California Tour Begins, but Eyes Are on Future

The newest addition to the international professional cycling tour starts here today and will end in Redondo Beach next Sunday. It will be a race of eight stages and 600 miles. But that’s just this year.

Phil Anschutz, the reclusive man in charge of Anschutz Entertainment Group, is ready to invest $35 million over the next five years to make sure this first tour of California is not only a success for one week but that it eventually will become a full, 21-day, 2,000-mile grand tour, the fourth in the world, joining the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Spanish Vuelta.

Is this just dreaming?

“I don’t think so,” said Jonathan Vaughters, director of Team TIAA-CREF, the top U.S. developmental cycling team. “If anyone can do it, that man can. And if ever there is a time to try, it’s now.”

The Tour of California begins at 10 this morning with a 1.9-mile time trial that begins at the Ferry Building, runs along the Embarcadero and ends with a dramatic climb up Telegraph Hill to finish at Coit Tower.

The final leg next Sunday is a 76.5-mile circuit race -- 10 laps over a course that runs along the Redondo Beach Esplanade, through Riviera Village and ends on Harbor Street.

In between, some 128 riders from 16 teams -- including the best U.S.-based squad, Discovery Channel, and eight top European pro teams including CSC, T-Mobile, Phonak and Gerolsteiner -- will travel down the California coast with stage finishes in Santa Rosa, San Jose, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Thousand Oaks.

The key stages are expected to be Tuesday’s hilly route from Martinez to San Jose and Wednesday’s 17-mile time trial along the Chesbro and Calero Reservoirs outside of San Jose.

Among the top riders competing are Discovery Channel’s George Hincapie, who won a stage at last year’s Tour de France; Tom Danielson, who won the 2005 Tour of Georgia; Paolo Savoldelli, who won the 2005 Giro d’Italia; CSC’s Bobby Julich, a 2004 Olympic bronze medalist; Dave Zabriskie, the surprise winner of the 2005 Tour de France opening prologue; Saunier Duval’s Gilberto Simoni, a two-time winner of the Giro d’Italia; Gerolsteiner’s Levi Leipheimer, from nearby Santa Rosa and the sixth-place finisher at the 2005 Tour de France; and Phonak’s Floyd Landis, a San Diego resident and the ninth-place rider at last year’s Tour de France.

But it is the future of this event that is taking center stage.

Alain Rumpf, pro tour manager for the Union Cycliste Internationale, will be closely watching the race.

“The goal of UCI is to grow the sport around the world,” Rumpf said from his office in Switzerland. “Of course it is important to have a base in the United States. But coming to the idea of another so-called Grand Tour? That is not easy.

“The Tour de France is completely special and it is 100 years old. The current trend is more for shorter races. But I do believe the Tour of California could be one of the major races in the world in a couple of years.”

Julich, 34, is also cautious when talking about this race evolving into a U.S. version of the Tour de France. “That’s a pretty lofty goal,” Julich said. “We need to go year by year and not try to compare it to those big races right away.”

That Amgen is the title sponsor of the race has provided a jolt of controversy. Based in Thousand Oaks, Amgen has been in the forefront of production of EPO, the recombinant version erythropoietin. EPO’s main use is to help cancer and kidney disease patients to stimulate production of red blood cells. But EPO has also been used illegally by endurance athletes including cyclists to help boost oxygen production.

“I think Amgen is quite smart to sponsor a bike race,” said Shawn Hunter, president of AEG sports. “They are taking a proactive course and getting the word out about a product that is of great help.”

And the biggest need for successful cycling tours is sponsorship. “That’s where we make money,” Hunter said. AEG hopes to break even by next year and maybe make a profit by the third year.

Paul Sherwen, who competed in seven Tour de France races and is now a cycling broadcaster, is cautiously optimistic about the future AEG sees for this event.

“I live in Africa and personally I believe that the survival of the sport depends partly on globalization, of taking it away from old school Europe,” he said. “In the U.S., strangely, cycling is one of the most practiced sports, alongside fishing, but people have never gotten behind the competitive sport. Now the time is right. You need to take advantage of the post-Lance Armstrong era.

“It always takes somebody with a vision. The Tour de France started in 1903 as one man’s dream. And look what happened.”

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Tour of California

The stages of the cycling race from San Francisco to Redondo Beach:

* Prologue -- Today at 10 a.m., a 1.9-mile course through the streets of San Francisco, from the Ferry Building at Pier 1 to Coit Tower.

* Stage 1 -- Monday at 11 a.m., an 80.2-mile course from Sausalito to Santa Rosa, running through the Marin Headlands and finishing with three laps of a circuit in downtown Santa Rosa.

* Stage 2 -- Tuesday at 11 a.m., a 94.9-mile course from Martinez to San Jose, on hilly terrain with a major climb near the finish.

* Stage 3 -- Wednesday at 11 a.m., a 17-mile individual time trial on the outskirts of San Jose.

* Stage 4 -- Thursday at 10 a.m., a 130.9-mile course from Monterey to San Luis Obispo along Highway 1.

* Stage 5 -- Friday at 10 a.m., a 105.3-mile course beginning at Mission Plaza in San Luis Obispo and following the Central Coast until a four-mile climb to San Marcos pass, finishing with a descent into Santa Barbara.

* Stage 6 -- Saturday at 10 a.m., an 89.5-mile course over moderate terrain from Santa Barbara to Thousand Oaks.

* Stage 7 -- Feb. 26 at 1 p.m., a circuit race in Redondo Beach featuring 10 laps on a 7.65-mile circuit along the city’s Esplanade.

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Source: amgentourofcalifornia.com