I arrived so late last night that I stayed in a motel in Macon, and hung out for the finish of the stage. It was real mellow watching the preparations at the finish line and the expo area. My friends, Jerry and Angie Kelly were there at the Live Strong booth, and were doing their thing for the LAF. The Georgia Cancer Coalition had organized the expo with a cancer awareness and prevention theme, and did a real nice job of it.

The race itself was sloooow, I mean real slow. The peloton came in an hour later than the slowest time the race organizers had in their speed table. I was thinkin’ maybe they stopped along the way for some Georgia peaches or sumpthin’...

It was a weird stage: the Colavita team car rear-ended the Kodak-Sierra Nevada team car. The Colavita car died, and they had to use a mini-van, which is against official rules. Then, during the finishing laps on the circuit, Andy Schleck of CSC miscounted, or the announcer did, so he thought he’d won with one lap to go. Up went his arms, a la Zabel, but another rider informed him that he was a tad early - premature celebration syndrome, I guess...

There are 500 photographer/journalists, or so the TdG press folks told me, so it’s a zoo at the finish line. Plus, you gotta give them a driver’s license or a credit card to get a photographer’s vest - really, I’m not kidding!!! In spite of being credentialed, you gotta give them something that you want back so that you don’t steal your photog’s vest - they keep it until you return the vest after the race. Problem is trying to find someone with your card or license after the race ends - it’s a crazy, chaotic melee. It’s really time-consuming and the photogs are pretty pissed about it... For me, I’m not playing that game after today - finish line shots are plentiful, so I’ll just do something else from now on...

I put just a few images up in my smugmug gallery - velogal.smugmug.com