Crowds Gather in Moorpark to Cheer on Amgen Tour Riders

American Christopher Horner won the Amgen Tour of California Sunday by a mere 38 seconds over Team RadioShack teammate and three-time tour winner Levi Leipheimer and two minutes and 45 seconds ahead of third-place winner, Thomas Danielson.

But the Tour outcome wasn’t the most important thing to some of the  spectators who watched the race from the streets of Moorpark.

The excitement of watching the country’s biggest professional bicycle race was enough.

“It’s awesome. It's a big national event and it comes right through Moorpark,” said John Wisler, who lives in the city. Wisler is the director of toxicology for major race sponsor Amgen, where he’s worked for eight years, but it was his first time watching the race live.

It wasn’t the first time for Marlina Barros, though. The 87-year-old has watched the race every year since moving to Moorpark three years ago because, she says, she’s always held a fascination for bicycles— even though she’s never been on one.

“I never learned to ride. When I was a little girl, all the money went to feed the family,” she said. “There wasn’t anything extra for big toys like bikes.”

But her father had a bicycle on which he commuted to work every day. And every day she would watch him ride and, later, would watch him teach her brothers to ride.

“Mom didn’t think it was so appropriate for girls,” she said. “Then, when I got older and could buy my own bike, I just felt it would be silly for a grown lady to try to learn.”

But the fascination never left and now Barros is a big race fan. She has her favorites—three-time Tour of California winner Levi Leipheimer being one—but she doesn’t particularly care who wins.

“I just like to cheer the boys on. They work so hard,” she said.

Lynette Randol of Thousand Oaks was there to cheer on a particular boy—her husband, Steve, who was part of a group of amateur riders who rode the stage-seven route ahead of the professional racers. According to his wife, Randol had taken a break from riding for a while because, like perhaps the world’s most famous rider, Lance Armstrong,  Randol had cancer. His wife said this was his first big ride since then.

Whatever the reason residents were out watching the race, they were enthusiastic—not dress up like a video game character and run alongside the riders enthusiastic, but loud and supportive . . . and anxious.

So anxious that the crowd gathered near the intersection of Tierra Rejada Road and Mountain Meadows Drive—the biggest turnout in the city—cheered on random bicyclists who were out for a joy ride, joggers and drivers who honked to share in the excitement even long before the support vehicles even started appearing.

But if the Moorpark crowd wasn’t so concerned with the race’s outcome, people in Thousand Oaks were. Spectators lined the course there by the thousands and saw stage winner Matthew Goss of the HTC-Highroad team cross the finish line first.

They also saw top honors awarded in the Tour’s special categories. Slovakian Peter Sagan of Liquigas-Cannondale won the Herbalife Sprint Points Jersey; American Jonathan Patrick McCarty of Team Spidertech Powered by C10 won the California Travel and Tourism King of the Mountains Jersey every stage of the race and American Tejay Van Garderen of HTC-Highroad won the Rabobank Best Young Rider Jersey, awarded to the top rider age 24 or under. Horner, the overall winner, is the oldest winner in the six-year history of the event at 39 years.