Luciano Pagliarini (BRA), First Place, Stage 6
Saunier Duval-Scott
On his win:
“I am very happy for my win, but it is not as good, considering the circumstances. It is good for my overall standings. I am so sorry for (Mark) Cavendish. I know High Road must be very disappointed.”

On today’s race:
“There was a lot of confusion during last kilometer, but during the breakaway, it was easy because I had a teammate in the front. I was ready for the sprint. This win was good for us.”

On representing Brazil:
“I’m so happy for Brazil. We need to show the world that we play more than just soccer; I hope to show them at the Olympics. I carry the Brazilian flag with me because I am proud. Brazil has so many riders and teams, and we are starting to be noticed. This win was very important, not only for me, but my country.”

Levi Leipheimer (USA), General Classification Leader
Astana
On today’s race:
“It’s sweet to be near the prize, but it’s never over until we cross the finish line. I think today’s race went exactly how I imagined it. I was confident that (David) Millar would try to do something in the end. I tried to look for him; I had Chris (Horner) go up to the front to close the gap. It just shows how strong the team really is.”
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After two very high-stress days for the peloton, today’s sixth stage 109 mile (175km) run from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita came as a welcome relief. “Today’s stage was defined by a breakaway that all major players in the field, including BMC, were comfortable with,” Gavin Chilcott reported after the stage.

With no major general classification candidates, nor any riders too close to Scott Nydam’s King of the Mountain’s jersey, the composition of the breakaway allowed BMC to relax a bit for the day and conserve resources for the final push into Pasadena tomorrow.

The team is the star

With just one stage to go, BMC can feel confident in its overall results, even if they have not completely escaped unscathed. “The breakaway today was good for us because no one was a danger for our ambitions,” John Lelangue said from the team car. “Scott feels well, Moos is in a good position, though we unfortunately lost Tony Cruz and Darren Lill today to sickness.” With Cruz and Lill falling victims to the illnesses so prevalent in this year’s TOC, Danilo Wyss, BMC’s promising young sprinter will have to fend for himself on the final stage. “We will continue to work for our ongoing goals,” Chilcott explained. To expand on this point, Lelangue said, “Alex is in a very good position and is feeling well. Scott was strong all day and was able to gain early King of the Mountain points.” His efforts have all but secured the jersey. “The team secured this jersey, really. If you add up all the points that team mates of mine have taken for the jersey, it is probably more than what I earned” Nydam humbly countered when asked how it feels to be in his current position. “It feels amazing. Getting through today, which was the hardest day for me yet, was a bit of a relief.”
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Levi Leipheimer (USA), General Classification Leader and Stage 5 Winner
Astana
On today’s race:
“It was another great day for me here in Solvang. I’m just so happy and proud. I gave it my all today. Every time I had my doubts, I just told myself to do my best. The sign of a good time trial is that you don’t remember a lot of it, and I don’t remember a lot from today. Fortunately, I knew the course well, so I knew how to pace myself; I knew I had something left towards the end. With every kilometer, I was just yelling at myself to keep going. When I came to the last corner, I just hoped I didn’t crash since I was a little cross-eyed. This may be an even bigger win for me this year.”

“I gave 100 percent today. I didn’t hold back. I took the corners great, pushed myself in all the right places; the only fight I had to win was the one in my head.”

On wearing the Amgen Leader Jersey:
“I’ll try to defend this to the end since my team has done everything to put me in this place. They’ve been amazing all through the race, and yesterday, they were in front for nearly seven hours, so today I didn’t want to let them down.”

On how he felt before today’s time trial:
“To be honest, I was nervous. I’m not going to try and act like I’m a machine; I had my doubts. I just told myself to do my best. I knew it was going to be ugly, but I knew I’d fight. I wanted to show that we’re a fighting team and we’re not going to back down. I trained all winter for this. Astana has something to prove. We are the best team in the world and we need to be in the big races.”
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After yesterday’s epic slog down the California coast, the race remained very tight. Barely a cough separated the first ten riders on the General Classification which meant that the 15 mile (24km) Individual Time Trial around Solvang would once again play a very important role in the composition of the final GC. BMC’s Alex Moos having managed his resources very well all week, succeeded at delivering an excellent performance.

