It was hard not to notice, and everyone did: Ted King is lean. At the Amgen Tour of California last week, it was apparent, his lime green Cannondale jersey flapping in the breeze.

He said it was something he heard 10 times a day during the race, no joke.

“So yes, I don’t think it’s just appearance,” he said. “Yes, I am leaner for sure. I came here after a really good spring. I came here after really good, focused training in Colorado. And it’s all about discipline. I like food too much to make this just a mistake, if that makes any sense.”

It does make sense. King was one of Peter Sagan’s reliable domestiques during the classics, where he was lean, but a bit bigger than he is now. Now he hopes to make the Tour de France team, and also for a strong performance at the Volkswagen USA Cycling Professional Road and Time Trial National Championships this weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee. King was third in 2011 in the road race.

“I got to be big and strong at the classics. And I was pretty lean there. Then coming [to California], you’re going uphill considerably more. And basically, it’s all progression, going toward the Tour. And you’ve got to be lean for the Tour,” he said.

King, who’s never ridden the Tour de France, thinks he’s got a good shot to make the Sagan-supporting roster, but knows that nothing is guaranteed.

“Until you’re on the start line, you really don’t know. The captains know, and until you’re there, at the start line, you’re really just — fingers crossed, hope for the best,” King said.

As far as nationals goes, King will be riding for himself of course, but by himself also.

“And I’m optimistic about that. It’s still, well, I don’t know if it’s underdog, but you’re one against a lot. And there’s a handful of us doing it like that. And then the following week, I’m headed to the Tour of Swiss,” he said.

As far as quantifying the difference in his weight, King had no specific idea. He doesn’t really get on scales.

“I don’t get on a scale enough,” he said. “I know I’m lean. I just truly don’t get on a scale often … You can see it. You look at yourself in the mirror and you say I’m either leaner or I’m not. And so, like I said, I like food too much to make this a mistake.”

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. (VN) — The mechanic was visibly cynical about this machine and its ornaments, and perhaps rightfully so. It’s aging without the grace of classic steel, and it hasn’t been put to the Cat. 4 pastures and collegiate B races with the other carbon hand-me downs of its generation. He ticked off the laundry list of maladies: toasted chain, torched front rings, sagging cables.

He didn’t mention the worn yellow bar tape. He didn’t have to.

Services were arranged. Because this isn’t any 15-year old bike. This is the Hornet, an American-made machine of carbon and titanium that’s passed through my family to riders of varied states of ability and purpose.

It took the name of the Hornet for obvious reasons. A yellow front triangle, and some lamentable yellow tape my mechanic and friend found in the Telluride Free Box — a bin for outcast objects, one last chance before the dumpster.

It began its life as something I coveted immensely. A Douglas, painted in my father’s team colors for a club that’s gone the way of the dumpster itself, the Garden of the Gods Breakfast Club, out of Colorado Springs, it even had my father’s name painted on the top tube: “Chris Beaudin,” in silver upon a blue streak.

He raced it for a few years, and then relegated it to the trainer bike, where he talked to the top tube and to himself, as we all do when we ride both indoors and out.

It was eventually passed to me to ride in Telluride’s shoulder seasons, which are more like plateaus, and I rode it from time to time, more a flirtation with fitness for the trails than anything else. I think our third ride together was some 130 miles from Telluride to Moab in a charity ride in which I flatted on the first descent out of town, was dropped by the large group and rode 80 or so miles alone, just me and the Douglas, until I found a friend in Paradox Valley who’d promised to stay with me about 10 hours prior. We came to know each other that day, the bike and I.

But mostly, it sat unloved underneath my stairs, collecting dust on its ever-still cranks and once-coveted silver Mavic wheels. If a bike could cry, it would have. There’s no telling what it thought of me, though I’m certain it protested my inability to descend. The fact that people were able to ride 60 miles per hour on only suggestions of tires shocked me.

But last spring, when I took this job, I began to ride it, trying to stuff my eyes and legs with the language of the road. I’d been a mountain biker only, and lacked the literacy of the road. I was a fan and spectator of racing, but never anything more.

Slowly, I began to speak it. First in the lower back agony of a road rookie, then in timid descents, and slow progressions stalled by overestimations of my ability.

The Douglas never protested to these injustices, having gone from my father’s skilled hands to my bumbling newness, its only trepidations voiced in a creaky bottom bracket, or cables that had seemed to turn from metal braids to elastic bands.

I took care of it. My friend Max added yellow tape to its mélange of color last spring, and the Hornet was born. I showed up in Boulder with it — a kid on his first day at school in old clothes — but I threw it into the mountains here nonetheless. Its days were numbered in Boulder and we both knew it. I had a bike built for me by Independent Fabrication, a dream I’d had for sometime.

The Hornet returned to its yellow and blue still life, leaning against a wall in semi-permanence, its tires leaking their secrets over months, its stem still turned slightly upward, an imagined turning up of its nose at me and the Indy Fab, white as a cue ball. What the Hornet had in misguided color, the Indy had in understated elegance and a flawless new Dura-Ace group.

The Hornet had come to the end of its second chance, and its days on the road paused. And for once, the bottom bracket was actually silent.

But there was a need for it. My stepfather lives in Steamboat Springs and had never really ridden a road bike through the country he’s from, and one where snow often keeps the trails draped underneath winter’s modesty longer than it should. I asked my father if my pop — I’ve always called him pop — could adopt the Hornet, to see if he liked the road.

Eventually, the Hornet made its way north from Boulder to Steamboat. I breathed air back into its tires in the sunny backyard a few weeks ago; the dogs hung their heads in the way dogs of cyclists do, while the machine came back to life.

We made it out onto Steamboat’s ribbons of asphalt through the patchwork farms and yawning valleys of northwestern Colorado. The land here holds you inside of it, and doesn’t attempt to repel you as other parts of Colorado’s mountains do.

In our first road ride together, pop tucked right behind me, and I pulled him the 20 miles to Clark and back. Two days later, we took to a road that drops behind town and moves up and down with the gentle pace of a slow conversation.

I was happy to share the roads and a bike with someone who’d shared so much of life with me, and I was happy that in some way my father was there, too. We’re a family that even in fracture has grown stronger over time. The bike passed between us is only a bike, it’s true, but it’s one stitch that connects us further, as family and as riders.

A week ago, my pop sent me a picture of the bike draped over a mailbox out by the old red schoolhouse, 10 or so empty miles from town. “Buzzin like a Hornet thanks” was all he said. A few days later, another photo, this time farther from home, complete with time for the out and back.

He’s well on his way now, the yellow Douglas teaching him the prose of the road, one ride at a time. It has fresh, black tape and a new chain now, and is ready for another five years of time in the spring and fall. I suppose it is now to me as all things eventually become to all of us: better than it ever really was, gleaming in the alpenglow of memory.

But that’s no matter, how I recall it.

Because, finally, the Hornet rides again.

SAN FRANCISCO (VN) — One of his most impressive rides didn’t even end well. It ended in a crack high on the mountain, bleeding time to Tejay van Garderen.

But one can learn a lot about a rider in his defeat. And last week at the Amgen Tour of California, much more was learned about Lawson Craddock, the feisty Texan who rides for Bontrager.

Because you see, most young guys are thrilled to even be in the conversation of a mountain stage at a major American race. Craddock found himself at the front of the race, laboring up Mount Diablo next to van Garderen (BMC Racing) during stage 7. Did he try to hold wheels and finish in the lead group? Did he fade away? Did he attack?

He attacked. He attacked and cracked, some excruciating pedal strokes later near the pinnacle of the hors categorie Diablo. But those seconds he lost at the finish ramp? No one really cared about those seconds because in the loss, Craddock showed his mettle: Take a swing, one never knows.

