The Amgen Tour of California has brought the drama and excitement of a professional bicycle stage race to Santa Rosa since the race’s inception in 2006.  The world’s top professional teams compete over a nine-day 700-mile race on a route that includes the California redwoods, wine country, and the pacific coast.  Santa Rosa’s own Levi Leipheimer is the current reigning champion for 3 years straight.

Each year, the city of Santa Rosa competes with more than 50 cities for the right to be a host city.  The collaboration between the City of Santa Rosa, the Santa Rosa Convention and Visitors Bureau, the cycling community, local business sponsors and fans have made this possible for the last 4 years.

Join us in making the Keep The Tour Santa Rosa campaign a success by helping us raise the $175,000 need to be a host city next year.

Let’s make it happen AGAIN in 2010.

Where’s Your Twenty?

re-published with permission: Bike Monkey
(http://www NULL.BikeMonkey NULL.net)by Carlos Perez

“Levi Wins Grass Hopper,” the headline read on March 10th’s morning’s Press Democrat, “[...]on his mountain bike[...]” the excerpt went on to say. I had to laugh at the double meaning of the age-old term “grasshopper” when it’s miss-written as two words. But all that kidding aside, it made me think: we’ve come to a point in our prominence as a cycling culture that a local training ride is gaining national exposure, and a few local cyclists are being recognized for taking part, even if the media is getting it wrong (the Grasshopper is not a race, and it’s not on mountain bikes) all eyes are on us, and with enough of the same they’ll get it right, sooner or later.

That very next evening the Sizzling Tandoor restaurant in Santa Rosa played host to pro racers Levi Leipheimer and Scott Nydam who were joined by BMC Team Manager Gavin Chilcot and Team Swift Junior Development Manager Laura Charameda. They were there to show support for the City’s efforts to kick-start the fund-raising needed to return the Tour of California to Santa Rosa in 2010. During a Q&A session, questions were fielded by Bike Monkey’s Contributing Editor Yuri Hauswald. When the panel was asked what they thought of the importance the Tour had on Santa Rosa’s city streets the response was a unanimous “it belongs here”.

One response that rang through was that of Scott Nydam when he explained to the crowd of approximately 75 patrons that the Tour of California has built a connection between the racers and their community.

Prior to the Tour of California’s appearance in Sonoma County the average person hardly knew of Levi Leipheimer and Scott Nydam because the media coverage of the cycling world was pinned down to the things that were already capturing peoples attention: The Tour de France on the boob tube. Joe and Jill didn’t know who Levi Leipheimer was until he stood on the podium after winning stage 19 of that very race in 2007, and subsequently caught on that this guy’s hometown was their own Santa Rosa, and that he was racing on those city streets just months prior at the first ever Tour “de” California–Tour de what?

The following year the number of people who came out to watch the Tour of California in Santa Rosa was staggering, and what transpired was the introduction of a new sport in the state for hundreds of thousands of people who previously didn’t even know what a peloton was. Shortly thereafter shops started selling bikes, lots of bikes. Things have been moving so fast over the past four years to boost our presence as a world-class cycling destination that our collective understanding of what’s happening hasn’t been able to keep up. So what is happening?

The Tour of California has created a frenzy of excitement amongst the public who has finally come around to clamoring for a chance to meet and shake the hands of their new local heroes, idols and inspirations. It took three solid years of repeat performances by a guy who has been kicking ass since 2001 when he finished third at the three week long Vuelta a España, the youngest of the three major Grand Tours at 79. The other two grand races are the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France both in existence for over a century.

The Tour of California is a newborn and already has had a staggering impact on the public perception of cycling as a competitive sport in the United States, and we need it to stick. Because something that’s as young as this that has had a greater impact than races that have been around for a century is an indicator that it’s off to a good start.

The tour isn’t just good for the public perception of cycling either–it’s encouraging a shift in what people choose to do for recreation and entertainment; it’s bringing international recognition to Sonoma County as a destination for tourism and cycling; it was the catalyst for three major professional teams to choose Santa Rosa as the host to their winter training camps.

Considering that the event was attended by 12,000 spectators in just the downtown square area in 2008 during good weather (and still a respectable 8,000 during the downpours of 2009) one could average that figure and say that 10,000 individuals will go out of their way to spectate in Santa Rosa during the TOC. This hardly accounts for the scores of spectators county-wide that lined the rest of the route leading into Santa Rosa on February 15th. That puts the cost per head at well less than $15/person for the biggest, and most impactful 1-day event that our county hosts all year.

WHAT IT REALLY TAKES

That evening at Sizzling Tandoor patrons raised $3,600 putting the average of what fanatics are willing to fork over for an event of this magnitude at $50/head. Or put another way, three quarters of one percent of the total spectator population paid for 2.4% of the return of the TOC in about 2 hours flat.

The Tour will cost $175,000 for its return in 2010. But what it can return to us over the long haul is invaluable, and not yet fully realized: tourism and investment, more businesses, and ultimately higher tax revenues that will school our kids, keep our streets safer, clean up our environment, build better alternative transportation and bike infrastructure, and tend to the bucolic country roads that give us so many safe and wonderful places to ride.

Imagine that all of those things could come from a few seeds of inspiration and guidance, one of which being the Tour of California–our road map for Sonoma County’s Joe and Jill to embrace cycling as a pillar of growth and pride in our community.

It’s got my twenty (and then some). What about yours?