As most of the riders head back to their respective homes following the hardest Tour of California in its still rather young history, one incident will mar the memory for at least 26 riders.
On the final day of the Tour of California, 26 riders were dispatched on the line after missing the time cut by a paltry thirty seconds. 26 riders would normally be a huge loss to any race, but considering that only 37 people finished the Tour of California, that number grows to an all the more substantial figure, it's downright gigantic.
The final stage took in four laps of a 20 mile loop, which totaled out to over 2200 meters of climbing - a total that was accompanied by only a 7% grace period for riders bringing up the rear behind the day's winner, Ryder Hesjedal.
Rabobank's Grischa Niermann was one of the almost half of the race time cut on the final day, and he was none too pleased about it: "This is just ridiculous, actually, I worked out the rankings, and had they counted my finish, I would have ended up in the top 20. So, at this point, only 37 riders officially finished the Tour of California."
Niermann can at least take solace in the fact that his preparation for the Tour de France is going along smoothly: "I think I'm on the right track as far as my preparation for the Tour." Up next for Niermann is a two week altitude training camp at Alejandro Valverde's current stomping grounds in Spain: Sierra Nevada.