The 2011 Amgen Tour of California kicks off stage 5 in Seaside, California on Thursday at 9:15am pacific time. The cyclists will embark on the longest stage of the race as they will travel 135.1 miles down the California coast to Paso Robles. You can view a map of the scheduled route in THIS PDF at the tour website.
Stage 5 of the race will still start in Seaside and the peloton will head east through decommissioned Fort Ord into Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The riders will get out on Hwy 68 and tackle the first of four King Of the Mountain (KOM) climbs, this one at Laureles Grade. The riders will then make a four-mile descent into Carmel Valley and the first of two sprints for the stage. They will ride along a narrow, twisty road that keeps climbing, and within 45 minutes will have scaled two more KOMs before a long descent along the Carmel Valley River.
The peloton will move towards a second sprint in Greenfield, CA. Upon leaving Greenfield, the route will grow flat as the cyclists head towards more rolling hills in the west. This brings the riders to the final 30 miles before the finish line in Paso Robles. The riders will split Lake Nacimiento and Lake San Antonio, and contest the fourth and final KOM of the stage before the final push into Paso Robles. The final climb will bring their total climbing on the day up to almost 10,000 feet.
You can view a preview video of Stage 5 below. We'll have more race updates in our 2011 Tour of California story stream, and you can find more in-depth discussion of each stage at Podium Cafe.