One of his best time trials ever

According to John Lelangue, the BMC Racing Team had every reason to be happy today. “We are happy with the results today,” Lelangue said after the race. “Alex put in a very good time trial, particularly since he is not a specialist at flat courses such as these. He generally excels much more in climbing TTs.” With a field heavily stacked with some of the best time trialists in the world today, the task of keeping close was indeed daunting. “Looking at the finishing times, especially when we remove Leipheimer who is probably the best time trialist around at the moment, Alex’s time is very competitive,” Lelange reported. “For example, I don’t think Alex has ever finished so close to Cancellara.” When reached for comment, Alex Moos said, “I’m not entirely certain where I am placed on the GC after this, but things went well on the course and I am very content with my efforts.”
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The BMC Racing team brought its A-game and hoped for big results for the Amgen Tour of California.

The squad announced their presence loudly in the first stage with the Jackson Stewart solo breakaway delivering the first of the King of the Mountains and the Most Aggressive jersey to the team. The story continued in stage 2, where the team protected Jackson’s KOM classification, and also won the Most Aggressive award again through the solo breakaway of Scott Nydam.

In the third stage, Scott Nydam again went on the attack early resulting in successfully defending the KOM jersey and Alex Moos finished ninth in the main chase group behind the two stage leaders.

The team was hit with bad luck during stage 5, as Jackson Stewart unexpectedly abandoned the race due to hypothermia after gobbling up all the KOM points on the day. The KOM jersey reverted to his team mate Nydam and after five stages in the bad, Alexander Moos in very good position in the General Classification at 29 seconds from the leader.

BMC has thus far escaped catching the highly contagious stomach bug which has decimated several other teams in the race. I caught up with some of the BMC riders before the start of the to-be miserable stage 5 to get their thoughts.

Tony Cruz


About the team plan for the rest of the week
Now we have a GC contender with Alex so we have to pay attention to where he’s at all times to make sure he’s always in contention, still try and go for the stage, that would be good for the team, and protect the KOM jersey. It’s big. I think we can do Alex and KOM, we’ll focus on the third if we can.

About attempting another break in the stage
I don’t know, we’ll see, going to let the other teams do some stuff and try and work with them, no more solo stuff.

About his form
Not too bad. Believe me, I was tired (after stage 4), that was a hard stage, to be expected.
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Photos by Stephanie Gutowski

Photo by Ken Conley

San Luis Obispo, CA - High peaks and cold troughs

When the weather forecast called for rain, probably few believed that the weather would play such a painfully decisive roll in today’s stage. But the ride from Seaside to San Luis Obispo which had been touted as 135 miles (217 km) of the prettiest scenery in the United States, turned into a day of wet, cold and windy misery that few racers will forget quickly.

If the fact that stomach flu is flying through the peloton and race caravan is not unsettling enough, the riders today had to spend seven hours doing their best just to survive the day. Jackson Stewart again figured among the racers who animated the early part of the stage. He, along with team mate Danilo Wyss found their way into what turned into the break of the day. Jackson then proceeded to win all top mountain points on each of the three rated climbs. The only snag was that he realized a little late that his body had reached the point where it was no longer able to maintain a healthy temperature.

Jackson, it may seem too obvious a question, but how do you feel now?
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Photo by Tim De Waele

If one speaks to any young American-based cycling team which is about to race in a field heavily weighted with European Pro Tour teams, it would be likely that the team’s goal would be to finish well placed among the elite, international group. Indeed at the beginning of the Tour of California, Alex Moos represented the BMC racing team’s best chance at matching the Pro Tour teams over the week of racing.

Today’s Stage 3 from Modesto to San José posed the first substantial road block in every team’s path for classification success in the 2008 Tour of California. Overcoming the hilly challenges, Moos finished the stage in ninth place, only 20 seconds behind the stage winner. Team Manager, Gavin Chilcott was pleased with Moos’ performance today, and upbeat about his chances in the upcoming Time Trial, “It’s hard to predict just what we can expect from Alex and the time trial. We haven’t seen the revised course, but since a hill has been added to last year’s course, that should play to our advantage,” Chilcott said.

