Total distance: 81 miles
Ride time: 4:08
Avg. speed: 19.4 mph

Now, armed with my iPhone 3G, I’m ready to hit the road…

The 16 official stage start and finish cities that have been selected for the 2009 race include eight new locales – Davis, Santa Cruz, Merced, Clovis, Visalia, Paso Robles, Rancho Bernardo and Escondido – that will join Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Sausalito, San Jose, Modesto, Solvang, Santa Clarita and Pasadena as host cities along the route. (1)

“This year is a year of exciting firsts for us,” Messick continued. “For the first time, the Amgen Tour of California will take place over nine days, we will make our first visit to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and visit San Diego County for what promises to be another exciting conclusion to the race.”(1)

The 2009 race will include stops in 16 host cities over the course of nine days from February 14-22.(1)

Check out the full story here.

(1) Source, www.amgentourofcalifornia.com 

Why is doping the center of attention when it comes to the Tour de France, but buried deep when it comes to other sports such as Baseball, Football, Gymnastics, Weight Lifting, Body Building or Track and Field (to mention a few). Why is the only sport that seems to be taking the doping problem serious getting the worst of it? I know of no other sport that undertakes the level of testing and enforcement that cycling, specifically the Tour de France does.

When a doper is caught in The Tour, it becomes front page news and talk of The Tour’s demise surfaces. When Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire are obvious cheats, the worst one hears is that there might be an asterisk by there name in the record books, or worse… they won’t be admitted into the Hall of Fame… ooh… ah… how can they allow such harsh punishments? What about Marion Jones or the countless 100m cheats? Granted, Marion ended up doing a bit of jail time, but where is the talk of the demise of the Olympics?

I for one am sick and tired of seeing the media focus on the few riders that continue to try to cheat to win. I’m tired of turning on Versus each morning to be inundated with focus on the latest doping cheat. I’m tired of hearing all this talk about how this could be the demise of The Tour. Are the commentators actually looking at the pictures of the event they’re covering? Have they noticed the millions of people that line the route for three weeks every year to get a 10 second glance as the best riders in the world whiz by? The Tour de France is a spectacle matched by few other events. Fans of cycling love this event and will not allow it to die, no matter how much the media would like to make it happen.

I’ll admit it. I am very disappointed when a rider that has inspired me turns out to doping. It was heartbreaking when Riccardo Ricco turned out to be a cheat, but at the same time I’m glad he was caught.

I applaud the organizers of the Tour de France and the various cycling federations for taking it upon themselves to cleanup the sport. One certainly can’t say the same for Baseball or Football, which seem to be doing everything in their power to cover it up or deny it. Saying that there isn’t cheating, specifically doping, in just about all major sports, is like saying that water boarding isn’t torture.

As Rupert Murdoch will attest, the media is an extremely powerful influencer on public opinion. When the media decides something is a certain way, it has a way of making that belief a reality. There once was a day when the media simply reported on events, now they are in the business of making and changing events.

I long for the old days. Just leave my Tour alone!