There's a big tire outside our living room window...

Okay, so it's actually a big balloon for Maxxis tires, but why, do you ask, is there a giant inflatable advertisement outside our apartment, blocking both our garage door and the one across the street?

Apparently we're at a major corner for the first tier (or in this case, the "prologue") of The Tour of California, the American west coast version of the Tour de France. It's a 600 mile, multi-part bike race that goes from SF to Rendondo Beach over the course of a week or so. Today is the Time Trial race. It's a 1.9-mile race that starts at the Ferry Building and goes up to Coit Tower. So yeah, it's flat for the first mile, then when they take the corner right outside our window it's ALL UPHILL. Just when I thought that biking up Radcliffe Street sucked... :p

It's supposed to start in a half hour, so I'm thinking that some time around 10:15 or 10:30 or so I'll be seeing a phalanx of bikes coming through the neighborhood. I have my trusty camera out and ready so I'll take some pix and post 'em here.

And to think today our excitement was going to be going to Target down in Daly City... :p

EDIT: The race will be shown in highlight reels on ESPN2 if anyone's interested. :p

Tour of California Pix

...and it's still running! :p it should be winding down within the hour. It hasn't been so much a huge group of people as it has been a steady stream of one or two bikes every couple of minutes. This is a time trial rather than a race, or as the site said, a 'Getting to know you' race, if that makes sense...

The big tire outside my window...


This is looking east down Bay Street towards the Embarcadero.
One of the first riders taking the corner...


...and another one...


The guy on the bike is almost out of the shot, but I thought I'd take a pic of this because the cameraman on the motorcycle behind the bicyclist is STANDING UP AND HOLDING ON WITH ONE HAND as they take the corner.


This is looking south up Stockton, towards Washington Square Park. They're at the corner of Stockton and Francisco. Next cross-street is Chestnut. The very top of the hill is Lombard, and the killer climb I've posted about. ;) And amazingly enough these bicyclists are climbing up that hill with NO PROBLEM whatsoever. O_o At the top, they take a left and go up Lombard (which is more of the same kind of hill) and all the way to Coit Tower. So yeah, it's all uphill from here.


No bicyclists here...just thought I'd point out that we can see the eastern half of the Bay Bridge from our apartment, way off in the distance... :p


So yeah...big honkin' tire balloon outside our window. Gotta love my new writing nook... :p


It's 12:15 and the race just finished. They just deflated the big tire and everyone's dispersing. Emm and I might have to figure out an alternate way to get down to 280 if we're going to head to Target today...