“I kind of just recently found some climbing legs in me. I’m not really used to being able to climb with guys like Tejay,” Craddock said. “I was even more surprised that my legs felt really good. So why not try a move? And I did. I was surprised it was so steep at the end, but that’s racing, you know? It was incredibly cool to just attack that group.”

Cool, indeed. Bontrager was met with raised eyebrows at the 2012 Amgen Tour, as some other proven domestic teams were left out of the race. This year, 12 months removed from the revelatory ride of Joe Dombrowski (Sky) while he was in the Bontrager-Livestrong kit up Mount Baldy, no one wonders if Bontrager riders should be there, or if they should be in classes or on summer vacations.

Craddock, 21, won the Best Young Rider’s jersey at last week’s race, and two of his Bontrager teammates — Gavin Mannion and Tanner Putt — took second and third in the classification. In the GC, Craddock finished eighth, 5:24 behind winner van Garderen.

“A year ago at this race, no one knew who we were. People were doubting us even being in this race. And to come here and prove them all wrong, and to get to know some of the other guys, the more experienced guys in the peloton, not only that, you start to build a relationship,” Craddock said. “Not only that, but it’s really cool we’re being treated with respect. I think we’ve done a lot to deserve it.”

In addition to the GC pursuits of Craddock, teammate Jasper Stuyven was undaunted by the big names in the sprint finishes, taking fifth on stage 1, and Nate Brown earned the Most Courageous award for a daring ride and late attack during stage 4 into Santa Barbara.

“I think the whole team really did it this week. I’m the one standing up at the podium, but the other guys — they’re the real heroes of the week,” Craddock said. “It’s an incredible honor to be a part of such a tight group of guys. I can’t be happier with how the week went, and I’m really excited for what the rest of this year has in store for us.”

A pro contract is never assured until it’s in hand, but it’s increasingly likely for Craddock, whose ride in California turned heads. “The Bontrager kids, they have incredibly bright futures. Lawson Craddock? I’m a big fan of his,” van Garderen said. “He’s going to be taking my spot one day.”

Craddock hopes that day comes sooner, rather than later. “The young rider’s jersey — for me it’s one of my favorite jerseys to win and to wear,” he said. “I’d like to think I pull of white pretty well. I’ve been dreaming about this for my entire life. I’ve been racing bikes since I was 10. I’ve always wanted to make it to the WorldTour.

“And to have a result that has a really good shot of getting me there? It’s awesome. I love racing my bike. I love being competitive. I love to suffer. And I think that all the hard work that I’ve put in in the last 10 years is really starting to pay off.”

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (VN) — What BMC Racing lacked in spring classic currency, it’s making up for with an embarrassment of stage-race riches riches in May.

Tejay van Garderen won the Amgen Tour of California on Sunday, his first major victory as a professional. 2011 Tour de France winner Cadel Evans is second at the Giro d’Italia with six days of racing left — a huge increase in his form from just a month ago.

But who will lead the squad at the Tour de France, a mountainous 100th edition, is unknown. Van Garderen, for his part, is flying this spring, and his confidence will swell with the California win.

“I felt like I got the monkey off my back, and hopefully this can snowball into more victories,” he told VeloNews. “It’s a big relief to finally get my first stage race victory. I’ve been close on a number of occasions. I was actually starting to get worried that I just didn’t have what it took to win a stage race.”

And now, he’s looking down the road at the biggest race the sport has: the Tour de France.

Van Garderen said he wouldn’t “rule out” the possibility of standing on the podium in Paris, even though the race will be tougher than last year, and the competition in the mountains even stiffer, with Chris Froome (Sky), Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff), and others attacking.

“I mean — the Tour is always in your mind when you’re out training. I know you have little goals throughout the year, little focuses, little peaks. But the Tour is what everyone gets out there and rides for, either to make the selection or to be in the best shape for the Tour,” he told VeloNews on the eve of the California start. “It’s the Tour de France.”

Van Garderen placed fifth last year while riding in support of Evans, who finished seventh after a bad two days in the Pyrenees. It appeared that the torch may have been passed on the Champs-Élysées in Paris to van Garderen in his bright white jersey denoting his Best Young Rider status, his younger legs more spritely than those of Evans.

Van Garderen continued his march toward being the team leader on Sunday in Santa Rosa. Asked if he was on his peak level now or holding something back for the Tour, he was assertive.

“Oh I’ve got more in the tank, for sure. I’m usually a very consistent rider. I can hold form well throughout the year. I can get a couple percent better, a couple percent worse. But for the Tour, I’m going to be at 100 percent,” he said.

Van Garderen will skip the U.S. national championships in favor of a team training camp, at which BMC will focus on the team time trial, among other things.

“I would have really loved to do [nationals], but the team’s fully committed to the Tour,” van Garderen said.

But is the team fully committed to him?

“He’s obviously in good form. And as he said, he’s had a good season. All four stage races he’s done, he’s placed first, second, third, fourth. Good results, good conditioning. But I keep saying it’s not about two months, six months, it’s a long career he’s looking forward to,” said Jim Ochowicz, BMC’s president and general manager. “Each year, the Tour course changes as well … it’s like any other race. We can’t predict what we don’t know. Obviously, he has the talent, and that will happen. Whether it’s this year, next year …”

Van Garderen, for his part, says he’s happy Evans is on good form, because it will take the two of them to crack Sky, which will be even more determined after a Giro that hasn’t gone to plan, and a strange GC leadership issue for the Tour. At the moment, Sky says Froome will lead the team over 2012 winner Bradley Wiggins — who withdrew from the Giro last week.

“It’s amazing that Cadel’s getting back in his old form and is riding strong at the Giro,” van Garderen told VeloNews. “I think now with a victory at Amgen, and a possible podium at the Giro, that puts BMC right back on track. As far as tactics go for the Tour, I think it’s incredible that we’re going to have two guys who are strong and capable of being up there, because it’s going to take two guys to knock Sky off of their top step.”

Ochowicz said the expectation wasn’t for Evans to ride as well as he has.

“No. I don’t think so. Because that wasn’t the idea going into it, that he was going to be in second place right now. I think he prepared well for it. But we’re still really thinking about the Tour,” Ochowicz said. “The plan for him coming to the Giro was the Tour de France. So that’s still the plan. That’s still the idea. He’s still our leader. He’s proving it in the Giro every day. And he’ll continue to do that I’m sure through the rest of the week.”

Ochowicz continued: “We’ve got to weigh all the options, think about all the ideas and terms of strategic racing. We’re not even sure yet who the real competition’s going to be, with Wiggins falling out now from the Giro. Froome, obviously, not really happy with some of the situations at the moment. So, there’s a lot to think about before we get to the point where we’re going to name either Tejay or Cadel as team leader. Cadel has obviously earned the right to be the team leader. We’ll stick with that at the moment.”

Van Garderen will head to Europe after some time with his family and then tune up at the Tour de Suisse.

“It’s always good to have two cards to play,” van Garderen said. “Sometimes banking everything on one guy, that’s a big gamble … that also helps tactics in the mountains. If Cadel’s the leader but I’m close on time, I do an attack, Cadel can have a free ride to sit on. And we can kind of work it that way. He gets a free ride, they chase me down and then Cadel attacks.

“So it’s not a matter of who’s the leader, me or Cadel. Cadel and I are going to have to work together to figure out how to beat sky. That’s the way I see it.”

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (VN) — One green jersey does not a season make for Peter Sagan, and even as he sat here in California, the winner of the points classification, his eyes are on defending his green jersey at the Tour de France.

The Cannondale rider took two stages at the Amgen Tour of California this year, including Sunday’s finale here, en route to collecting the points win, and is living up to the expectations placed upon his broad shoulders in California.

Two wins in eight days of racing is a percentage most riders would take gladly, but Sagan (has made a habit of winning here in the Golden State, taking five stages last year. All told, he’s won 10 stages at the Amgen Tour, and the points jersey in all four of his starts. He dedicated his latest win to 11-year-old Alex Shepherd, a little boy from Oregon with a brain tumor.

