Amgen Tour of California

Stage 7: Santa Clarita to Pasadena

My goal today was to watch the race from a good location and to get Mark Cavendish's autograph. Well, we made it to Pasadena late, just in time, and found a great place to watch the 5 laps around the Rose Bowl, at the decent of the hill about the 3K mark from the finish. We had a awesome view as the riders came towards us.

Here's the 10 man break away with George Hincapie.

3+ minutes behind was the peleton with Astana at the front.

See Lance Armstrong in the front?

There's Levi Leipheimer in the yellow jersey.

Here's the second lap with George in the lead.

Loren holding a water bottle one of the riders threw towards her.

Here's the peleton again

We decided to walk all the way down the hill to see if we would have a better view.

After the end of the race we hiked to the finish line to the team buses with the probablility of not likely to zero chance of having a picture autographed by Mark. Well somehow we found where the team buses were parked and made our way around until we found the Columbia bus. It was swarmed with fans waiting to get a glimps of Geroge Hincapie or Mark Cavendish.

I made my way around to the door of the bus, for some reason there weren't as many people there. Not to long after a CHP officer came out of the bus door and walked passed me. My daughter Loren was right behind me, I turned when I heard her talking to someone, it was the CHP officer. It turned out it that the CHP officer was Mark, a fellow cyclist she knows from the Encino Veledrome. They talked for a little bit and then she asked Mark if he could help me get an autograph from Mark Cavendish. He said sure. Officer Mark took the picture from me and my Sharpie and then went back into the bus. I could hear him talking to Mark Cavendish and then next thing I knew he handed it back to me autographed!

Here's the autographed picture!

(I took the picture with my cell phone, I haven't had a chance to scan it. )

Someone else asked Officer Mark if he would do the same thing for them, he said sorry, I would be here all day if I did. All I can say is it really helps to have a daughter who is a cyclist!

Loren with Michael Berry

A little bit latter George Hincapie came out of the bus and he was swarmed for autographs.

Then as the bus started to drive away Mark Cavendish opened a window, people began swarming the window to get an autograph.

Needless to say, it was a great day!