, though a couple (San Jose - Modesto, Davis - Santa Rosa) appear to be reversed routes from last year.
• Modesto-Clovis could have some good mountain climbs in it. It will be the first time the ToC hits the Sierras.

And here's the press release

I was worried that with difficult fund raising in 2008 that Palo Alto was hosting its first and last Tour of California stage, but there's good new lurking in the Palo Alto Weekly:

Palo Alto is vying to host a finish for a day-long stage of the 2009 race that would start north of San Francisco, drop down out of the Santa Cruz mountains and finish in downtown.

The Santa Cruz mountains were featured so well in the Bettini/Boonen Specialized commercials -- it's about time they get some ToC peloton action.

As cities work to put together their bids for the 2009 Tour of California race, word has gotten out that the 2009 route will add a new stage. Santa Rosa is busy raising funds to secure their continued role in the race.

I don't know if Palo Alto will be submitting a bid, but their trouble raising funds for the 2008 race makes me think no. One of the big problems for host cities are the 'protected categories' of sponsorship, i.e. categories that would compete with the big sponsors. Among those protected categories are software, Web portal, and biotechnology, which covers just about everything in Palo Alto except the Children's Theater.