Levi Leipheimer Wins the Tour of California (3 in a Row)

Levi Leipheimer of Team Astana takes his third victory in the Amgen Tour of California in stride.

Helped by his powerful team including veteran Lance Armstrong, Leipheimer rode into Escondido maintaining his 36 lead over second place finisher David Zabriskie of Team Garmin. Michael Rogers of Team Columbia-Highroad finished decisively in third place.

This year’s race saw an unprecedented number of spectators, with preliminary results reporting over 2 million citizens lining the race route.

Tour of California in Pasadena

Amgen Tour of California: Stage 5 Paso Robles and Sun

Finally the damn sun came out. Its been five long days of rainy bullshit, but the So Cal sun is here (at least figuratively).

Anyways, so more cool photos today.

Some asshole from Rabobank’s VIP booth messed up all of us Press people’s shots.

In awesome news, I saw Garrett from MASH.

For those that don’t know - the MASH gang are riding the entire 750 miles that the Tour of California is covering.

Cavendish won the sprint for the second day in a row, with Tom Boonen the Mighty Belgian coming in a close second.

Levi Leipheimer finished in the yellow jersey, yet again. While Mancebo retained the Sprint and Mountain jerseys.

Stage 2: Tour of California to Santa Cruz

More rain was really the point of today.

We (the state of California) really need this water. But out of all the possible times we could have a torrential downpour - couldn’t the weather have waited a week?

The going was pretty light today in comparison to the first day of racing in Santa Rosa.

The rain was on/off throughout the 115.9 miles covered today. Luckily the finish line was in blue skies.

There was a crash with Lance and 30 riders, unfortunately one rider was hurt and required an evac.

Communications were enhanced today, since yesterday’s harsh weather did not permit the fixed-wing to relay satellite information to race organizers and press.

Tom Peterson of Garmin won the Stage, followed closely by Levi Leipheimer whom took the Yellow Jersey.

Francisco Mancebo retained his Herbalife Sprint Jersey and California Travel & Tourism Commission KOM (King of the Mountain) Jersey. As well, Rabobank’s rider - Robert Gesink earned 2nd of riding in the Best Young Rider Jersey.