“I’m very happy to have won today,” Sagan said, sitting in the press conference in his green jersey. He also won heading into Santa Rosa last year, battling back from late mechanicals and threading team cars.

“I knew where I was going in the finish — it was a little bit easier to take the position when I know it. It was good,” he said. “I’m here for the fourth year, and fourth year I take the green jersey. I won two stages here.

“Maybe now I’m more relaxed, because my condition is coming before the Tour de France. I did this race also last year, and I felt very good last year at the Tour de France. I think it’s good preparation — it’s a good race.”

Of course, things will get harder for him abroad, with narrower roads and a deeper pool of sprinters. And while Sagan isn’t the outright fastest sprinter in the world — that honor goes to Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s Mark Cavendish —Sagan brings a wider selection of skills to the sprint game than Cavendish, meaning he can collect more points along the routes, including hilly days, as opposed to banking on the final sprint.

“I don’t sprint like other sprinters, like Cavendish [or Lotto-Beliosol's Andre] Greipel. I can have much possibility for intermediate sprints, no?” he said when asked about the points classification at the Tour.

“It’s a crazy race, because we have points in the finishing, but maybe too much stress in the group, and it’s too many crashes. When one rider is unlucky in the sprints, then maybe I can take the points in the sprints, or maybe I can take the intermediate sprint in the stage,” Sagan said.

MOUNT DIABLO, Calif. (VN) — While BMC Racing ground the rapidly tearing peloton to dust high on Mount Diablo, Tejay van Garderen could have sailed away and tried for a stage win, an exclamation point on his Californian coronation as the United States’ premier stage racer.

He did not.

He stayed put, stayed close enough to the threats without a moment of panic. In short, he showed restraint and balance where, in the past, he may have tried to do too much. He was metronomic.

“There was really no reason to panic. I knew I had an incredibly strong team, and I knew I had a solid buffer of time. All we had to do was just ride smart. I think that’s come with a bit of maturity. To learn to just relax a little bit,” said a happy van Garderen atop Mount Diablo. “There was no reason to try to attack the race, or blow everyone’s heads off. I just gotta keep cool and do my thing.”

His “thing,” in California at least, is winning. Van Garderen smashed Friday’s individual time trial, taking the stage and icing his nearest rival, Aussie Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff). After gaining a bit more time on the above-category Diablo, van Garderen now sits 1:47 ahead of Rogers, and 3:26 up on climbing ace Janier Acevedo (Jamis-Hagens Berman).

Barring absolute disaster on Sunday in a stage from San Francisco to Santa Rosa that touts no major obstacles, van Garderen, 24, has earned his first major stage race win as a professional, though his talent has long been known, evidenced by his fifth-place finish at last year’s Tour de France.

“I knew I was going to have to rely really heavily on my team, and luckily we brought a strong one here. I saw them just take control from kilometer zero to 200ks … all I had to do was follow,” he said. “It was stress free — really easy. I’m really proud of my guys. Even if we were getting some GC guys moving, I just knew that I could stay relaxed, because I had strong climbers pulling me all the way to the finish line. It was just an incredible day.”

He appears a slightly different rider this year — he says perhaps becoming a dad has changed his makeup a bit — and his confidence is only growing now, heading into the final Tour de France tuneups. He’s also keeping the pressure on his team at a minimum by seizing control of the race whenever he can, be that a climb, or in the crosswinds.

“He’s still young, but he has a good team. … He proved in the past he’s a typical stage racer. In one-week stage races, he’s complete. Good in the mountains, good in the time trial. Good in the echelons. And he’s perfect for going in those races. I think he has a big future,” BMC sport director John Lelangue said. “He has already proven he’s there… each race that he’s doing, he’s always regular, making a top five, a top 10.”

As a captain, team managers say he’s growing as well. Van Garderen was tough in the heat to Palm Springs, only losing a handful of seconds to Acevedo, and gaining time on other GC men. He was dominant in the time trial, and crafty in the crosswinds toward the coast, which saw the stealing of the yellow jersey from Acevedo.

“The goal, obviously, wasn’t to win the stage, it was to protect the GC. And follow the race. Lead at our speed, you know, without putting any stress on Tejay,” said BMC president Jim Ochowicz. Van Garderen, he said, wasn’t told to not chase certain moves but was trusted to ride his own race.

Jens Voigt (RadioShack-Leopard) said the win here in California must be comforting to a rider on the cusp.

“I suppose it’s pretty comforting,” he said. “It’s not that far to go to the Tour. Having an overall win in the pocket with some tough circuits. Winning the TT in a convincing manner. Being strong and solid today. I guess he’s ready mentally and physically. It’s an important step for him on his way to a potential Tour de France podium this year.”

The Tour is a discussion for another day, with both van Garderen and Cadel Evans poised for sterling spring results. For now, van Garderen is happy in this moment. After all, it’s been years and near misses (Colorado last year, most recently) in the making.

“It’s incredible. I mean, barring any incident tomorrow, I think we’ve made it through all the obstacles, and we’re cruising into BMC’s hometown of Santa Rosa. It’s where the team got started, and I’m glad I can do the team proud with the jersey in their home state race,” he said. “There’s a big difference between being up there, and really winning. I think I finally showed that I have the full package.”

SAN JOSE, Calif. (VN) — For the podium contenders, or those daring to fly the coup solo today, there is but one true mountain remaining in the 2013 Amgen Tour of California.

And it’s a big one. Saturday’s stage, from Livermore to Mount Diablo, ends on the hors categorie climb and represents the last real chance to knock Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) from what would be his first major stage-race win. The South Gate Road ascent of Diablo covers 16.4 kilometers at an average of 5.7 percent.

According to Strava, the rider with the best ascent time via South Gate is none other than 5-Hour Energy’s Nate English — so who better to ask about the climb that will make or break the Amgen Tour for van Garderen than the King of the Mountain holder. English has ridden the mountain in 45:28 at an average clip of 23 kilometers per hour.

“It’s a relatively long climb, 40-45 minutes. It’s not a climb for pure climbers necessarily. There’s even some flat parts in it. Definitely helps to know it because there are some parts where you can attack and get out of sight pretty quickly,” English told VeloNews. “The wind can definitely make a couple minutes difference. It’ll probably be hot this year. It’s a good day for someone like Tejay who’s not a pure climber but is super strong and is able to hold it if he attacks early. A lot of people want to win that stage.”

Well, KOM, would you like to win it?

“I would love to win it, but it’s a super tall order for someone like me,” he said. “[There’s] definitely people who can climb better than me. It’s one of my favorite climbs and I’d like to be in a position to go for it.”

The climb, English said, flattens out a bit in the middle, kicks up again, and serves up a harsh final 200 meters. The move, English and van Garderen said, will come in the final third of the climb.

Van Garderen said he knows the climb, and thought much of the same.

“I expect it to come on the upper third of the climb. That’s where it gets a little bit steeper. And that’s where guys are going to start to suffer a little bit. But I think we’re going to have a strong team,” he said. “I think the usual suspects are still the dangerous guys. Like [Michael] Rogers and [Janier] Acevedo and [Philip] Deignan.”

As it stands now, van Garderen has more than a minute on his rivals. Rogers is in second, but seems to know that unless he pulls off something brilliant, the writing is on the wall.

“It’s uphill, I know that,” Rogers said of the climb. “I only know what’s on the course profile. It’s not so steep, I’m not expecting it to be like the finish into Palm Springs. At the end of the day it’s the riders who make the race. I’m sure a lot of the guys who are just out of the top 10 will be trying to make an attack from a long way out. Obviously BMC have a very strong team, and all the reason in the world to defend the jersey, and I’m sure they will.”

What about Rogers’ GC chances?

