The Amgen Tour of California, which is down from eight stages to seven for 2017, squeezes two of the most decisive general classification stages into the closing days next year, with the Queen stage to Mt. Baldy and the individual time trial in Big Bear Lake coming back to back on stages 5 and 6.
The 2017 route appears likely to avoid this year's result, when eventual winner Julian Alaphalippe (Etixx-QuickStep) seized the general classification lead at the top of Gibraltar Road during stage 3 and was never really threatened over the following five stages.
Organisers stacked an individual time trial and difficult Santa Rosa-based circuit between Gibraltar and the finish last year, but the Folsom time trial and California's coastal climbs didn't prove enough to unseat the young Frenchman's nearly week-long grasp on yellow.
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Alaphilippe came into the Santa Rosa stage on the penultimate day with 16 seconds over Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing), 38 seconds over Brent Bookwalter (BMC Racing) and 47 seconds over Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Drapac). Despite a stage that included six categorised climbs, including Kings Ridge and Coleman Valley, none of Alaphilippe's GC rivals was able to pull back any time.
Trek-Segafredo's Peter Stetina, a Santa Rosa resident who started the day 2:02 behind Alaphilippe, said the route that day provided for some chaotic and unpredictable racing that ranks among the favourite for may riders, but in the end the climbs were too far away from the finish to change the GC. As the bunch emerged from the dense forested climbs above the Pacific Ocean, Peter Sagan slipped away with one climb remaining and was caught on the flat run to the finish, where Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) won the bunch sprint.
"Those are totally different from typical US races on big highways," Stetina recalled. "We were on single-lane roads with no yellow line down the middle, and it's bumpy and twisting up and down all day. It's ridiculous. That was a lot of racers' favourite day of the year because there was so much mayhem and it was so scrappy from the gun. It was real racing.
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