slo tour

It's not everyday the world champion of your favorite sport takes a win in your own town. Yesterday Paolo Bettini, the current road race world champion took it right on Monterey Ave in front of the former Hudson's Grill (my family used to eat there when I was a kid coming over here from Fresno). This is my shot of him in the midst of the madness and you can see his distinctive rainbow jersey on the right of the peleton as they prepare to turn form Chorro onto Monterey in the picture below (as a side note I took this picture while simultaneously standing within ten feet of Levi Leipheimer's dad and being kicked by own beloved son who was freaked out by the utter roar of the crowd!)Below are two pictures I'm pretty proud of. On the left you see the picture I lined up and had all focused in on Levi in his gold jersey, when someone 10 yards in front of me put up their camera. I have lots of pics of cameras from yesterday, but none this good! On the right is my follow up picture. I'll probably get a call from VeloNews wondering if they can print this one in their Tour of California issue. What can I say?

go levi!

The Tour of California is back! My race favorite from last year, Levi Leipheimer, is once again in the lead. With his new place on the Discover Team, there's a pretty good chance he'll stay there until the end. If you have time, the peleton will be rolling into SLO between 3:00 and 4:30 this Thursday. Come by and check it out--this is the biggest international sporting event that comes to SLO town. It's likely the winner of the next Tour de France is among this bunch and the current World Champion will be there. See you downtown!