Tales from the Tour of California
Written by Steven Cozza

The Tour of California was everything I expected it to be. I should have kept a journal everyday and I am sorry I did not do that but I will try and remember all that went on during the TOC.

Being back at the racing scene was great. Seeing guys that I had raced with all last year was nice. The world of professional cycling is like a little community in its self and we are all friends for the most part. It’s always been what happens in the race stays in the race, and I like that. The TOC is really early in the year so I made sure to have my racing legs ready to go in February rather than March. The first bit of racing was the 3 kilometer Prologue in San Francisco. It was a very short and hard all out effort up to Coit Tower. I had a very bad day and was pretty low on the moral scale. My teammate Jason came in 2nd overall, which was an awesome unexpected result from this up and coming talent. My low moral was quickly washed away because of how stoked I was over my teammate doing so well. On top of Jason’s great result, Taylor Tolleson ended up as the fasted young rider for the day (an inner competition for the u-23 year olds). This was a rough start for me but a great start for my team; Slipstream. At the prologue everyone just loved our Argyle style racing clothing. You can wear Argyle too if you go to our team web site which is a link at the bottom of my page. This stage race went by like a breeze and was over before I knew it.

Stage 1, from Sausalito to Santa Rosa was nice because it was on all the roads I had been training on since I started cycling. After having a pretty bad prologue I was assigned the job of team domestique (work horse) which was totally fine with me because you need to be really tough and strong to do the work of a domestique. The domestique’s job is to go back to the caravan and get food and bottles from the team cars for when the team needs to be refueled. The domestique also has the job of keeping his team’s leader out of the wind and bringing him to the front at times of need like before a hard climb or on a windy section. If it wasn’t for good domestique’s like George Hincapie, Lance Armstrong would not have won the Tour de France seven times. It’s nice to be a dominant rider, but it is also really nice to help out. I have always liked to do that and I can do it as well in cycling now for my team.

Day after day team Discovery kept the race under control letting the break get away and keeping it at a reasonable distance as long as no big threats to Levi’s overall lead were in the break. This helps a race leader’s team keep control of the race. If you let a break of five go up the road and allow a three minute lead, and keep it at that, it keeps the race in control because no one will attack. If you never let a break go then you have to bring back attack after attack. So on Stage 3, it was my teammate Will Friskorn and my job to make it into the break. The break went fairly early on and stayed away the entire day until the last climb. I was told over our team radio to fill my jersey with 6 bottles so that when the peloton caught us and passed us on the climb I could hand out cokes to my teammates. Well only Danny grabbed one from me so I chucked the rest. At the time I was angry that I had to haul all that weight so far up the climb because I had such good form (and no one wanted one anyway). I then gave all my teammates as many pushes up the climb that I could as I road next to them. It was a hard day but I realized after this day that each day of this race I began to get stronger and stronger, which is a really good sign.

Stage 4 was the longest day from Monterey to San Luis Obisbo. It was a beautiful day of racing. Thankfully my teammate Lucas made the break so that we could all sit and enjoy the scenery for the day. His break stayed out the entire day and was only caught with 5 kilometers to go. I tried to get in the mix for the sprint but had trouble getting near the top 10 to do so. It was a dangerous finish and I was just glad we all made it through that final off camber 90 degree turn.

Stage 5 was a 23 kilometer individual time trial in Solvang. This was nice to do because I had never been there before and had heard so many good things about the area and some really good training surrounding it. The course was perfect for me; windy, twisty, hilly and fast. After pre-riding the course I liked it a lot and was pretty motivated. I went out strong and finished strong feeling like I would place well. Even if you feel like you did well and that you’re going to place high, it doesn’t always mean that will happen. The riders at this level are so fast it’s an entirely different ball game. I ended up 32nd on that day and 2 minutes down off of Levi’s crushing time. I’ll get there soon enough with a bit of persistence and hard work but for now I was happy with my ride.

Stage 6 was a hard and tough race the entire day. I broke a rear spoke and had to do a rear wheel change at a dangerous moment. I ended up barely making it back to the main peloton after jumping from car to car. Just before the hard last steep climb of the day the peloton was going into it hard and I front wheel flatted. It was such an effort to chase and get back into the peloton while doing this brutal climb. But after the flat, and then hearing the thousands of fans yelling in my ear I was motivated to dig that much deeper. On this stage Slipstreams Strong Man; Danny Pate made the break and was away the whole day with six other guys. The rest of us all hung onto the driving Discovery train all day. The break was caught with just a little less than 3 kilometers to go. It was a great effort by Danny, that’s for sure.

Finally stage 7 arrived and I was supper stoked to race this final stage hard and aggressive. The race was on a circuit where we road 10 laps for a total of 77 miles. From the gun there were attacks here and there trying to escape but not succeeding. I gave it a go solo hoping others would follow but they never did and I was soon caught. I rested and thought, dam that hurt, and then another guy attacked. I bridged up to him and soon after five more followed. We had a strong break going and I new it would put Discovery on the rivet. I looked back and saw Danny Pate bridging up to us so I sat on. This was totally sweet because he was capable of getting the most aggressive riders jersey (which he did). We stayed away and had 3 minutes at one point making Danny Pate the Virtual race leader on the road at that time. Discovery was hurting badly and was loosing about a minute to the break, every two laps. We were surely going to stay away and not be caught until we saw a red jersey colored team decide to help Discovery bring back the break. This really made me mad; they were helping Discovery when they didn’t even have a guy for the final sprint. It’s totally a part of racing and that’s how it goes sometimes but that still doesn’t make me any happier. After seeing this I just dug deeper and deeper, fueled with anger coming out of every muscle in my body. Every one in the break gave it everything we had getting caught in the final kilometers. It was a good effort and was good for our team and sponsors. Racing is racing and what happens in the race stays in the race. When the day is over we are all friends again as far as I see it.

All in all the Tour of California was a huge success for me and my team Slipstream. I was so honored and stoked to have been a part of the great success we had over the past week. I could not believe all the support I got from family and friends at this years race and want to thank all of you for encouraging me along the way even when I was having some bad days in the beginning of the race. This is just the start of a long year of racing, but what a great start at that. Once again my winter program of hard training designed by my coach Dario Fredrick has proven to be successful. Year after year I plan to continue to build onto what I have, to get stronger and stronger, and increase my power that much more.

Now I leave for Girona Spain with 12 other teammates to start the season for Team Slipstream Powered by Chipotle in Europe.
I will continue to write updates over there since I’ll have so much more free time.

Thanks for reading, and for the continued support. It truly helps

Steven