“Each edition of the Amgen Tour of California is more challenging and more handsome than the last, and I’m excited to say that this year will be no exception”, said Kristin Klein, race president and executive vice president of AEG Sports.
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The City of Morro Bay will for the first time be a host city during next year’s Amgen Tour of California.
The race will depart this time from San Diego on May 15 and finish in Sacramento eight days later, with Wiggins full of praise for the route after it was announced on Thursday night. “Santa Barbara has always been a lovely city to start from, so to finish there it’s going to be gorgeous”.
The Tour is also skipping San Francisco for the third straight year – the city had hosted five stages between 2006 and 2013.
Peter Sagan won the 2015 event in May. The Amgen Tour of California Women’s Race will run concurrently during the latter stages of the Amgen Tour. Stage six of the women’s race will feature a team time trial around the same course.
Stage 3: Thousand Oaks-Santa Barbara County – Beginning near the headquarters of race sponsor Amgen, the stage ends with a first-time mountaintop finish at Gibraltar Road. “It’s actually one of the highlights of the year”, said retired professional cyclist Fred Rodriguez at the news conference. And this year, the Sacramento region is getting the big finish. In 2011, race officials had to cancel a stage in South Lake Tahoe because of a freak snowstorm. It includes the Folsom individual time trial in stage 6, which the Brit won on his way to his overall victory two years ago.
The race, which covers almost 800 miles, draws around 200 riders, many of whom are preparing for the Olympics or Tour de France, and receives global media attention. This year’s stage will incorporate a portion of the popular Levi’s GranFondo, with the men and women competing on different courses.
As an 8-time host, Sacramento has seen a few of the most exciting stages and race moments, and will up the ante for 2016 with the grand finale of both the men’s and women’s races for the first time.
“Amgen’s mission is to serve patients by developing and delivering innovative therapies for serious illness”.
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The race is known for giving exposure and revenue to the communities that it visits. “We fully understand the difficulty associated with accomplishing these changing route goals without also changing and varying the geography of the weeklong stage race”.
