2011 AMGEN Tour of California Picture Gallery

Stage 7 on Glendora Mountain Road & Ridge Road

Annette and I spent most of the day on Saturday May 21st up on the mountian
photographing Stage 7 of the AMGEN Tour of California which started in Claremont
and ended at the Mount Baldy ski lifts. The route took the riders up the Baldy Road
out of Claremont to Baldy Village and then on to the Glendora Ridge Road (GRR) over
to where it connects with Glendora Mountain Road (GMR). They followed GMR down
into the East Fork of San Gabriel Canyon and cotinued west to Highway 39 where
they turned left and rode out of the canyon into Azusa. Another left turn put them on
to Sierra Madre ave which took them over to Grand ave in Glendora. A short run
down Grand and a couple of turns put them on to Foothill Blvd and then a quick left
brought them on to Glendora ave where they had a sprint back up to Sierra Madre.
They rode east on Sierra Madre to the botton of GMR where they turned once again
to head back into the mountains. The ride up GMR brough them back to GRR and
then back to Baldy Village. They continued on through Baldy Village on their way
up to the ski lifts - the steepest and most challenging part of the stage.

Our day on the mountain began at 8:00 AM when we left home, Annette on her bike
accompanied by one of our riding friends, John and I driving the SAG vehicle with
supplies of food, beverages, and various emergency supplies. I parked the car near
a road manintenace shed which is about 8.5 miles up GMR and awaited the arrival of
Annette and John. I had my bike on the car so that we could ride to the spots where
we wanted to shoot our pictures from.

We shot the race at two points, the first one was about two miles east of the GMR/GRR
fork where we caught the riders heading west outboud from Baldy. Then, after all of the
riders and the fleet of supprort vehicles had gone by, we rode back over to the shed on
GMR which is about 1 mile west of the GMR/GRR fork and caught the riders as they
climbed up the final road segment which leads to the shed.

The pictures are ordered by the time of day that they were taken.

Click on the images to see larger versions

Annette climbing up to the shed	Group on the Ridge Road before the race	No riders yet
Passing the time until the riders arrive	First the CHP arrives	Then the motos appear
Finally the Breakaway group comes into sight	It looks like that there are 8 of them	The Peloton arrives 2 minutes later
The peloton is moving fast	More of the Peloton	Chris Horner with his team Radio Shack escort
Andy Schleck in the Peloton	More of the Peloton	More of the Peloton
More of the Peloton	Chasing the Peloton	The Trailing Group arrives almost 4 minutes later
It is a pretty good sized group	More of the Trailing Group	End of the Trailing Group
Waiting for the riders to come up to the shed	Here come the motos not long now	The Breakaway group arrives
They look serious	Trying to catch up to the Breakaway Group	The Peloton is still about 2 minutes behind
Front of the Peloton	Hydration time for Chris Horner	More of the Peloton
More of the Peloton	More of the Peloton	More of the Peloton
More of the Peloton	More of the Peloton	We are being watched
Small group off the back of the Peloton	The Trailing group is now about 14 minutes behind the Peloton	More of the Trailing Group
More of the Trailing Group	More of the Trailing Group	End of the Trailing Group

Also: To see Annette's Blog posts about the AMGEN Tour of California Click Here

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All Images are copyrighted by William & Annette McCusker.
No public or commercial use permitted without owner's written permission.