The Levi Leipheimer Look at the Start House in the Stage 5 Time Trial of the Amgen Tour of California. Levi looked like he would have ridden or run barefoot over hot coals to get the win. I have several shots of him there, and every one of them shows this same do-or-die- trying look. This guy is totally awesome. It was interesting that he said the same thing that Lance used to say - that what motivated him was the thought of facing the rest of the team at dinner that night if he failed. He just couldn’t let his team down after how hard they are working for him. Every one of those guys on the team are riding their hearts out for Levi..

Jason McCartney was absolutely outstanding with his hard work during the stage from Sacramento to San Jose, and then he turns in another outstanding performance to come in third in the TT... I have watched him mature into the consummate rider since his first training camp in Solvang, where he came up to me and shyly asked, almost in a whisper, if he could borrow my car to go to the grocery store. I really like this guy - he is gonna go far....

So I reluctantly left the Tour of California and headed back to San Jose yesterday after the race ended. Had an obligation here and you do what you gotta do, right? I’ll be watching on the Tour Tracker today, for sure.

I’ll also put up a few shots in the gallery. I switched to the Mozilla browser, and unfortunately, the upload for images on Smugmug is much slower than the one for IE, and the pics don’t upload in the order that I select, so I have to go back in and rearrange all the gallery pics... It is a slow, time-consuming process to go through a thousand images and select the right ones, crop and color correct, and then sit and wait for the slow upload. Obviously, my Dinosaur DSL Earthlink connection plays a big part in all this...

And I want to say thanks to all the people who came up and said hi to me. I'm always surprised at how many folks read this blog and view the smugmug gallery, and who recognize me. Thanks to the gal in Buono Tavola in San Luis Obispo for saying hello. Cycling fans are just the greatest people one could ever meet...