Tour of Cali - Opening Day

Cancellara opened up and let loose a rampage on the Amgen Tour of California.

Well maybe that is blowing it out of proportion, but he still came out on top in the prologue.
A 3.5 Km course, which from year's past is pretty flat, with a climb at the tail end.

Cancellara (Team CSC) did it in 3 minutes 51 seconds. with the closest follower being Brad Wiggins from High Road, chasing by roughly 5 seconds. And a close third behind him was Tyler Farrar From Chipotle. But where was Leipheimer (Astana), the defending champ, who destroyed this stage last year? Well he was at a close 4th, which had to be a tough blow for him.

So, there you have it, the four big dog teams for the year all podiuming (or close to it) in the first major tour of the season. This is a positive outlook for all teams.

For Astana and High Road this is a good thing seeing as they have both had their fair share of trouble this season. With Astana and its drug filled past, and High Road with its challenge to gain admittance to the Giro.

My expectations are to see these four teams duking it out the rest of the tour and season.

Personally I would like to see Slipstream come out on top but they are going up against CSC which has a lot more experience, and from what I can tell, finances to back it. Although, there seems to be a lot of support for Slipstream coming from the governing bodies of cycling. This has a positive outlook for a possible Tour bid (which would be awesome - at least have one domestic team in that tussle).