As the San Jose time trial gets underway, a few tidbits...
- Everyone (i.e. riders) has been tipping today as the day that will decide the race. It's a hilly 17-mile course not for the feint of heart. But given the relative strengths of the top riders, it's entirely possible that today will just winnow the field some more. My own $.02, having never seen the roads involved or ridden in a professional peloton, is that today's time trial has the best chance of deciding the race, followed by Friday's stage into Santa Barbara with its four-mile cat-1 climb near the finish.
- If you haven't noticed, the live coverage at the the ToC Website is an actual live video feed. Hope you're on good terms with your network administrator. The ToC folks apologized for slowness yesterday, suggesting things might be better today. They had some 50,000 people linked in.
- Today's stage starts at 11am local, with the ToC predicting it'll be over by 2pm. So look for the heads of state on the course around 1:00.
- Some people to watch: Obviously, the last five riders (Zabriskie, Landis, Julich, Leipheimer, Hincapie) are the favorites in the stage too. Paolo Savoldelli is lying over 3 minutes back, but if he wanted to test his form, this would be a great course for him. Saul Raisin is lying 19th, and could move up if he can safely navigate around his one-minute man, Nathan O'Neill. Sorry... actually, if the prologue (and his Aussie TT Champs jersey) were any indication, O'Neill himself is a rider to watch.
- Also, the ToC site is pointing to folks in search of race photos to the Getty Images collection.
- Shouldn't we be seeing Het Volk start lists today??