Word on the web is that Palmdale, jewel of the Antelope Valley, birthplace of Afroman, the 25th fastest growing city in America*, has graciously stepped up and agreed to host the start of Stage 6 of the 2010 Amgen Tour of California! Woo Hooo!!! Awesome. Totally awesome. Palmdale. yippee... All snark aside, thanks Palmdale for doing us cycling fans a solid and taking one for the team. Pasadena can keep their Rose Parade and Rose Bowl, and all their old houses and architectural landmarks and other snooty old money nonsense. If you play your cards right, you get us next year too! Lucky you. FYI, we like beer and BBQ.

Oh, and check out the new stage map and profile (pdf alert). Now that is some extra chunky climby goodness right there. 12,000 feet of climbing over 135 plus miles.That is gonna hurt. If Afroman was here, I think he would put it a little something like this... "I was gonna climb a mountain, but then it got high, I was gonna ride up to the top, but then it got high, then it got high, then it got high, la la la la la la..."

(Hey Gav, put that cool "Welcome to California!"postcard picture in here someplace, will ya? Thanks)

*based on percentage change