Sunday, August 26, 2012

Get On Your Bikes and Ride!


The US Pro Cycling Challenge rolled through Colorado Springs on Friday. It was a good day covering a great event.

There was a good crowd for Stage 5 of the race. A couple of hundred fans were lined up about 1km from the finish at Tejon & Cache la Poudre. I hear there were thousands more at the finish, but this location was only a block from where I parked and that influenced my decision of where to shoot greatly.


The cyclists are preceded by motorcycles and cars.
Motorcycles and cars going really, really fast!

The bikes raced in from the Garden of the Gods and did three circuits of downtown, finishing near Tejon and Colorado. It was lightly raining so the riders were a bit cautious around the corners, but really opened it up as soon as they straightened out.

Here they come!
Team BMC leading out Tejay van Garderen in the yellow jersey
.

And there they go, followed by many, many support vehicles.
Each lap took a couple of minutes and the peloton came together in the 2nd circuit.
Protect the leader and set up your sprinters.
Stage winner, Garmin's Tyler Farrar,
1st blue jersey on the right,
setting up for the sprint finish.
The peloton races down Tejon St. under the 1km kite.
 They came around the 3rd time, and that was that.

Lots of cowbell for less that a minute of action.
But I did get to see last year's Tour de France winner, Cadel Evans chatting with teammate Ivan Santaromita, slowly pedal by well after the peloton raced for the finish. 

'Hey. You know it's way less tiring when you go slow.'
Thanks boys! It was fun. Short. But fun.

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