“Every kilometer that passes and every second more makes it that much more difficult to close. I’ve been around long enough to know that anything can happen,” he said. “As I said it gets harder, and Tejay has a strong team. It will be hard to bring back, but it’s certainly not over until you cross the line.”

As for that KOM, English thought it may stand.

“If people are just looking around at each other I could see Acevedo going in the last half mile and holding it,” he said. “If it’s all together going into the climb there’s no reason to go hard from the bottom. I see it more likely playing out that people won’t go hard until at least halfway.”

SAN JOSE, Calif. (VN) — Moments after climbing his way to victory in stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California on Friday, Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) took his newborn daughter Rylan into his arms and onto the podium atop Metcalf Road, red lipstick kisses languishing on his cheeks, a wide smile upon his face.

It’s his bike race in California now, and he knows it. Van Garderen, after a sterling time trial performance here on a breezy afternoon, may be growing up right in front of the cycling world. All told, he won the 31.6-kilometer time trial — with a steep finishing climb of about 10 minutes — by 23 seconds over Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM) and, more importantly, put 1:05 into Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff). It was exactly what van Garderen needed to do, and without reservation he took the Amgen Tour into his hands.

“It’s incredible,” he told reporters after the stage. “I really couldn’t have asked for a better day.”

Van Garderen now has 1:47 in hand over the second-placed Rogers, and 2:57 over Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge) in third. Should he hold on up the slopes of Mount Diablo on Saturday, van Garderen will win in California, earning his first-ever professional stage-race win to complement a fifth-place finish at last year’s Tour de France.

“It’s going to feel incredible. I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I’m ready to win, and I think it’s about time,” van Garderen said. “I think now I’m finally mature enough to pull through to the end. I think I’m ready to do it.”

Most riders would kill for the results sheet of van Garderen. The young all-rounder has won the best young rider classification at the Tour de France. In 2011, he finished fifth in California, and won the best young rider classification here. In 2012, he finished fourth, faltering on the Mount Baldy stage. So far this year, he’s finished in the top three at the Tour de San Luís, Critérium International, and Paris-Nice.

It’s seemed, and has for some while, that it’s just a matter of time for the 24-year-old.

“I’ve known Tejay since he rode with HTC in 2010, and I saw his talent straight away. You knew he had a huge future; he is that kind of athlete. Certainly as a stage race rider, he’s made huge steps in the last few years, and especially in the Tour de France last year,” said Rogers.

It was van Garderen who gave up a wheel to then-teammate Rogers in the second stage of the 2010 Amgen Tour and kept the Aussie in contention for his eventual overall win.

BMC Racing director John Lelangue said the win was something van Garderen needed to continue his progression.

“He has come so close on big races. We knew he was getting better and better. But winning his first stage race — that’s a good sign in the natural progression and his future goals,” Lelangue told VeloNews. “He’s a real leader with team around him … it’s really a big step forward. But we first have to win this one first.”

Van Garderen will have to defend the yellow upon his back on Saturday, as the peloton will finish atop Mount Diablo, the hors-categorie finish climb, and the only thing in his way now.

AVILA BEACH, Calif. (VN) — After a stage 5 raid in the wind, Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) is right where he wants to be, and the Amgen Tour of California is his for the taking.

Van Garderen’s in the lead headed into a time trial. If he maintains the leader’s jersey into Saturday’s crucial stage to Mount Diablo, he can ride defensively rather than attack on its high-elevation steeps. As it stands now, he’s up 42 seconds on Aussie Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff), and 50 seconds on third-placed Janier Acevedo (Jamis-Hagens Berman).

But van Garderen has been here before. Last year in Colorado, he slipped into the leader’s jersey after winning the second stage of the USA Pro Challenge in Crested Butte. Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Sharp) displaced him the next day in Aspen, however, and eventually took the final overall, with van Garderen second by just 21 seconds. A year earlier, van Garderen led into the mid-race uphill time trial in Vail, but fell apart in the 10-mile test to hand the jersey to eventual winner Levi Leipheimer.

On Friday in California, van Garderen can inch closer to his first professional stage race win. Over 31.6 kilometers, the all-rounder can increase his lead over the GC men and contend for the stage win. The finishing climb up Metcalf Road gives him an edge over a true TT specialist like David Zabriskie (Garmin-Sharp) and even former TT world champion Rogers, and a pure climber like Acevedo should lose time over the opening 28km.

In Thursday’s leg from Santa Barbara to Avila Beach, van Garderen displayed a bit of cunning, making the RadioShack-forced selection in the crosswinds with contenders Rogers and Matthew Busche (RadioShack-Leopard). The riders shared work, and van Garderen said afterward that he wasn’t worried about the toll on his legs.

“Today definitely cost a little bit of energy, that’s for sure. But in my mind, I was kind of thinking, ‘Ok, Mick Rogers is here, he’s the best time trialer. As long as he’s turning, it’s ok for me to turn.’ So as long as we were keeping it even, he never missed a pull and I never missed a pull,” van Garderen said.

Friday’s time trial ends with a nasty climb that’s given riders trouble over which bike they’ll ride, or if they’ll take a bike change. Riders faced a similar decision in Vail in 2011, where Leipheimer and van Garderen each chose to ride a TT frame. On Thursday, van Garderen would not disclose his plan.

“I’m going to pass on that one,” he said. “It is a good time trial, and it’s definitely dynamic and it requires a lot of thinking, not just going out and riding hard.”

In the brutal uphill finish above Palm Springs in stage 2, van Garderen showed his climbing class among the field here, bleeding fewer than 20 seconds to Acevedo and distancing Rogers and Busche. He also showed restraint, not risking all to chase Acevedo when the two had already dropped the others. Van Garderen said on Thursday that he isn’t concerned about heading into Diablo, the hors-categorie mountaintop finish, with big time in hand.

“I feel very confident in my climbing ability to be able to defend on Diablo. I know that there’s Acevedo, who’s climbing really well, but I think I’m going to take a little bit more time out of him in the time trial. I don’t think he — I think I can hold his wheel. That shouldn’t be a problem,” van Garderen said.

AVILA BEACH, Calif. (VN) — The move he pulled in stage 5 of the Amgen Tour of California on Thursday is the same one Jens Voigt has been pulling since the Pleistocene — according to the German himself — and yet it just keeps working.

“I’ve done that move, basically, since many, many years. Almost since the last ice age I’ve been doing the same move,” said a jovial Voigt (RadioShack-Leopard) after he won in Avila Beach with a late attack from a waning breakaway.

“Sometimes, like in Colorado [2012 USA Pro Challenge], I do it with 140 kilometers to go, and today, with five to go. They know what my plan is. They know I cannot win a sprint. They know I have to be alone. You’ve got to catch them by surprise. They watch each other,” said the oldest rider in the pro peloton. “Peter Sagan looks at [Thor] Hushovd; Hushovd looks at Tyler Farrar. And they go, ‘yeah, it’s just old Jensie, let him go.’”

They should probably stop saying that, if they ever did at all. It’s hard to know — it’s not like Voigt, 41, is getting away off the front on charity when Sagan and Farrar are angling for stage wins, and Hushovd is sniffing around.

“Jens Voigt surprised us all a bit,” Hushovd said.

Farrar added: “I really wanted to win today. But Jens pulled an awesome move, and everyone was just dead from riding so hard the last hour, so he did a good one.”

Voigt and his RadioShack team parlayed a headwind that turned crosswind into a wedge in the main field, and other contenders were happy to play along. Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) was there, as was Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff). Once it was clear the group was going to stay away, Voigt said he eased off the gas a bit, and then sensed the moment at about five kilometers to go.

