Tour of California Cyclists To Race From South Pasadena to Santa Clarita

SOUTH PASADENA, CA - The lone stage of the Tour of California in Los Angeles County will be held Monday, with cyclists racing 92.3 miles from South Pasadena to Santa Clarita.

The stage will begin at 12:05 p.m. at 1017 Mission St., near Meridian Avenue. It is expected to conclude at 3:46 p.m. in front of the Santa Clarita Public Library, where a finish line festival will be held from 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

The stage is filled with long gradual climbs, including on the Angeles Crest (2) Highway and Big Tujunga and Little Tujunga canyons in the Angeles National Forest.

Peter Sagan of Slovakia, the race's defending champion, enters the stage with a four-second lead over American Michael Sheehan and Wouter Wippert of the Netherlands.

Sagan won the eight-stage, 792-mile race's initial stage, completing the 108-mile stage that began and ended in the Mission Bay area in four hours, 20 minutes, 41 seconds.

The cyclists will race 104.1 miles from Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara on Tuesday. The race will conclude next Sunday in Sacramento.

--City News Service, photo courtesy of Argem Tour of California