Originally Posted by
smurfy
I agree. California is itself a huge nation-state and would be perfect for a grand tour, even replacing Le Tour
as the world's largest and most important bike race.
I really don't see much point in going 3,000mi across the whole USA. The logistics (road closures, media coverage, host towns being on the "same page", etc.) would be just too difficult and not really worth it. It would be easier to have it confined in the State of California and the participants still would have plenty of room to ride!
I believe to confine it all in one state would be wrong. After all it is to be the Tour of America not the Tour of California. However, it does seem unnecessary to take the tour coast to coast in Race Across America style.
Perhaps a better approach would be to divide the race into three or four regions with a rest/travel day in between those larger regions. Then you could set up the races so there were no more than 2-4 hours travel time between the regular stages.
Here's also another idea: Each team is divided into two groups. When one group races the other group travels. This gives the riders a day off between each race to recover and would allow more stages to be raced. Perhaps one group is an off road racing group and the other the road racers. There are two individual GC winners, one for each group. But only one team GC winner.