Thoughts On the ‘09 ATOC Solvang TT Course
Written by Michael on February 19th, 2009
The 2009 Amgen Tour of California time trial will be held on a 24 km (15 mile) course that starts and finishes in the Danish village of Solvang, CA. I had a chance to ride it 3 times today and here are my thoughts.
* The first mile will be the hardest. After .3 miles of flat, the road climbs madly for about 1/2 mile with grades around 9%. I hit a kilowatt every time on this section, the pros will likely hit 1.3 – 1.4 kw.
* The course is very technical with four 90 degree corners coming after fast downhills.
* Ballard Canyon is a twisty, short yet steep climb on a very crappy road that looks like it could have been paved my the incompetent folks at the Colorado Dept. of Transportation.
* There are very few flat and fast sections. I rode with a Cat. 1 who was riding a Specialized Transition TT bike and though he could drop me on the flats, his TT bike was no match for my road machine once the road tilted up.
* The course offers a lot of natural protection from the wind.
* My best time was a little over 35 minutes and that was riding with the guy I mentioned above. I think the winner can go sub 30.
I’ll be taking pics and will post them here. [UPDATE 2/25/09] Finally got my pics up here.
23
AM
I’m so glad you took the opportunity to experience attending this race – good for you, and kudos to you too Amy for being such a good sport about it!
Nance
23
AM
cool that you got to race. just watched your doggie videos trying to get them to wear their boots. mr. puggle won’t wear them no matter how hard we try. i put a link to your dog licking flash on my blog.
25
PM
Hmmmm Levi won….so I guess we know the name of our grandson to be then don’t we!!
25
PM
Haha, well, we don’t even know it’s going to be a boy and I was just kidding when I was twittering about naming a boy after the ATOC winner.
But ironically and independently of that statement, Amy told me she liked the name before she ever heard of Levi Leipheimer. We’ll see!