“It’s almost like a voice talking in your head. ‘Go now. It’s now or never. It’s now, it’s now.’ And then you listen to that voice,” he said. “And I think maybe they underestimated me and they say, ‘Oh, he’s going to die out there. He’s going to slow down.’ And, yeah, it played in my favor. I guess I’m allowed to say, every now and then, I do still have a little bit of go power. … And once I’m out there, once I can see and smell this victory, it’s hard to get it away from me.”

Voigt’s diesel engine kept moving, powering him to his 66th win as a professional, and second win in the U.S in his last two appearances. In Colorado last August, he won a stage from a ridiculous break with more than 100 kilometers to the finish town of Beaver Creek, solo.

He said 2012 would be his last in the professional peloton. This year, he said he’s not in the twilight of his career, but rather extending seasons.

“I like to call it Indian Summer. It’s — you know — how beautiful it is? That’s where I am. The Indian Summer of my career. But yeah, everything has to come to an end one day. … But age is just a number, currently. If I can still do my job, if I can still be out there doing what people want, what they expect of me … there’s no reason to stop or slow down or give it up.”

Clearly, he’s not giving up. Asked what rider he’d tap to replace him, for once he was stumped, with no clever answer. Until this: “I think it would take maybe two persons. One to do the funny part, and one to be the bike rider.”

It may take two, actually, to be the bike rider.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (VN) — The week opened beautifully for Dutch squad Vacansoleil-DCM. It earned a win and the leader’s jersey in stage 1 at the Amgen Tour of California on the legs of Lieuwe Westra, but it’s been tough news from there.

Shortly after, second title sponsor DCM, a fertilizer producer in western Europe, announced it was leaving the sport. And then on Wednesday, Vacansoleil — the main sponsor of the ever-attacking team — announced it was leaving as well. This means the squad of Juan Antonio Flecha, Thomas De Gendt, and Westra, to name a few, will be without a sponsor at the end of the season. For riders at the races, there is little they can do but pedal and hope to fetch a result.

“We’re proud. We have to thank Vacansoleil for the sponsorship, and we’re proud they achieved their goals. We’re happy for the sponsorship, we’re happy for that,” Flecha said before the start of stage 4, which ran from Santa Clarita to Santa Barbara. “And about the future, the team has the aim of continuing, and our team managers are already looking for sponsorships, and so on. We focus on our rides and our races. Personally, I’m not much concerned about it. It’s a good team structure, and it will work out.”

Flecha departed juggernaut Sky in the offseason to heed his own riding style — always attacking, always opportunistic. He wasn’t regretting that on Wednesday.

“I was willing to have a little more freedom in certain races. Especially after the classics,” Flecha said. “It’s a different way of racing. [At] Sky, the strategy’s always more focused on GC, on going for one guy in grand tours, and smaller races. And here, it’s different. It’s more going on the attack, taking different opportunities of course. We don’t have as big of guys for winning the GC as Sky, and I’m enjoying it a lot.”

Asked if he would need to know if the team had a sponsor locked down soon or decide to leave, Flecha was calm.

“I would say later. I’m focused as I say now on the races and Tour de France coming, and it’s not my job to try to find a sponsor,” he said.

At his age and with his palmares, Flecha said he doesn’t feel pressured to notch results right now. “Not at my age — sorry,” he said.

Westra, currently in the green points jersey in California, said the situation gives the riders more conviction.

“Motivation? Yeah, for sure. I hope the team is going forward,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. The team is perfect for me. And I hope that next year I stay here also. Today is not good news. Both Vacansoleil and DCM have stopped.”

The Amgen Tour of California continues Thursday, from Santa Barbara to Avila Beach, and for now, the Vacansoleil flag flies on.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (VN) — The saying goes, you’ve got to have money to make money. The same is true in sprinting: wins are a currency used to beget more wins, and without the confidence to win, a sprinter may as well walk.

Perhaps that’s why the stage 4 win for Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) at the Amgen Tour of California on Wednesday was so big it seemed the entire field was happy for him, congratulations passed around lightly, an entire team jubilant on a wide boulevard on the Santa Barbara beach.

Farrar took a big one for his confidence, winning a drag race of a sprint into Santa Barbara after hitching a brilliant ride on Ken Hanson’s Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies train. It marked his first of the year, and he bested phenom Peter Sagan (Cannondale) in the process. farrar won craftily, without a train of his own in the final kilometer, as Garmin had used its horses to keep him safe before the finishing straight and left the Washington-native to freelance, which he did to perfection.

“I didn’t see him,” he said of Sagan. “We were taking from the front. When our team was done, some GreenEdge guys slotted over, and I worked off of them. And then Optum did a really good leadout in the last K, and I was just able to tail-gun off of them.”

At different points in a solid career, Farrar has been absolutely brilliant. He’s won a stage at each grand tour, (two a piece at the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España to go with his July 4, 2011 Tour win) but at other times has suffered from the bad luck of crashes, the mental onslaught of tragic circumstances, and racing in the same era as top gun Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step). This year, he’s finished second a few times, and was sixth at Scheldeprijs, but hasn’t snared the results he’s wanted. That may change now.

“I’m psyched. This spring wasn’t what I wanted, a string of second and second and third and fourth and second. … You know, in sprinting, wins are what count. I was really motivated coming into this. I’ve been training really hard this spring, and it’s paying off,” he told VeloNews just after the stage from Santa Clarita ended.

Before the race in California began, Farrar said he took some time to focus on getting his sprint back up to speed, working on the track. Three years ago, he was billed by many as the first real threat to unseat Cavendish. But promising results in the classics had Farrar dipping his toes in the cobbled monuments, trying to diversify his repertoire. The result? A lack of results.

“I started trying to focus on too many things: focus on the classics 100 percent, focus on sprinting 100 percent. And get better at climbing. This and that. And I think I was kind of stretching myself a little too thin,” he said.
On Wednesday, Farrar was right where he needed to be, both on the road on and the podium.

“A win never hurts,” he said. “In sprinting, wins are what people count. I’m really happy to finally have gotten the monkey off my back this season, and hope to keep that going.”

He’ll have another chance on Thursday at the Amgen Tour, as a sprint finish is expected when the race barrels into Avila Beach after 185 kilometers.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (VN) — Ken Hanson (Optum-Kelly Benefit Strategies) said all the right things after the finish of stage 4 at the Amgen Tour of California on Wednesday: he was happy with his team, he was happy with his result, and he was happy to do well in front of a home crowd.

His team did work well enough, unfurling a swift leadout in the final kilometer of the 134-kilometer stage. And Hanson should be happy with his result; second at a major race like the Amgen Tour is an enormous result for a rider from a domestic squad. And, with the finish in his former hometown of Santa Barbara, fans shouted louder than normal for a runner-up.

But after finishing second to Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) in stage 4, Ken Hanson clearly wanted more. Very clearly, he seemed to have expected more.

“I was a little too impatient and went a little too soon, and Farrar had good finishing speed,” Hanson said. “I lived here for so long. I have such good friends here, it feels like coming home. I was really, really motivated for the stage here. And I just came up a little short. Just was a little too impatient for the sprint. I think I could have gotten maybe 50 meters more out of my last leadout guy, [Alex] Candelario. But I was afraid of getting swarmed and pinched in, and kind of went a little early and hugged the barriers, and Farrar was able to come by me in the last 50 meters. It was close, and I’m happy, but I’m still really hungry.”

Hanson is one of America’s top domestic pros on one of America’s strongest teams, the Minnesota-based Optum squad. The team has recently bolstered its European racing regime, and is putting that strength to work. In a drag-race of a sprint today into Santa Barbara, the team had the best leadout inside the final kilometer, but was perhaps just a rider short. Farrar stole a seat on the tracks and barreled by Hanson, the most prolific winner in North America last season, and a winner at a race in Portugal, the Classica Aveiro-Fatima, earlier this spring. In California today, Hanson was close, but not close enough.

It wasn’t a win for Hanson, but it was far from a loss. And he knows it, though the sprinter in him has a hard time calling a second-place result a success.

