Logan was his name-o

These are Amanda and Doc Logan in Sacramento.



Logan blogs about cycling and other stuff from Sacramento. I've known him online for probably two or three years and it's always great to meet these people in person.

Amanda rides a Schwinn Madison; Logan's bike is an old Raleigh. Big props to them because this was at a big bike blogger meetup in Sacramento and these two were the only ones who *ahem* rode their bikes there.

Drop by and say hello to Logan.

Bike Shelter at Caltrain in Mountain View

Mountain View's Bike Shelter

Pretty full inside!

Proving that I don't always wear lycra

Mountain View has secure bike parking at the Caltrain station, within easy striking distance of Castro Street shopping or the Sunday Farmer's Market. On the rare occasion when I don't actually need my bike at my destination, the Bike Shelter is convenient for storage while I'm gone.

Inside the shelter, front wheels are to be lifted over racks that hang the bicycles vertically. The concept is a great space-saver and all, except that I can't lift the front wheel of my heavy commute bike that high, and the scheme isn't all that compatible with fenders. I locked to the side of the rack (middle photo above).

The Bike Shelter is accessible via a numeric keypad. Users get a code by visiting City Hall during business hours and paying a $25 deposit. As an MV resident, the convenience is well worth the fee.

What other cities have similar bike shelters near Farmer's Markets or transit?

Podium Girls Joanna and Kristen

Markus Neuert of CycleFilm asked Tour of California podium girls Kristen and Joanna about their important jobs on the stage race podium.


Meet Kristen and Joanna - Amgen Tour of California 2009 Podium Girls from Cyclefilm on Vimeo.

"My main job is to make sure they get on stage and that they get kissed by the podium girls."

Does anybody know how the whole "podium girls" tradition began?

Bike light strapped to the leg

This is Cold Iron of Alameda in the East Bay. He tried strapping his Planet Bike Super Flash bike light to his left ankle; I think it works pretty well. His bike is a Waterford; he also owns a Surly Big Dummy.



What are your unusual bike light mounting options?

Sacramento Cycle Chic

When I visited Sacramento the weekend before last, I met Loreno -- aka the Sac Cycle Chic -- and her husband David.



Lorena publishes the Sac Cycle Chic blog from Sacramento, where she encourages riding a bike for everyday travel in regular and even stylish clothing. Lorena's the kind of gal who's the life of the party. Drop by and say hello.

Lorena is also one of the co-founders of Bikeramento. Bikeramento’s mission is to propel Sacramento into the most bikeable city and region in the world.

As the capital of the most populous state in the United States, Bikeramento is in a strategic location to show lawmakers what a truly bike friendly city can look like. Bikeramento has some good people on board to push for good changes and I wish them luck in their mission.

Three is a magic number for Levi Leipheimer

Californian Levi Leipheimer wins his 3rd Amgen Tour of California Yellow Jersey - A record 2 million fans watched the race in person

After nine challenging and epic days of cycling through more than 750-miles of scenic California roads, and a thrilling fight to the finish, Levi Leipheimer (USA) of Astana was crowned champion of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California, solidifying a three-peat for the California resident. With a week-long total time of 31 hours, 28 minutes and 21 seconds, Leipheimer accepted the highly coveted title of race champion in front of massive cheering crowds in Escondido, which brought the race total to 2 million fans along the race route from Sacramento to Escondido. In a nine-day battle against the best field ever assembled to compete in the United States, which included Tour de France winners, Olympic medalists and World Champions, Frank Schleck (LUX) of Saxo Bank claimed the Stage 8 win.

Hear the Fredcast on Stage 8 and final results.

“I’ve been trying to think about how to articulate this and it’s tough,” said Leipheimer. “To win it once, that was huge. To win it twice, that was almost a little bit of a surprise and almost felt like luck. But now, to have won the Amgen Tour of California three times, it’s the sweetest victory of all. I think we proved that we were the best team in the race. There is no question about that.”



David Zabriskie (USA) of Garmin-Slipstream finished in second place overall at 36 seconds behind Leipheimer, and Michael Rogers (AUS) of Team Columbia-Highroad finished third at 45 seconds behind.

In one of the most difficult stages of the 2009 race, the 96.8-mile route from Rancho Bernardo to Escondido included one sprint and four King of the Mountain (KOM) climbs, including the ‘above categorization’ ascent of Palomar Mountain, the highest point ever reached in the Amgen Tour of California at 5,123 feet. The ascent unfolded over 11.7 miles and included 21 switchbacks at an average gradient of seven percent.

The Queen stage of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California began with an early breakaway of nine riders, which was split up a half hour later. Soon after, a second breakaway formed, which included Schleck and inaugural Amgen Tour of California winner Floyd Landis (USA) of Ouch Presented by Maxxis. Chased and eventually caught by the top-three riders in the general classification, Leipheimer, Rogers and Zabriskie, the breakaway included most of the top riders in the peloton.

Lined with fans, some of which had camped out for two nights to secure their spot to watch the cyclists compete in the final day of the race, Mount Palomar made the final stage of the race an extremely challenging course. Schleck opened up a gap on the descent, but was then joined by three additional riders to make a group of four. With Lance Armstrong (USA) of Astana setting a fast pace at the front of the field, the gap began to close. After riding in the breakaway for most of the day, Schleck battled Vincenzo Nibali (ITA) of Liquigas up to the finish line to take the final stage with the roar of cheering fans in Escondido in the background.

“The riding was furious today and I said, ‘I’m just going to go for it again’,” said Schleck. “On Palomar, that is where I attacked and got up to Andy (Schleck), and then he set a really hard pace. Really, for a guy like me, it took a big effort today for sure.”

Today’s stage brought a close to the competition for the Amgen Tour of California jerseys. The Amgen Leader Jersey was awarded to Leipheimer for the third consecutive year. In addition to winning the final stage of the race, Schleck claimed Amgen’s Breakaway from Cancer™ Most Courageous Rider Jersey. Mark Cavendish (GBR) of Team Columbia-Highroad retained the Herbalife Sprint Jersey and Rabobank’s Robert Gesink (NED) the Rabobank Best Young Rider Jersey. Jason McCartney (USA) of Saxo Bank held onto the climbing lead to take the California Travel & Tourism Commission King of the Mountain (KOM) Jersey. With a celebratory champagne fight on the awards stage, Astana claimed the overall team classification for the first time.

In addition to increased programming on VERSUS, the Amgen Tour of California Web site saw a significant increase in traffic during the 2009 race. Total visitors to the Web site topped 1.3 million in the month of February, compared to 777,000 in February 2008, and total page impressions for this month exceeded 5.1 million.

“We are enormously satisfied with the race,” said Andrew Messick, president, AEG Sports, presenter of the race. “We’ve had some epic racing, beautiful terrain and enormous crowds. The ratings for our television broadcast were up about 70 percent, we were broadcasting for twice as many hours and we were broadcast live all over the world. I think people have gotten a much closer and better perspective of the race and we hope they will return as fans next year.”

Full results, more photos, more news, more analysis and commentary from Steephill.TV.

COG Magazine anniversary hardcover edition

Peter DiAntoni publishes Cog Magazine, a print publication featuring good quality photos of fixed gear bikes and the people who ride them around the world. Cog has recently released their First Year Anniversary hardcover edition that I think makes a pretty nice gift for the bike geek in your life.

The magazine edition of Cog is available for free at a handful of bike shops throughout the United States, Canada, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan.