Tour of California proves cycling is gaining U.S. fans

	The inaugural eight-stage Tour of California wound southward along 700 miles of coast from San Francisco to Redondo Beach. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
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LOS ANGELES -- Angelenos driving on Sepulveda Boulevard around noon last Sunday could be forgiven their double takes. From the parking lot of the Marriott across from LAX, a steady stream of cyclists nosed their way onto Sepulveda, bound for Redondo Beach, six miles south, for the start of the seventh and final stage of the inaugural Amgen Tour of California.

That Sepulveda lacks a bike lane and could hardly be less velo-friendly seemed of no concern to the riders, all of whom arrived at the start without incident. That was in keeping with the kismet of this event, which led a charmed life from its first day.

Two days after snow fell on nearby Mount Tamalpais, the skies cleared over San Francisco just in time for the Feb. 19 prologue up Telegraph Hill, won by Californian Levi Leipheimer. Powering toward the next day's stage finish in Santa Rosa -- his hometown -- race leader Leipheimer was greeted by some 40,000 raucous fans, a reception that made the normally stoic Gerolsteiner team leader "a little choked up and speechless."

At this, the first major American stage race after the retirement of Lance Armstrong, there was an abundance of feel-good stories for fans of American cycling. The Discovery Channel's George Hincapie, Armstrong's former aide de camp, won a pair of stages. David Zabriskie and Bobby Julich of CSC finished second and third, respectively, then engaged in some lively press conference banter with overall winner Floyd Landis of Phonak/iShares.

Commenting on where this race might take riders in the future, the Reno-based Julich said, "I would like to go to the Lake Tahoe area."

"I would like to stay away from the Lake Tahoe area," rejoined Landis, envisioning brutal climbs in freezing weather.

"I would like to extend this race for 12 weeks," quipped Zabriskie, who is to cycling what Bill (Spaceman) Lee was to baseball. Zabriskie, who wore the yellow jersey for three days at the Tour de France last July, is not looking forward to the colder climes and more spartan hotels awaiting him in Europe, where the early season soon begins. He practically started shivering talking about a hotel room he stayed in during a recent Paris-Nice stage race.

"The heater was broken," he recalled. "A guy came in to fix it with a butter knife and a tin can."

"Didn't see a lot of that at the Marriott," Landis noted. While the Tour of Cali's course (700 miles) and crowds (1.3 million) were comparable to a one-week race in Europe, the hotels were markedly better.

"When you come into a room and you've got eight pillows to pick from -- the Euros love that," said Frankie Andreu, director of the Toyota-United team whose Juan Jose Haedo won two stages and proved the biggest surprise of the race.

The deep pockets behind those well-heated hotel rooms are those of Philip Anschutz, who has committed to this race for at least five years. Tim Leiweke, president of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, envisions an event on the scale of the Tour de France. "This is good," he said during Sunday's stage, "but we have a much bigger dream."

Never mind that three-week race in July; American cycling fans are delighted with this one-week race in February. A shortage of top-notch events in this country (April's Tour de Georgia is the only comparable stateside race) has long forced elite riders to race in Europe to prove themselves.

"Until we have class-A racing here," said Gerard Bisceglia, the head of USA Cycling, "the American public sees this sport as a novelty."

The novelty is wearing off. From the legions of Leipheimer fans in Santa Rosa to the signs on the road to the cycling clubs who set up parties along the course, Americans seem increasingly able to appreciate a good bike race. So what if they were turned on to the sport by a guy who no longer does it?

"Hopefully," said Landis, "we can keep them around."