As I write this I am flying at 36,000 feet, in the clouds, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean heading home after the Women’s Tour of California. California is one of the most beautiful races on the World Tour calendar. Starting in Lake Tahoe, heading south to Folsom, Santa Rosa and the coast before finishing in Sacramento.
Lake Tahoe is a wonderful place. Our first stage took us on the 115km loop around the Lake. With stunning scenery and beautiful views it was hard to not appreciate how spoilt we are. Unfortunately you don’t get to enjoy the breathtaking views as you are racing past. At 6,500 feet you are more concentrated on absorbing as much oxygen as you can and bypass the beauty.
Folsom isn't as spectacular so you don't mind that all your focus is taken on not loosing your team mates wheel. This team Time trail was different to normal in the fact it was on road bikes. It brought a different dimension to the race. It was the first time I had raced a team time trial with Canyon/SRAM and I was excited to learn from the current worlds best.
Even though we get to go to all these amazing places we don’t get to explore them nearly as much as we would like too. I have an extensive list that keeps getting longer of places that I would love to go back and visit. The pacific coast highway was added to that list after we briefly raced along the beautiful coast road in stage three from Santa Rosa to Santa Rosa.
Our tour finished in the city of Sacramento along with the men. We took on twenty laps of the three kilometre circuit that the mens race would be finalised. Racing along side the mens race means extra crowds and that was undeniable when we passed the wall of noise each time we crossed the start/finish line.
The Rapha Cycle club in San Francisco had organised a group ride leaving the cafe on the Monday morning so we stayed an extra day and joined them. They were appreciative of us joining them but I was more than grateful to be there. We were shown round the beautiful roads of San Francisco by cyclists who are just as passionate about road riding as we are.
This was my second time participating in this race and I enjoy it more and more each year. With extra and different stages being added I am already looking forward to next years addition.
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