“You know. It’s tough,” he said. “The timing couldn’t have been any better. I’ve got really good teammates supporting me … I think I was just a little too impatient. I think I could have waited a little bit longer to start my sprint. Three hundred meters is a little long. I had momentum, and just kind of went for it. Maybe a little bit more patience and one more guy, you know?”

The Tour of California is nearly a home race for Hanson, who seems to have done time all along its route, at one point or another. He was born and raised in Sierra Madre, and now lives in San Diego, though he used to live in Santa Barbara and went to college in the state as well. When he rolled through the finish straight after the podium presentation, Hanson was greeted with loud cheers from a mass of fans. The pressure, then, to do well, is present, even if he rides for one of the smaller teams.

“In the grand scheme of things, we’re a really small team, and we don’t even have all our best leadout guys here,” he said. “As you see, we’re just as good as the ProTour teams when we get organized,” he said. “I’m really motivated for tomorrow’s stage as well.”

He should get another crack on Thursday, when the peloton heads from Santa Barbara to Avila Beach. The fifth leg of the race is 51km longer than Wednesday’s stage and every bit as tailored to a bunch finish, but Hanson will almost certainly be more patient when he winds up his kick a day after his career best Amgen Tour result.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (VN) — After the blur of stage 3 blew through Santa Clarita, Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge) stood in the road, relaxed and comfortable, a far cry from the high temperatures of the previous day in Palm Springs at the Amgen Tour of California.

“That was a really difficult day. The whole day was spent fast paced, twisty roads, crosswinds,” he said of Tuesday’s stage 3, from Palmdale to Santa Clarita. “There was a major split at the start of the race. Definitely was not an easy day, and it was still quite warm out there.”

The stage saw no major general classification shifts among the favorites, and Peter Sagan (Cannondale) ultimately ruled the day. The peloton found itself recovering from the hot stage 2, which ended in a searing climb above Palm Springs that left multiple riders needing treatment for heat-related issues.

“Yesterday was probably a bit dangerous, a bit extreme,” Meyer told VeloNews. “I don’t know what you could have done about it. But uh, yeah, now we’re getting a little bit more accustomed, so today was a lot more manageable. Hopefully the temperature calms down a little bit now.”

The two-time Australian national time trial champion said the peloton knows there’s not much organizers can do, and also said it doesn’t dampen the riders’ opinions of racing stateside.

“I think any bike race — you can turn up to Tour Down Under at the start of the year — great bike race, I love it, but you can turn up to some filthy conditions there. You can go anywhere, Milan-San Remo. Everyone loves Milan-San Remo, and there’s snow this year,” he said. “So I think it’s still a great race, you get great crowds, it’s still a great atmosphere. Unfortunately, we just got hit with a little bit of a heat wave this year. But we’ve dealt with it, and we can hopefully enjoy some better conditions.”

Those better conditions may be favorable to the 25-year-old’s general classification hopes. Currently he sits in 10th place, 1:40 out of the golden jersey held by Janier Acevedo (Jamis-Hagens Berman).

Meyer’s results sheet would hint that he’s on the cusp of road success with his capable Orica squad. He took sixth at this year’s Tour of Turkey, and won his national criterium championship. He’s a six-time world champion on the track, with gold medals in the points race (3), Madison (2), and the team pursuit (1) from 2009-2012.

Meyer also won the 2011 Santos Tour Down Under.

Meyer boasts a very strong time trial, and his climbing isn’t a true weakness, either. He won the mountains classification at last month’s Circuit de la Sarthe, and after the brutal stage into Palm Springs here in California he didn’t loose too much time on most of the contenders. Meyer will look to claw back some seconds in Friday’s individual time trial in San Jose.

Regarding his GC hopes, Meyer said they’re “not too bad.”

“I would have liked to be a little bit closer yesterday, but I’m at a point where if I have a really good time trial I can take back a lot of time on most of those guys,” he said. “I think [Tejay van Garderen is] probably in the box seat, and he’s probably a bit far away from Mick Rogers and I, but there’s a few guys in front that I’d like to move up. And hopefully, my time trial will be good on stage 6.”

The Tour of California continues Wednesday, as it rolls from Santa Clarita to Santa Barbara.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. (VN) — He’s making it look easy again.

Peter Sagan (Cannondale) won his ninth career stage at the Amgen Tour of California on Tuesday, to no one’s surprise. Only the steepest of finishes or the most brutal, surreal attacks can soften his legs enough to take him out of contention in the world’s biggest races and, simply, the sprinters here in the Golden State are just not on his level. Hardly anyone is right now, aside from Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Leopard).

It’s actually expected that Sagan wins races now — by fans, by riders, by the media. What makes the Slovak champion so unique is that he’s as consistent as he is young, as dependable to see the top step of the podium as he is to pop one-handed wheelies. At team camp in Los Angeles over the winter, Moreno Moser said it best: “With Peter, you are sure. You’re sure that you can win 15 races, no? It’s quite sure… With Peter, I’m sure that we will win a stage [at the Tour de France].”

Sagan, 23, acknowledged that the expectations to win are heavy. In an interview before this race began, he said that repeating his five-win romp across California was too tall an order.

“Last year I won five stages. But it was, I always say, a bit of luck. I don’t know. Maybe there wasn’t too many sprinters, like this year. … I don’t know. Last year I was very good, but it’s very hard doing the same things — the same victories. Maybe five victories is a little bit too much,” Sagan said. “And now I am here doing well, but also honing my condition before the Tour of France. I want to do well, and we will see in the race when I come on the front. But it’s too many climbs this year.”

Stages 1 and 2 eluded him, foiled by a breakaway on Sunday and the finishing climb Monday, but on Tuesday, Sagan took a sprint with clinical ability, a clear cut above his challengers.

His palmares at this point in his career are downright gaudy: the points classification at the Tour de France in 2012 in addition to three stage wins, three stages at the Vuelta a España, first at Ghent-Wevelgem, four top fives between Milano-Sanremo and Tour of Flanders, nine stage wins at the Amgen Tour of California, six at the Tour de Suisse.

“My results say I am here for the win,” he said. “I need to win, also for me, also for the people. The people want it when I win. Too many expectations? Yeah, it’s true, but I don’t think [about it when] they’re talking about me, other people,” he said. “If I’m thinking everyone is talking about me, [laughs] maybe I have too many confusions in my head. I want to look forward. And only doing well, just keeping the riding on the bike and have fun.”

Winning, of course, is fun. But can such a brilliant rider sustain the weight of being expected to win nearly every time he’s near a finish?

“He’s at a certain level where the expectations are for him to win. I mean he comes here and he wants to win, but … he knows there’s bigger goals coming up, and he’s already won a bunch before,” said Frankie Andreu, director of the 5-Hour Energy-Kenda squad and a former pro.

Winning in California is one thing — and it’s a difficult thing, traditionally, given the courses and conditions — but winning in France and Belgium, all year long?

“You have to match it, you know? Once you win the Tour, how do you match that? ‘Oh, Cadel Evans, failure the next year, he didn’t win again.’ Sagan, for sure. If he doesn’t win two stages or something, it’s going to be a failure,” Andreu said. “And it’s going to be hard to match. But a lot of times, those expectations, they come from the press … But he knows how cycling is. You lose 90 percent of the time. Maybe in Sagan’s case 20 percent of the time. But when you show up to the race, you want to win one.”

Garmin-Sharp boss Jonathan Vaughters said constant winning is untenable, expectation or not.

“I think cycling, especially sort of modern cycling, where it’s just gotten more and more and more competitive and the differences in riders are very small — it’s a sport where you’re never going to see absolute consistency. It’s so competitive,” he said. “And when you do — you see a guy like Sagan knock off 10 races early in the year — but to expect that year after year after year? That does put pressure on the rider, on the sponsors, and that can be counterproductive, as we’ve seen. Sometimes, you run along it. I don’t know — how many races did Sean Kelly win in his career? He’s a similar-type guy.”

