The city of Bakersfield rolled out the red carpet for the Amgen Tour of California time trial and on a beautiful, but boiling hot today, there was some dramatic twists and turns that took place. While lacking the rolling green beauty that makes up the more familiar (and previous) ToC TT site of Solvang, the Bakersfield course nonetheless proved tough and worthy of a Pro effort. After winning the first four stages, Peter Sagan not only lost a stage win, but the overall lead as well.

STAYING COOL

All the the riders had their own idea about dealing with the heat. Levi Leipheimer was the most advanced with an electric powered ice vest that Dr. Allan Lim kept re-filling as Levi warmed up.


Team Rabobank relied on ice bags under the jersey to stay cool.


The BMC team went primitive with a Park hammer and chunks of ice.


Garmin-Barracuda set up huge fans and team director Jonathan Vaughter's kicked in with a spray mister to keep his soon to be race leader David Zabriske cool.


On one end of the pits sat the RadioShack Nissan team with a particularly old fella warming up. Who'da thunk that the great Jens Voigt would pull off a second overall in the TT?!


On the opposite end of the pits and age bracket was the Bontrager-LiveStrong team...a bunch of scrappy kids who have shown the utmost sense of race vet savvy throughout the race. A good bunch of kids.


The Liquigas Cannondale bikes definitely take the notion of "system integration" seriously.

TT FEET: FAST & FURIOUS

Peter Sagan, Liquigas Cannondale


Heinrich Hausler, Garmin Barracuda


Freddy Rodriguez, Team Exergy


Ben Jacques-Maynes, Bissell Cycling


Markel Irizar Aranburu, RadioShack-Nissan


Luis Leon Sanchez, Rabobank


Peter Velits, Omega Pharma-QuickStep


George Hincapie, BMC Racing


Lawson Craddock, Bontrager Livestrong


Marc De Maar, UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling