Today was a really short but sweet day. Today's stage 5 started in Dalton, hometown of Credit Agricole rider Saul Raisin. The town was really active for today's stage. All of the shops in downtown Dalton "adopted" a team and decorated their store windows for that team. Some of the stores' employees even wore team t-shirts. Everytime we roll through this town, you can really tell that they are excited about the race being in their town and are eager to support it.
So today's stage started at 11am on it's way to Brasstown Bald, the 5km monster of Georgia. It's really hard to tell how intense this mountain is until you go there and see it for yourself. I've never actually seen a stage from the Observation Deck of Brasstown Bald...until today. I was so amazed when my friend gave me a pass to drive up the mountain. The pass is a window decal labeled "BB". Two special decals are made for the time trial, labeled "TT" and Brasstown Bald, "BB". These decals are the only thing that allows a vehicle onto the course or up the mountain. The GSP can't even get on these roads without this decal. (Powerful stuff!) The mountain is really tough to get up, even when you have a decal. At a certain time of day, the local athorities close down the roads (Spur 180 leading up the mountain) to ALL traffic (minus the folks with the decal). Even with the roads closed, you have to contend with cyclist and spectators on foot just to get to the parking deck (located at 1km to go). So in order to get there on time, I left shortly before the start of today's stage. I sort of regret being able to see Saul lead the peloton on a parade lap of the town. I always brag about Saul and I'll keep saying that it is so great to see him anytime on a bike. But if the rest of the staff was already leaving, I figured that I shold leave as well. After writing down the directions for the Alternate Route (there's always an alternate route mapped out in our technical manual that allows us to proceed to the finish line [hopefully] ahead of the peloton) and putting the directions onto my atlas, I left town for a two hour drive to the Bald. When I got up there, parked my car, and caught a VIP van to the Observation Deck, I still had about two or three hours before the peloton arrived. The alternate route really works!!!
So when I got to the VIP area atop Brasstown, the news came in that there was a small break dangling around about 4 minutes. It seemed like forever before the two spectators, Dave and Jeff finally showed up on the top. I learned today that they start speakng 90 minutes before the first rider arrives. For the first time in my life, I was happy to hear the cheesy music and Dave told chime in. By the time the break reached the bottom of the climb, 5km to go, their lead was down to about 2 minutes. Just before the excitement was going on down the mountain, we got a few VIPs on top. The first minivan brought none other than Bob Roll and Phil Liggett. Folks were easily excited to see these two. The next minivan, just minutes later brought a suit-clad group of three, and out stepped Floyd Landis. Jeff and Dave had a wonderful time interviewing Floyd for about ten minutes before letting him walk the gauntlet of fans up to the Observation Tower. Dave and Jeff spent so much time talking about the breakaway, it seemed like they were totally shocked to see a group containing Levi, Tom, and Simoni coming up the mountain and Levi attacking hard with about 3 or 4 km to go. If you check out my pictures, you'll see one picture of a few guys standing on the edge overlooking the parking deck of Brasstown Bald. You'll see a road in the background with a few sets of car lights noticible. Those lights are the vehicles following Levi! So we could almost see him approaching the 1km to go. It didn't feel like too much longer before he was rounding the corner coming to the finish line, and one by one, sometimes two by two, more riders crested the Bald and crossed the finish line with the crowd screaming for every one of them.
One note about the crowd though...it doesn't take the folks who do the statistics to realize that the crowds that were here to cheer on Lance two years ago are no longer here. Rumor has it that there are 1/5 of the fans that were here last year. Where'd they all go?! It's a sad thing to see.
That's all I have to report today. I'm still working on getting my few decent pictures set up to post on my site. Otherwise, as usual, any questions, comments, jokes about the wicked fast start at the criterium last Monday, feel free to e-mail me.
Aloha!
So today's stage started at 11am on it's way to Brasstown Bald, the 5km monster of Georgia. It's really hard to tell how intense this mountain is until you go there and see it for yourself. I've never actually seen a stage from the Observation Deck of Brasstown Bald...until today. I was so amazed when my friend gave me a pass to drive up the mountain. The pass is a window decal labeled "BB". Two special decals are made for the time trial, labeled "TT" and Brasstown Bald, "BB". These decals are the only thing that allows a vehicle onto the course or up the mountain. The GSP can't even get on these roads without this decal. (Powerful stuff!) The mountain is really tough to get up, even when you have a decal. At a certain time of day, the local athorities close down the roads (Spur 180 leading up the mountain) to ALL traffic (minus the folks with the decal). Even with the roads closed, you have to contend with cyclist and spectators on foot just to get to the parking deck (located at 1km to go). So in order to get there on time, I left shortly before the start of today's stage. I sort of regret being able to see Saul lead the peloton on a parade lap of the town. I always brag about Saul and I'll keep saying that it is so great to see him anytime on a bike. But if the rest of the staff was already leaving, I figured that I shold leave as well. After writing down the directions for the Alternate Route (there's always an alternate route mapped out in our technical manual that allows us to proceed to the finish line [hopefully] ahead of the peloton) and putting the directions onto my atlas, I left town for a two hour drive to the Bald. When I got up there, parked my car, and caught a VIP van to the Observation Deck, I still had about two or three hours before the peloton arrived. The alternate route really works!!!
So when I got to the VIP area atop Brasstown, the news came in that there was a small break dangling around about 4 minutes. It seemed like forever before the two spectators, Dave and Jeff finally showed up on the top. I learned today that they start speakng 90 minutes before the first rider arrives. For the first time in my life, I was happy to hear the cheesy music and Dave told chime in. By the time the break reached the bottom of the climb, 5km to go, their lead was down to about 2 minutes. Just before the excitement was going on down the mountain, we got a few VIPs on top. The first minivan brought none other than Bob Roll and Phil Liggett. Folks were easily excited to see these two. The next minivan, just minutes later brought a suit-clad group of three, and out stepped Floyd Landis. Jeff and Dave had a wonderful time interviewing Floyd for about ten minutes before letting him walk the gauntlet of fans up to the Observation Tower. Dave and Jeff spent so much time talking about the breakaway, it seemed like they were totally shocked to see a group containing Levi, Tom, and Simoni coming up the mountain and Levi attacking hard with about 3 or 4 km to go. If you check out my pictures, you'll see one picture of a few guys standing on the edge overlooking the parking deck of Brasstown Bald. You'll see a road in the background with a few sets of car lights noticible. Those lights are the vehicles following Levi! So we could almost see him approaching the 1km to go. It didn't feel like too much longer before he was rounding the corner coming to the finish line, and one by one, sometimes two by two, more riders crested the Bald and crossed the finish line with the crowd screaming for every one of them.
One note about the crowd though...it doesn't take the folks who do the statistics to realize that the crowds that were here to cheer on Lance two years ago are no longer here. Rumor has it that there are 1/5 of the fans that were here last year. Where'd they all go?! It's a sad thing to see.
That's all I have to report today. I'm still working on getting my few decent pictures set up to post on my site. Otherwise, as usual, any questions, comments, jokes about the wicked fast start at the criterium last Monday, feel free to e-mail me.
Aloha!
posted by JC Gillespie at 6:42 PM
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