Dave Zabriskie during Friday's Stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California. Courtesy Anita Ritenour / Flickr.
American cyclists rolled in Friday to take the top three spots in Stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California.
Stage 6, the Individual Time Trial of the Amgen Tour of California came to a finish in the Santa Ynez Valley town of Solveng. Among the top three competitors were Americans Dave Zabriskie, Levi Leipheimer, and Tejay Van Garderen. Zabriskie, a native of Salt Lake City, finished Stage 6 in 30 minutes, 35.92 seconds, almost 14 seconds faster than Santa Rosa’s Leipheimer who finished in 30 minutes, 49.80 seconds. Tejay Van Garderen, of Tacoma, Washington placed third with a time of 31 minutes, 15.94 seconds.
Overall rankings, however, leave Dave Zabriskie 15th in the tour.
Saturday’s 75.8-mile race, slated to start at 11:45AM, is the second to last stage in the Tour of California. The race should finish at Mount Baldy at approximately 3:30, according to Amgen’s Tour map predictions. Billed as an extraordinarily difficult run, this year’s Stage 7 entails climbs exceeding 8% gradients.
Weather this weekend makes for mild riding conditions, with temperatures in race areas not expected to exceed 75 degrees.
This year marks the the sixth edition of the AEG-sponsored yearly tour, which, this year, spans from South Lake Tahoe to Thousand Oaks.
Contact Andrew Leonard at aleonard@californiabeat.org.
