LansingWes

Jensies farewell tour. Looks like TourTracker is up for this one too. USA Pro Challenge Tour Tracker

busygizmo

Be nice if Jens pulls one off.

Hoping for exciting racing.

LansingWes

Great stage! I nearly cheered out loud when Jens went off the front. Just... why Phil and Paul.... ugh.

Leinster

I'd feel a bit embarrassed if I was a Cannondale rider this evening. Great win by the UHC kid, hope he can hang on to yellow for a while.

Giacomo 1 

Good grief, this tour never changes.

I'm tired of investing my time to watch frozen screens, double image, blurred images and then finally - nothing! The weather grounded all the planes and helicopters, thereby leaving the viewer with nothing. I mean, I get it, it's tough to televise a moving event like this, but it is like this every year. This has to be the absolute worst televised sporting event I've ever seen, yet it never gets better, it's always the same. The most minor European races get better feeds than NBC/SN gives us for this tour.

I'm ready for the Veulta...

Jakedatc

I wonder if Europe has less strict flight rules for the aircraft? They broadcast some pretty nasty races in the Giro etc that looked much worse than today.

on a racing note the UCI official should probably hide in his hotel because there are some pissed off guys who probably got screwed today. Great ride by Carpenter but those guys were coming hard. Looked like the conditions didn't even change from when they stopped to when they went again.

busygizmo

I haven't watched yet but supposedly there was an unpaved section that they thought would be problematic to descend in the rain.

Jakedatc

perhaps watch and then comment

busygizmo

So much for trying to be helpful. Was reading reports from riders and official after the race.

Jakedatc

if you had watched then you would have seen the issues and the reason for the rider posts and upset They neutralized it AFTER they had already bombed down the dirt section.. stopped them for about 5 minutes.. then let them go again in what looked like the same weather conditions.

Jakedatc

Should someone remind C-dale that they are in a race? they embarrassed themselves the other day riding all day for nothing.. and just didn't show up the last 2 days.

solid day for Tejay though. he was on a mission.

jyl

TVG dropped a flock of climbers there - nice. That was a good MTF for his motor.

hueyhoolihan

i watched the race... you were right. don't understand the criticism.

eofelis 

I just got home from Monarch Pass, Stage 3. Awesome day. Camped out with a few hundred other people on top of the pass. It rained all night.

I don't have any photographic evidence, and it seems the race coverage doesn't either, but I was 4km below the KOM on Kebler Pass on Tuesday on the steepest dirt road section we could find. (The KOM is on a pavement section. That's no fun.) It was raining too hard to take pictures of the riders, with thunder and lightning and hail. There were only a few of us fans in that remote section. We got to help out. A Optum car stopped and gave us some riders bags and told us to give them to an Optum car behind them. A Smartstop car did the same. A Cannondale rider passed his vest and jacket to my bf and asked him to give them to his teammates behind him. The rain was pouring down, the road was thick with mud. The riders looked miserable. My bf will be talking about this day for years.

I'll try to post some pictures later when I get a chance to sort through them.

thsker

That was Cam Wurf I'm assuming. He mentions it in his stage 2 diary on cyclingtips.

Cam Wurf?s USA Pro Challenge Diary: stage 2 | CyclingTips

eofelis 

Yes!! That was my bf. He'll be excited to see this!

eofelis 

I found this picture online. This is where we were. See that team car parked down the road? That was the Optum team car and we were standing behind it.

Giacomo 1 

Epic ride by Jensie!

700 meters short of the win. A shame he didn't get it, but he really solidified his reputation today as one of the gutsiest, tough-minded riders the peloton has ever seen.

Great sprint finish for Viviano.

And TJ stays in yellow...

Dan333SP

I wish they kept Taylor Phinney on the mic for the rest of the race, Christian VdV is really annoying me more and more each time he opens his mouth.

Giacomo 1 

I'm trying to stay with this tour, but today really was unbelievable.

Another awful "telecast", if one could call that a telecast. It was more like listening on radio, but even worse. The riders were quite literally never seen at all today, except on the finishing straight. Bad weather was once again to blame, but really, that is a lame excuse considering that all tours have bad weather, and they never get completely blacked-out. Even in good weather the coverage here can be quite sketchy. I just don't know what the problem is in this tour, but it happens every year, and it is quite unwatchable.

I appreciate NBC/SN and the coverage they have of cycling, but the sponsors, or whoever is in charge of the telecast need to get their acts together, or maybe it's time for NBC to consider dropping this tour and picking up another one.

gpsblake

Pick up the Tour of Utah. They don't seem to have these problems.

Giacomo 1 

Yeah, that's my point.

No other tour seems to have these problems, and if they do, it's never to the degree we saw in Colorado yesterday.

I felt bad for Phil and Paul as they tried their best to keep us tuned-in, but it was a lost cause as even they had only sketchy info on what was happening in the race...

westyat7000

Well it is a bit maddening to try to watch, but I have still been enjoying it. I guess maybe because it is in my neck of the woods.
I was up on Monarch Pass on Wednesday and it was truly a privilege to see Jens in his last race.

Giacomo 1 

Great pics.

Must be very cool to have a major race with so many top riders come through your town!

westyat7000

It was very very, cool, I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve/Morning.

My Wifes office is right on the route in Salida, so we put a few decorations up before we headed up the pass.