Sean Kelly won 33 races alone in a tremendous 1984 season, and more than 185 total. While Sagan’s a long way from that, he gets closer, one by one. He’ll likely have another chance on Wednesday, as the Amgen Tour rolls from here to Santa Barbara.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (VN) — Pieter Serry lay on the ground, in hollow bewilderment, his skinny white chest streaked with melting water, his eyes flickering from side to side.

I helped lay his soaked head to the concrete, nothing but a wet towel for a pillow. An oxygen mask was placed over his mouth, and the bag faintly fluttered. People scrambled to put ice packs in his armpits, his groin.

Minutes before, his director, the imposing Wilfried Peeters, pulled up to the steps near the press conference in the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team car, shouting for an ambulance. Serry sat in the backseat, heaving into a trash bag, the effects of a day so hot it softened blacktop. Serry apparently abandoned 500 meters from the finish but paid the highest price on a searing ride into Palm Springs.

This is the effect of “epic.” It has a human cost, and it looks like a terrified bike racer, bleached by extreme heat, lying shirtless on his back, his body wet under rivers of ice water.

Peeters said aloud to other team managers they were waiting for help that never came. His rider was, later, loaded into an ambulance and driven down from the tramway climb above Palm Springs, where stage two of the Amgen Tour of California ended — in victory for some, and agony for others. Organizers later said they heard nothing of the ambulance call.

Minutes later, BMC Racing rider Marco Pinotti sat on the same patch of pavement, not quite as sapped as Serry, but hurting nonetheless.

In the parking lot below, riders sat on the hot road, pouring water over themselves, thousand-yard stares upon their salt-streaked faces. It begged the question on this day that some riders’ computers measured temperatures of 120 degrees: How much is too much?

To a rider, not one would say that it was too hot, and that they shouldn’t have been racing into the forge of the Palm Springs desert. Not before the stage, and not after. To the peloton’s grit and credit, only two riders abandoned outright, though that number may have been a rider higher, as organizers were talking about allowing Serry to continue.

“No other sport would do what we do. But that’s cycling. Whether it’s right or wrong. But that’s not up to us,” said Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff) at the finish.

And this, from Phil Gaimon (Bissell): “I think it’s too hot. I don’t think it’s inappropriate. I don’t know how to decide that. [Organizers] had no way of knowing, and I don’t know how practical it would be to shorten the stages. Nobody’s died. I think I’m the closest so far,” he said.

There is a code that prevails in the peloton. Don’t spit in the soup, ever, and this includes criticizing event organizers for route selections and race conditions. In this gladiator sport, no man wants to be the one who says “enough.”

So someone must say it for him. Would the peloton have avoided Ghent-Wevelgem this year in the shattering cold had organizers not chopped off 50 kilometers? Absolutely not. Would someone have won Milano-Sanremo in a blizzard, if asked? Of course.

Since no rider will willingly say it, I will: Monday’s stage was a ludicrous march through the closest thing to hell on earth for a bike race, and organizers should look at themselves long and hard for not altering the route.

For as much linguistic bravado as exists in sport and is readily pedaled by us journalists — survival, battle, savage — this wasn’t sport, but became an actual battle for riders against total heat and exhaustion.

For better and for worse, bike racers do not protect themselves, so it’s incumbent that the sport protects them. Other, more popular sports, face grave challenges due to the elements as well. Several high school football players have died due to heat stroke in recent years, and Korey Stringer, an NFL offensive lineman, died in 2001 at the age of 27 from heat stroke at the Minnesota Vikings’ training camp. This is a concrete threat, not something that hardly ever occurs.

For their part, event organizers have said they considered the weather as it appeared clear it would be very hot, and that major changes didn’t need to be made.

“You know, when you talked to the riders after the race … they really didn’t have any dramas when they dropped down here into the desert, and that’s where the wall of heat hit them,” race director Jim Birrell said. If it were terribly dangerous, he said, medical personal would have alerted race organizers. “I think our chief medical officer, and our commissaires would have pulled us into a situation where a decision had to be made, and that never came into play. We hope the best for those two [riders].”

But sadly, we have come to expect performance beyond reason, and we’ve come to criticize races in our sport for being too flat or too boring. I’m as guilty as anyone, and looking back I shouldn’t have scampered after BMC’s Tejay van Garderen right after the hot finish, hoping to salvage a quote.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but today’s is a situation that wasn’t hard to foresee. According to weather records, the average temperature in the Palm Springs area this time of year is 95 degrees.

Over the last three days, temperatures here have hit 104, 106, and 108 degrees, respectively. It’s not like no one saw this coming.

And, oddly, this afternoon, race organizers Tweeted a photo of fans at the finish, and a bit about a “nice breeze up here.” I have no idea what mountain they were standing on, but it cannot have been the same boiling parking lot that held a cooked peloton shortly after.

As bad as it all seems, it’s not wholly the Tour of California’s fault. There is not a sound structure in place for altering a major bike race like this, and it’s hard to know what’s safe and what’s not when the opacity of the rules — or lack of strong rules completely — don’t specify what’s safe and what isn’t. When decisions on racing come down to human subjectivities, those outcomes are easily corrupted, knowingly or not, by sponsor interests, television interests, team interests, etc.

“You’ve gotta move this away from — if it’s snowing, if it’s raining, whatever,” Garmin-Sharp manager Jonathan Vaughters told VeloNews Monday night. “What are safe conditions? And as long as that’s in the purveyorship of riders’ opinions, TV producers’ opinions, organizers’ opinions, you never get an objective answer. There needs to be some definitive rules.

“Basically you need to get a board of directors of human physiologists to say ‘OK, you know, you should be doing this, you should not be doing this, you should not be racing on roads like this’ … whatever.”

Right now, it’s up to the common sense of human beings, which varies greatly in given moments when various issues come into play.

“That should be part of the sport. It should be an established part of the rulebook,” Vaughters said. “Just come up with a definitive process, put the rules in the rule book, and take the pressures and controversy off the riders, off the team managers, off the race organizers.”

All of us need to remember that this is sport, not spectacle. And that there is a profound difference. The men and women we watch compete are human beings, flesh and blood like the rest of us. And there is more value in that than in a summit finish, or in an epic stage. We owe that much to the athletes we watch, and to ourselves.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (VN) — Michael Rogers (Saxo-Tinkoff) draped himself over his top tube and faced up to a mouthful of recorders, his face reddened from the blast-furnace that was stage 2 at the Amgen Tour of California. The 2010 champion had lost time in his hunt for a second title, but was still in the running with six days of racing remaining.

When it was all finished, the Aussie sat 55 seconds back on the general classification to Janier Acevedo (Jamis-Hagens Berman), who won the day with a savage acceleration in 110-plus-degree heat, and 43 seconds in arrears of all-rounder Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing). Rogers now finds himself in fifth overall two days into his first visit back to the race since his winning ride.

Asked if he was still close enough to contend for the overall win, he didn’t take himself out of the running.

“It gets harder, you know, with the time gaps,” said Rogers. “But I’m experienced enough to know that anything can happen in stage races. And I’ll keep pushing every day.”

The stage was brutally hot, with a steep finishing climb that wrought pain upon the peloton in the final three kilometers. Rogers was able to stay close, but the duo of Acevedo and van Garderen ultimately disappeared up the road on the Tramway Road climb, which didn’t appear terribly steep on television but was an unrelenting drag strip up to the aerial tramway above Palm Springs.

“It was certainly survival of the fittest is what it was today,” Rogers said. Asked if he was ready for the rest of the GC charge, he said he was.

“Yeah, I am. There’s obviously a couple of other hard finishes,” he said. “Tejay took some good time. We have to bring it back. Anything can happen. We’ll keep trying every day.”

