Moving the Tour of California

The news broke yesterday that the organizers of the Amgen Tour of California are moving the dates of the race. Since it's inception 4 years ago the ToC has been run in early February and grown, both in stages and popularity each year. The first two years the race got extremely lucky and saw nothing but sunshine and warm weather. These past two have been the exact opposite with most of the Northern California stages being cold, rainy and miserable.

The idea to move the race on the calender isn't in and of itself a bad idea. The chosen dates however are terrible! I don't know what the big picture goal is for the tour of California. I don't know if they want to create another three week grand tour down the road or if they want to keep the race somewhere in the 9 stage range which is it right now.

The dates this year of Feb. 14-22nd allowed the race to see the biggest names in cycling and teams sending grand tour caliber squads. The support of this race by teams was in direct relation with the fact that guys could come and get good hard racing in their legs before the classic season. Something they couldn't really get anywhere else in the world for this time of year. The new dates, May 16-23rd, just happen to clash with the Giro d'Italia which will be running its 100th edition starting this Saturday. What in the world are they thinking?

The ToC has been doing wonders for American bike racing by conveniently allowing our biggest names in the sport to race on US soil without having to bypass something more important else where. This year the fan turnout was insane. Trust me, I was at 6 stages including the top of a snow covered Palomar Mtn. on the last day and though it was freezing, the crowds were deafening as riders raced by. It's no secret that one of the biggest reasons for such a turn out was the return of Lance Armstrong, which, if we're honest with ourselves probably won't be the case next year even if the race was during the same week. However, there are still plenty of other great American bike racers besides Lance that will probably be skipping the ToC in order to get the grand tour miles of racing in their legs as simple preparation for the Tour de France.

Teams like Garmin-Slipstream who carry a roster full of American pros will definitely still be at the ToC next year, but don't expect to see the likes of Christian Vandevelde, Dave Zabriske, Danny Pate, Tom Danielson, Tyler Farrar or probably even Steven Cozza. Those guys will be in Italy because as much as I like the ToC, it's not the Giro and winning the overall at ToC is probably still less important in the grand scheme of cycling as winning the Team Time Trial or a single stage at the Giro.

And that's just the American riders that won't be showing up. Remember this year when Mark Cavendish and Tom Boonen were heads up for almost every sprint? You won't see that again because those guys will both be in Italy battling for stage wins and the points jersey. Remember when Thor Hushovd won that stage as a surprise? Even if he's not racing in the Giro (which he isn't this year) it's doubtful that Ceverlo would pay the money to send a full squad to the Giro (for Carlos Sastre to take a shot at the overall) and another full squad to California (for Thor to maybe win a sprint or two). Saxo Bank brought a full tour line up! Cancellara, the Schleck brothers, Jens Voight. I'm glad I got my one chance to see those guys this year. No shot their coming back.

So where should they have moved the race? They wanted nicer weather and they want to take the race into the high mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. Both great ideas in my opinion but moving the race is going to inevitably mean that it must compete with other races that are already on the calender, but it doesn't have to compete with a grand tour! Here's some alternatives that I think would have been a better choice.

June 6th-14th, The Criterium du Dauphine Libere. This is an eight stage race that takes place in France. Many, many Tour de France winners have used it as the last little bit of tune up before the tour starts just a month later. The biggest most popular aspect of the Dauphine is that it often goes over some of the same mountain passes as the Tour de France, specifically, it usually includes a mountain top finish on Mont Ventoux. This would certainly be tough to replicate but not impossible especially in the Sierras. And June isn't going to be any hotter really than May in the valley and when went over Donnar Pass in late May of 2008 on my move to California it was snowing, so I'm not sure they aren't gambling with those May dates anyway.

Don't like those? How about June 13th-21st when the Tour de Suisse is ran? Again, it's basically a tune up for some of the Tour de France contenders. Obviously the races overlap by a day so they are in direct competition with each other. I'm not sure that it'd be that tough of a sale for the Garmin guys specifically to stay stateside with their families in preparation for the Tour.

What about earlier? This might seem sort of mean, but, bike racing is still a business. The Tour of Georgia used to be a great race, however, notice the passed tense because it folded because it couldn't find a sponsor. In my opinion that leaves, late April open on the calender, specifically the 2008 version was ran from the 21st-27th. I don't know about snow fall that time of the year in the mountains and it might be too close to the Giro. However, the Tour of the Gila just wrapped up and a few big names showed up for that little show down in New Mexico. I had no idea that Georgia and the Gila were ran at the same time. The Gila sounds like a much better race in my opinion. Shows what sponsorship and marketing can do for a race. But that's another subject.

Clearly it'd be race suicide to try and compete with the Tour de France, especially if they're trying to grow the race to be included on the UCI calender in the future. And, with the Tour de France being such a main objective I feel like putting the ToC too close after the Tour would also produce a watered down field of tired guys obligated to show up. This would not be good for the race. It would also battle with the Tour of Utah which in the middle of August from the 18th-23rd. I sort of feel the same way about Utah as I do Georgia. If the ToC is going to compete, I think they should be going up against these races and not the Giro. But in general I really think August is a bad idea.

The Veulta starts in late August and runs into September and the UCI World Championships are in late September as well. I think competing with either of these is bad, but I think they should go up against the Vuelta before they do the Giro if they had to pick a grand tour to do battle with. Also, I'm not even sure this is a big deal, but the Tour of Missouri is running from Sept 7th-13th. It's in direct competition with the Vuelta, but big squads have already signed up to come. In my opinion the Vuelta doesn't get nearly enough respect, but you know, Missouri might be nice?

So, in true teamlandall fashion this much longer than intended and if you made this far you're probably my mother because only she could sit through that purely due to a sense of obligation. I think they should move it to the sometime in June. It'd be good race prep for the tour and allow the bigger teams to still send full squads to the Giro, ToC and Tour de France. Let's face it, there isn't room on the calender for another three week grand tour and going up against them to compete for teams just isn't really a good idea. But I think the Tour of California can offer plenty of good racing that it could easily compete with the Dauphine as well as the Tour de Suisse, especially for the American squads. If anybody at the race organization reads this on accident and you like my ideas, I'd be more than happy to come work for you guys. Inquire within.