Amgen Tour of California

I assume with the Giro running at the minute they're waiting for the start list to be some what final before adding it to the site. It saves having to update it every day when it changes.

Its been like that for a few days though, I will get worried if its not fixed by midweek. I have a team in as I did it the day the startlist came out. But decided I want to make a change or 2

the whole game seems to be having a very off day!
Bit like a sunday driver

Any idea why no riders are coming up on pick team page?

Do they do drug testing, sure I read that they didn't

I still laugh and laugh at this race.
One of AMGENs main money spinners is darbopoetin, which is related to EPO. I am sure this was deliberate by them,somebody with a sense of irony on the board. They also make life extending other drugs like monoclonal antibodies By...The...Way

It'll be interesting to see if Boonen's kept his form from the classics.

To be honest, the in-form Italians will be in the Giro, there may be a few sent to Cali, but i think they'll be there to keep race fitness up

Everyone seems to think the italians are in form at the moment, so, for california, i gotta pick from
NOCENTINI Rinaldo
DA DALTO Mauro
NIBALI Vincenzo
OSS Daniel
VANOTTI Alessandro

plus the in-favour danes
VANDBORG Brian

Nice one Gkam

If you open each stage from here
http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/Route/stages.html

Then scroll down and open stage log, you'll get something like this

http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/docroot/media/2012/12-AToC-Stage-1-...

Which lists the category of each climb in the red highlights

Does anyone know the categories of any of the climbs?
As I have an inclining that the climbs on the first few stages arn't as severe as they may seem on the picture of the stage

I imagine this race feels to me (being from America) like the Tour of Britain feels to many on this site.

This year's profile looks fascinating, because (like the Giro) the stages are just hard to categorize. Not sure there will be any classic bunch sprints. Last year there were two stages with several smaller climbs that were won by Peter Sagan (stage 5) and Matthew Goss (stage 8... Sagan was second).

Stages 1,3, and 4 especially resemble last year's stage 5 in difficulty, though the climbs this year are all considerably closer to the end of the stages and that could play a significant role.

That said, I can't imagine not having Peter Sagan on your team for the early stages at the very least.

As for the GC, it looks like Leipheimer will not race (still recovering from the broken leg), so Horner, Nibali and Van Garderen are certainly faves, but I would add either Danielson or Talansky from Garmin, possibly Nocentini from AG2R, and a couple of the US domestic team riders, Rory Sutherland from United Healthcare and Joseph Dombrowski from Bontrager Livestrong (who Lance Armstrong seriously jinxed yesterday by calling him the next great American climber).

Honestly, I'm not certain about Horner's form, but if I were to pick a favorite it is him. This race always seems to bring Americans to the top. If Garmin is riding for Talansky I would not be surprised if he were to win either.