On Tuesday, stage 3 takes riders from Palmdale to Santa Clarita, and should be a finish for the fast men. The next real GC chance comes on Friday, in the individual time trial, which finishes with a climb steep enough that riders haven’t yet said which bikes they’ll use — time trial or standard road, or if they’ll even change bikes. A former world champion against the clock, Rogers will hope to take time out of Acevedo on Friday before the final test, the next day, up the hors categorie summit finish at Mount Diablo, which should decide the overall in the eighth edition of the race.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (VN) — Dutch squad Vacansoleil-DCM gained a leader’s jersey on Sunday at the Amgen Tour of California on the legs of Lieuwe Westra, but soon after lost one of its banner sponsors, in DCM. A day after the team kicked the race off with a stage win and leader’s jersey, it was left without its second title sponsor and, later, Westra’s overall lead.

“They always said, ‘we want to grow with the team,’ and they came on board when we were a Pro Continental team. And they expected to be in the world of pro cycling for five years,” the team’s press officer and commercial manager, Frank Kwanten, told VeloNews on Monday morning. “But then we got the ProTour license in 2007, pretty suddenly. And they increased the investment in 2012, and now they decided, thanks to the fast growth, it’s been enough.”

DCM is a producer of natural fertilizers in Western Europe, and will step back at the end of the 2013.

“We’re very grateful. They helped us come into the WorldTour. You saw in 2010, we didn’t get into a big tour despite a good team. We’re not French, we’re not Spanish, we’re international. So, thanks to their investment, we got onto the WorldTour, and that of Vacansoleil.

“We’re happy with that, and now we want to grow as a team, and there’s room to grow.”

The squad — largely unmentioned in the run-up to the Amgen Tour — didn’t stay in the shadows for long. Dutch time trial champion Westra attacked inside 10 kilometers to the finish line in Escondido on Sunday, taking the leader’s shirt and the stage win. On Monday, Westra appeared to wilt in the 110-plus-degree temperatures in Palm Springs and ceded the overall lead by more than nine minutes. Still, the team has a stage win in the bag and other riders ready to step up. On Monday morning, director Hilaire VanDer Schueren nearly dismissed the team’s GC chances, pointing toward the squad’s stage hunters.

“OK, we have … we have Wiestra, for the general classification,” he said. “We have the other guys for the other stages.”

Chief among those “other guys” are Juan Antonia Flecha, the Spanish opportunist, and Giro d’Italia stage winner Thomas De Gendt. De Gendt fell off the pace on Sunday, finishing nearly 18 minutes down. He did the same on Monday before Westra lost contact on the Tramway Road finish climb. Last year, De Gendt rode to a dazzling third place in the Giro d’Italia after a legendary stage win in the Italian Alps.

California marks the first race back in a month for De Gendt, who was suffering from a knee injury.

“I don’t know how the shape is. I have been training in the mountains a lot the last three weeks, so normally the shape is ok, but I don’t know if it’s good enough for the overall victory,” he said just prior to the start on Sunday. He soon found out that it was not.

“I think the top favorite is [Tejay] van Garderen,” he said. “He is beatable. Everybody is beatable. But he’s in his home country, and he’s very good climber, good time trialist. So it’s going to be hard to beat him.”

De Gendt and now Westra will turn their attention away from keeping pace with van Garderen and new overall leader Janier Acevedo (Jamis-Hagens Berman) on a daily basis. Instead, they’ll look to deliver another stage win and, hopefully, a new sponsor for the Dutch team.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (VN) — It would be easy for Timmy Duggan (Saxo-Tinkoff) to blame cycling for all the bad luck he’s had — all the crashes, one of which nearly killed him in 2008, and another recent tumble at the Santos Tour Down Under that broke his leg and stopped the U.S. national champion’s spring campaign before it had begun.

He won’t do it. Duggan said on Monday that he’s riding back into form, and that the bad falls that seem drawn to him are only part of the sport, the same luck every other rider must deal with at one point or another.

“I think my story’s not dissimilar from a lot of riders. I mean, injuries are part of the game, especially in this sport. If there’s anything I’ve learned, you have to have the lows to have the highs. So, it’s how it goes,” he told VeloNews before the start of stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California.

After a three-month racing break, Duggan returned at the Presidential Tour of Turkey in late April, and then came to California.

“It’s good. I’m just kind of lacking a little bit of consistency,” he said. “It’s hard to jump in and be perfect. Like Turkey, I got better each day, and kind of rode into the race. [Sunday] was my 12th day of racing in seven months. It comes along, but you can’t rush it and force it. I think I’ll only feel a little bit better over the course of the week as the days go by.”

Duggan’s main charge in California is to look after GC man and former winner Michael Rogers. After that, his eyes will turn to defending his national title in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

“California was definitely my first big goal. So I’m kind of just arriving here with some form by the skin of my teeth,” he said. “So we’ll see how the rest of the week goes. Obviously, our primary goal is getting another win here for ‘Mick’ Rogers. And then we’ve got national championships next week in Chattanooga, where I’ll be looking to defend my title there. And then, over to Europe for the rest of the season to start out at the Dauphiné. I’m looking forward to a strong rest of the season, and hoping to get back into form there.”

Race radio indicated that Duggan hit the deck again on Monday, but he later appeared back with the bunch, pedaling onward. And that’s becoming normal, for Duggan at least.

“I had to press the reset button and take a second off. If anything, I’m more fresh mentally and motivated than I’ve ever been this time of year,” he said.

ESCONDIDO, California (VN) — Gavin Mannion came across the finish line in Escondido after a searing stage 1 of the Amgen Tour of California, salt outlines upon his kit, salt falling from his hair.

Riders trickled in for minutes, some unclipped, suffering from cramps. Jeff Louder (UnitedHealthcare) says he probably drank 30 bottles on the 100-degree, 165km stage around Escondido.

“The weather was the biggest factor today. It’s over 90 degrees, and this is the first time this year that most of us have raced in these conditions. It was just impossible to stay hydrated enough today,” Mannion said. “One of the hardest stages I’ve ever done. There’s salt everywhere; I think my hand was cramping coming into the finish.”

All day the temperatures around Escondido hovered around 100 degrees, and one team had to stop and buy more water at a gas station, having gone through its 150 bottles.

“It was like a blast furnace. It was nice on the climb up Palomar, but as we descended, you could just feel it getting hotter and hotter and hotter. It was like going into hell a bit,” Louder said.

“I think, particularly for everybody — most everybody — this is the first time they’ve felt this. A month ago I was in Belgium, where it didn’t go over 40 degrees. Now it’s 90. There’s a difference.”

The Southern California heat thinned a weary peloton, melting even the current road world champion, Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing), who eased off the gas late in the stage.

“I think it’s really, really tough,” said Bontrager director Axel Merckx. “You can see them finishing here. Everybody’s dehydrated, overheated. It’s 105 degrees. It’s the first stage; it’s a hard stage. When you see guys like Philippe Gilbert just give up with 10Ks to go because it’s too hot? It’s really tough.”

What’s even worse for the withered peloton is that Monday’s stage into Palm Springs is anticipated to be hotter still — and finishes on a climb. The predicted high in Palm Springs Monday? One hundred and nine degrees.

“It’s going to be brutal,” Merckx said. “Finishing uphill. It’s going to be really tough. But it is what it is. It’s the same for everybody. These young guys, they’re excited to be here, they’ll recover the best they can and make it a really good race.”

Alexander Candelario paused in the shaded finish, and dumped water over his head, letting it run down his face. Asked how hot it felt, he laughed.

“In the overall picture, I think it wasn’t that hot. But I think it’s the first hot day for everyone, so it was really hot,” he said. He lost track of how much water he’d drunk after 15 bottles.

“And I didn’t even take a pee once,” he said. “And tomorrow’s going to be even hotter.”