Using the awesome [Tour of California][atoc] iPad app, I caught the closing hours of stage 2. Probably the most striking thing was:

1. How effortlessly [Peter Sagan][ps] took the stage.
2. How all over the pack he was.

A brief run down for those that didn’t watch. Peter Sagan got caught up in a crash in the last 40km (or somewhere around there). Then was back at the team car later for some sort of front wheel problem in the closing 10km. Swapped out his wheel, then ended up back with the team car again. During at least part of this Liquigas (his team) was putting some speed on the front (Props to [Timothy Duggan][tim] for his awesome long pull) putting their guy and current race leader way out of the back.

Now Sagan was able to get back in the group (with seemingly little effort) and then time his speed burst to the finish perfect so he had a full bike length on the next rider, but it all felt disorganized to me.

We certainly can’t fault Sagan for getting back to the team car with a wheel problem, mechanicals happen and when you’re looking at a really fast descent everything needs to be perfect or you crash. I have to wonder why he was in the crash though. I did not see footage of it happening but all the rest of the favourites made it through with no issues, they were riding near the front. Was Sagan out of position? Did his team not protect him properly? We may never know, but he and Liquigas felt all over the place to me.

[tim]: http://www.teamliquigascannondale.com/2011/eng/main.php?mod=scAtleti&id=9
[ps]: http://www.teamliquigascannondale.com/2011/eng/main.php?mod=scAtleti&id=23
[atoc]: http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/