Alex, were you happy with your performance today?

Alexander Moos: Oh, well it was a very difficult day with several extremely challenging climbs. But the team had a strategy and for the most part, all went according to plan. With the climbs I just went all out, and held on for the finishing chase. I am very content with the stage result.

Do you feel you have a good chance to keep your position with the coming time trial?

AM: Well, we will have to see. It is not a specialty of mine and I have not had a chance to preview the new bits to the course. But I will do my best and hope that will be enough to keep me in contention.

Do you have your sights set on trying to win a particular stage this week?

AM: It is very difficult to predict. There are so many riders who also want to win here, and we are already half way through the event. One has always to believe that it will be possible, but we will see. On verra.

Tyler Farrar (USA), General Classification Leader
Slipstream Chipotle Presented by H30
On today’s race:
“Today played out exactly how we hoped it would. We didn’t know what the breakaway situation would be, but we were lucky with the bonuses being late in the stage. The team was amazing today. They delivered me perfectly to every bonus sprint, which made my job really easy.”

On today’s win:
“This win probably tops any win I’ve ever had; it’s a pretty big deal for me. I’m ecstatic to be racing in America, and to be wearing the Amgen Leader Jersey is a big deal for me and for the team; everyone is really happy.”

On tomorrow’s race:
“Tomorrow will be a hard day with the mountain climbs, but we have a few riders who are well positioned. My hope is that I’ll be handing the Amgen Leader Jersey to one of my teammates tomorrow.”

On racing in the rain today:
“I actually don’t mind the rain. I generally excel in these types of conditions. You can’t dwell too much on what can happen; if you do that, you can’t do your job.”

On the level of competition in the race:
“If you look at the field of riders competing in the Amgen Tour of California, it just goes to show that this race is on par with the best races in the world. You can’t get any better than the riders we have here. It’s actually a bit surreal for me to be racing against some of the greatest athletes in cycling. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. To have guys of such high caliber backing me up is a huge encouragement. In particular, getting to race with Mario (Cipollini) is pretty cool. He was my hero when I was a kid, so it’s a little crazy.”

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Sacramento, CA., – Bissell Pro Cycling held tough through sporadic showers during Stage Two’s 187.2 kms Santa Rosa to Sacramento jaunt to finish with the bunch and maintain their solid fifth place overall team standing. Positioning themselves safely in the front with cycling’s sprint giants, Richie England and Garrett Peltonen finished out the day in 14th and 15th respectively.

BPC remains the top ranked US Continental team in the 2008 Amgen Tour of California, well ahead of many European Pro Tour teams.

The eight-man BPC team received the same finishing time as today’s stage winner, Tom Boonen, putting them just three seconds ahead of his squad, Team Quick-Step, in overall standings. Jacques-Maynes holds onto tenth in GC.

According to Director Sportiff, Glen Mitchell, “All the guys are feeling good. There seems to be a number of different cold and flu strains going around in the Peloton and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it stays at bay. Once one gets something, it tends to spread like wildfire.”

Added Team Manager, Mark Olson, “Spirits are high. Thus far, we’ve having an exceptional Tour.” He continued, “We did what we could today against the big boys and fact of the matter is, we were up there in good position, banging elbows with the world’s best sprinters. Glen and I really couldn’t ask for anything more.”

RANDOM TEAM NOTES: Team BISSELL’S Head Mechanic, Ben Oliver, was one of the unfortunate of the traveling cycling circus to have caught a nasty flu bug. During yesterday’s Stage from Sausalito to Santa Rosa, he spent the better part of the day with his head tucked into a make-shift ‘motion sickness’ bag. Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s Bob Padecky was along for the ride and journaled the days events, including Oliver’s ill-fate, in today’s paper for all reader’s to see. According to Team Mark Olson, Oliver, while not feeling 100%, is quickly improving.