Tour of California 2009

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, we have been entertaining houseguests and (more importantly) enjoying the Amgen Tour of California. As many of you know, we are a cycling family and have been thrilled to have had 4 years now of the world's top professional cyclists in our home state and here in Santa Barbara. This year was more crowded than usual, but with my new camera and very new lens, I was able to take the best pictures I've ever taken of my heroic riders. My sister in law and I always stalk nearly every team bus and by choosing to avoid the Astana bus this year (where Lance and Levi are), we were able to get great pictures of nearly every other rider. I also got great action shots of Lance & Levi during the time trial anyway, so there was no need to be trampled at their bus before hand. Keep in mind, these guys were going ridiculously fast at this point and I took the pictures from decently far away with my zoom:

Lance & Levi

Here are some of my favorite pics of the other random stalked riders:

Jens Voigt and George Hincapie warming up before the TT

The two best sprinters in the world, Mark Cavendish and Tom "The Hottie" Boonen

My sister in law posing with Tyler Hamilton and me with Mark Cavendish
The amazing thing was what a zoo it was out there. When we went to the start in Santa Clarita on Saturday, here is what it looked like:

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. We're hoping that Lance retires again after this year so that some of the insanity dies down. They estimate that the viewers in Solvang doubled due to Lance's appearance at this race. I'm still glad I got a few pictures of him, though!