Cycling (vicariously) through Solvang

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

SOLVANG -- Following behind Lance Armstrong during Stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California in a car is kind of like being a rock star’s exhaust fumes. You get to hear the group of teenage girls screeching ‘Lance,’ in voices pitched high enough to think Nickelodeon star Cody Linley is passing by; you get to see a man of at least 60 years of age curled up under a tree on the blind side of a curve with his major camera and big-time lens and an apparent wish to lose his legs, which dangled on the road so close that the cars chasing Lance almost had to swerve. The photo he got couldn’t be worth that.

And climbing up and down the green hills where people were waving flags and the road was chalked up with exhortations for all the riders and fans with good bottles of wine and fine cheeses and great looking picnics, there was the flavor of the Tour de France.

There was the flavor of California too. Lavender fields and then a llama ranch and another patch of grass with bison roaming. Big, fat cows turned their heads and seemed to ask, ‘Why go so fast?’ Dogs of all sorts -- a family from San Diego has traveled the whole race with their two Bernese Mountain Dogs and their Italian greyhound, Rocky -- sit well-behaved on their leashes. Media car driver Mike Livingston said he was amazed how all the dogs were on leashes. Leashes are less popular in France, but then dogs get hit by cyclists too.

The racing was almost as good as France too. Fast, faster, fastest, the last guy was the best. Levi Leipheimer won the time trial but Armstrong heard the loud crowd and complimented it. ‘Great, great, great,’ he said.

Now it’s on to Pasadena.

-- Diane Pucin