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Rock Racing's Francisco Mancebo wins after a long soggy day
Cancellara drops out; Mancebo solos most of the day in frigid, wet conditions, then outsprints his chasers.
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Rock Racing's Francisco Mancebo won stage 1 of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California, a 107.6-mile stage held in brutal weather that not only affected racers, but the race itself. A long, Hail Mary solo effort earned Mancebo the stage and the leader’s jersey, and put Astana and the rest of the teams on the defensive, with a shattered field coming into the drenched finishing circuits in Santa Rosa. At day’s end, the list of general classification contenders shortened drastically, to those among the 18 riders who finished 67 seconds behind Mancebo.
“When I attacked I just wanted to keep going because of the cold,” Mancebo said through a translator. “I wanted to maintain warmth. And slowly, I started speeding up, feeling more confident about being ahead. At 5km before the finish I almost gave up, but just kept going.”
Stage 1, Davis to Santa Rosa 173.4 km (107.8 miles)
Winner: Francisco Mancebo (Rock Racing)
Leader: Mancebo
Winner's average speed:41.4 kph (25.7 mph)
Rabobank Best Young Rider: Robert Gesink (Rabobank)
Best Team: Astana
Herbalife Sprint Leader: Jurgen Van de Walle (Quick Step)
Amgen Couragous Award: Ivan Basso
California King of the Mountains Leader: Tim Johnson (OUCH)
Peloton: Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) and Tadej Valjavec (Ag2r) dropped out, leaving 134 riders.
Up next: Stage 2's 116 miles from Sausalito to Santa Cruz starts with a trip across the Golden Gate Bridge
Poor weather grounded the race’s communications plane, which relays signals from the start, the finish and the race caravan in between. Without it, and with mountains in between the caravan and the finish, tip-to-tail communication was often nonexistent.
For race fans at the finish and at home watching television, that meant no video from the race. For the racers, that meant less-than-normal information from race radio. (Team directors listen to race radio in their cars, and then relay that information to their riders who wear earpieces.) Some riders, like Levi Leipheimer, said they often didn’t know what the time gaps were. But most importantly, race director Jim Birrell wasn’t able to communicate from the rainy finish until riders were at mile 80 that the race was effectively being shortened for weather by 9.3 miles to a 98.3-mile competition.
After a major crash on the same finishing circuit halted a huge chunk of the peloton in 2007, race organizers retroactively awarded all finishers then the time they had when they entered the first of three circuits. This year, to avoid such a situation and keep riders safe through the dicey course where traffic dots litter the road, Birrell made the in-flight decision to shorten the race.
After completing the trek over three categorized climbs, riders did three 3.1-mile circuits in Santa Rosa, where thousands of animated fans packed the course in rain gear. But instead of their times being taken at the finish of the last lap, their times were given as the crossed the line for the first time. Mancebo — and later Vincenzo Nibali (Liguias) and Jurgen Van de Walle (Quick Step) — raced all three laps until the finish for the stage honors, but the times were taken from the first time across the line.
With the morning race leader Fabian Cancellara dropping out early in the day with a fever, Mancebo handily took the leader’s jersey, plus the points and climber’s jerseys to boot. Two-time race leader Leipheimer is now in second overall, 62 seconds back, with David Zabriskie (Garmin-Slipstream) in third, Michael Rogers (Columbia-Highroad) in fourth, and Lance Armstrong (Astana) in fifth, 65 seconds back.
Howling on Howell Mountain
Mancebo went clear almost immediately out of Davis on what looked to be a suicide move. With a steady rain beating down, Tim Johnson (OUCH) and David Kemp (Fly V) set off in pursuit, and worked many miles before catching him. Just after mile 60, the big climb began up Howell Mountain. It was here where Mancebo shed Johnson and Kemp, and later, Astana shed all but about 20 men from their chase group.
With Armstrong, Chris Horner, José Luis “Chechu” Rubiera and Leipheimer, Astana was the best-represented team in the select chase group over the top of Howell. Armstrong and Leipheimer both pointed to Horner as the man who saw the danger with Mancebo and cracked the whip on the climb. “He killed us,” Armstrong said.
Leipheimer said other teams didn’t seem too concerned about Mancebo.
“It was just really bad communication,” Leipheimer said. “We didn’t know any of the time gaps. In the end, Chris Horner, we have to thank him, because he was really astute. He hit the gas. Then we started panicking, asking the other teams to help. They didn’t get it. They were like, why? We were like, Mancebo still has four or five minutes. Really? Nobody knew anything. Miscommunication and race radio, maybe, I don’t know. In the end they rode fantastic.”
Those in the group included Andy Schleck and Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank), Thomas Lövkvist and Michael Rogers (Columbia-Highroad), Tom Danielson and Zabriskie (Garmin-Slipstream), Kevin Seeldraeyers and Van de Walle (Quick Step), Robert Gesink and Bauke Mollema (Rabobank), Ivan Basso and Nibali (Liquigas), Floyd Landis, Rory Sutherland and Pat McCarty (OUCH) and Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing).
Leipheimer, the two-time race winner, said he wasn’t concerned with what was happening behind his group.
“And that’s the difference between us and the rest of the teams,” he said. “We were more focused on Mancebo, and everybody else was thinking we were just trying to hold off the group behind, but we didn’t really care if they came back. We just wanted to bring back time (on Mancebo).”
Landis suffered a flat tire on the final descent into the finishing circuits, and wasn’t able to regain contact.
“The team did a great job,” Landis said. “We were exactly where we wanted to be. Caught a little bad luck at the end. Congratulations to Mancebo. He earned it today.”
With Mancebo’s sights set on the finish, Astana had their machine aimed at Mancebo.
“We were going hard downhill, but at the end it was full-on team time trial,” Armstrong said. “We had Johan yelling at us.”
Mancebo held his gap until the end, when he was caught inside the circuits by Nibali and then Van de Walle. At coming up from the underpass before the finish, Mancebo got the surprise jump on the pair and easily took the sprint.
A former grand tour rider — he finished sixth in the 2004 Tour de France and fourth in the 2005 Tour, and third in the 2005 Vuelta a España — Mancebo was banned from the 2006 Tour due to connections to the Operación Puerto doping case.
Asked about Puerto following the race, and how critics could perceive his victory in Santa Rosa, he answer was simple. “I’m very happy,” he said. “The whole world has seen (the stage win). And I have nothing else to say. I’m just happy and proud of what I did today.”
