Well, a new year and a new Amgen Tour of California has been announced. The race will again contain 8 stages starting in Klammath Falls just outside california and finishing at the Alpe d'Huez of California, Mt. Baldy. With 3 flat, 2 hilly and 2 mountain stages and it's 3 ascending finishes it is already a very challenging race, but to finish it of, the organisors added an Individual Time Trial at stage 6 going from Salitas to Laguna Seca Raceway.

Preview:

Stage 1 will go from Oregon in to California. It starts at the beautiful sights of Klammath falls to Weed, a town in the valley of an old volcano called Mt. Shasta. This will be a very hard stage and also the first hilly stage. They will go to an altitude of about 2000 meters and so differences will be made immediatly
Stage 2 starts at Mt. Shasta Village and goes over the challenging mountains in between Mt. Shasta and Redding, where the stage will finish. Alltough there are mountains in the first half of the stage, the second half is flatt, therefore it will be the first flat stage of this years race
Stage 3 is the second flat stage and will go to Sacramento, the capital of california. It starts in Red Bluff, an old woodcutters village. The sprinters will be happy with this stage because the stage doesn't have any hills or mountains.
Stage 4 will be the first mountain stage of this year. The stage starts at San Andreas and will go trough some very beautiful scenery to Mariposa. At Mariposa they will head east in to the mountains, it will remain nearly flat though until the last 15 kilometres. Here starts the first real challenge of this edition, Trumbull Peak.
Stage 5 will be the third and last flat stage from Stockton to San Jose. The sprinters will challenge each other over here but they still have to survive some hills.
Stage 6 will be the on and only individual time trial of this year. It starts at the magnificent town of Salitas near the west coast. From there they ride to the sea, go south for a while and then go east again to the Laguna Seca Racway, where they will ride one lap and then finish the time trial. After that they will fly south immedeately to Thousand Oaks where Stage 7 starts. From Thousand Oaks they will go west a while until they reach the sea, after that, they will go over Mullholland highway and drive (including the sandroad) to Burbank near Los Angeles, where they will go to Wildwood Canyon Park to finish uphill.
The last stage (stage 8) will start at Redlands. From there they go up to Big Bear Lake, after riding around the lake, they will descent again towards Los Angles where they ride west trough the city, heading for Mt. Baldy. The herioc Mt. Baldy is the finishing location and will decide who wins this edition of the Amgen Tour of California. This ski resort has already made the difference other times, and will do it again for sure!