California vs. Italia

For me this is usually a no brainer – I’d take Cali every time. But this week, California, or I should say, the Amgen Tour of California really screwed up. Cycle racing has a very longstanding tradition in Europe. Many races there go back over a hundred years. No car support back then, but that’s a story for another day. Today’s story is that for some idiotic reason, this year’s Tour of California was scheduled right in the middle of the Giro d’Italia – one of the three Grand Tours in the sport of cycling along with France and Spain. I love the tour of California and I thought it was great when they held it in Feb/March as they did for the first three years, or is it four now – whatever, it’s a very young race. It was awesome to crush the pros early in the season and show off California to the world as an epic place to cycle with wind and rain and snow and sun and killer mountains and huge crowds, etc. But scheduling it not only in the height of cycling season but in the middle of the Giro is really in poor taste and stepping on European toes. I shake my upward curled fingers at you ATofC.