The cycling tour of California, officially the Amgen Tour of California, will be rolling through the northern California wine country this weekend, February 15th, Sunday. This is the fourth annual event for this race, and the tour will cut through Sonoma County by going through the town of St. Helena in the Sonoma Valley, and then head over the mountains of the Mayacamas range and pass through Santa Rosa.
Possibly the most significant thrill for many will be this year’s addition of the biggest name in professional cycling, Lance Armstrong. The seven time Tour de France winner, along with his Team Astana, will be using the race as part of an ongoing training strategy toward returning to the Tour de France for another attempt at the title. But Lance isn’t the only team member on Team Astana with distinction; Alberto Contador has also won the Tour de France, Andreas Kloden came in second, twice, and Levi Leipheimer has finished the Tour de France in the top ten four times.
While you might believe that Lance will garner the greatest interest from the wine country crowd as it passes through Sonoma County and the Sonoma Valley towns and local wineries along the route, but don’t be surprised when Levi Leipheimer gets an equally raucous welcome, especially as the local boy passes through his hometown of Santa Rosa. Levi will definitely be a contender throughout the event, having won the Tour of California for the last two years.
Sonoma County is not exactly new to the world of cycling as the 7-Eleven team was based in Sonoma Valley with its training facility there and the team made good use of the surrounding undulating topography and lightly travelled back roads for their team training rides. The team harbored some of the best riders of the era and eventually morphed into Team Motorola which is where Lance Armstrong launched his climb to stardom.
