Tour of California Stage 2

As I predicted yesterday, Levi Leipheimer of the Astana Team attacked the peleton on the final big climb of the day, and although he finished second to Tom Peterson of Garmin-Sliptream, it was enough for him to take the overall lead by 0:24 from Michael Rodgers of  Team Columbia-Highroad.

For me, the stand-out performance of the day came from Dave Zabriskie, teammate of the day's winner, Tom Peterson. Dave is known as a time-trial specialist, and did well to finish in the main bunch alongside the likes of Lance Armstrong and Ivan Basso.

As an aside, it is still incredible to me to see the names of Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, Ivan Basso and Tyler Hamilton appearing on the same start list again. I never thought I would see the day.

General classification after stage 2           

1 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana                                   09:23:02

2 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia - Highroad     00:24

3 David Zabriskie (USA) Garmin - Slipstream                  00:28

4 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana                                00:30

5 Christopher Horner (USA) Astana                              00:34

6 Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana                                    00:38

7 Thomas Lövkvist (Swe) Team Columbia - Highroad      

8 José Luis Rubiera (Spa) Astana   

9 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas      

10 Robert Gesink (Ned) Rabobank                                00:39

11 Oscar Sevilla (Spa) Rock Racing

12 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team Saxo Bank                            00:40

13 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas                                       00:42

14 Thomas Danielson (USA) Garmin - Slipstream  

Thanks for reading.