By Khalida Sarwari
The fourth stage of the Amgen Tour of California will roll into downtown San Jose on May 19.
The race will begin along the city’s Alameda at Park Street in front of the Adobe Headquarters, where fans can meet cyclists Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, and will end in Modesto later that day.
Steven Brewster, a spokesman for San Jose’s Office of Economic Development, said the start gun would be fired at 11 a.m.
The professional cycling race will kick off May 16 in Nevada City, the first of 16 host cities. Cycling teams will travel more than 800 miles of the state’s roads, highways and coastline drives before ending on May 23 in Southern California.
The San Jose-to-Modesto stage of the race will begin with a loop around Cesar de Chavez Park, the San Jose Technology Museum of Innovation and San Pedro Square. The riders will then make their way up Second Street where they will go east on Taylor Street, onto Maybury Road and North White Road and then to Piedmont Road.
Riders will head three miles up Sierra Road, one of the most challenging climbs of the entire race, crossing the Diablo Mountain Range before traversing fast and flat roads full of twists and turns on Calaveras Road in Santa Clara and Alameda counties and finally finishing with two circuits in downtown Modesto.
At least 15,000 people are expected to attend the kickoff event, Brewster said.
The race will coincide this year with the San Jose Cycling Classic, a weeklong series of events scheduled to kick off May 15. Events include a tour ride, the San Jose Ciclovia, where a downtown street will be closed to vehicle traffic for a day, a King of the Mountain Ride, cycling art and bike-themed film nights, and cycling safety education and training sessions.
Other host cities of the Amgen Tour are Nevada City, Sacramento, Davis, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Visalia, Bakersfield, Pasadena, Big Bear Lake, Los Angeles and Thousand Oaks/Westlake Village/Agoura Hills.
Complete information about the fourth stage can be found at http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/Route/stages/stage4.html.