The AMGEN Tour of California is back in Santa Cruz again this year, but this year springtime and hopefully the cold, wind, and rain will be replaced with beautiful days like today. Charlotte headed down to the finish area at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk with some friends.

While Gabe and I camped out on Bonny Doon Road to catch the riders struggling up this great climb. Gabe made a very nice ecologically correct road sign saying "Go Levi". Meanwhile plenty of local riders headed past us to find their spot to watch the race.

Charlotte joined Sally and friends for the cancer walk along West Cliff to the finish line.

Matt and Allison were showing off the unbelievably cool surfboard, made by local legend Doug Haut, the city was giving to the winner of today's stage.

Back on the mountain, Levi, Zabriskie, and Rogers are the first guys to come by. Not far behind were Lance and other notable riders. We also enjoyed the crazy afro guy with a cape.

It took quite some time for all the other riders to come by, but plenty of well known faces like Hincapie pedaled past.

Finally the main peloton rolled through. Thanks to Dmitriy Muravyev from Radio Shack for tossing his water bottle right at Gabe's feet. It's now his favorite bottle on his rides.

And finally it's the procession of team cars.

Back at the finish Charlotte gets to see the three front runners scream towards the line, with Dave Zabriskie getting to take home that sweet surfboard.