Blair Robertson: Hi, this is Blair Robertson with the Sacramento Bee and I am here with Mike Sayers a long time pro, who is now retired and we are about to go for ride on the Amgen Tour of California Prologue course. It's about two-and-a- half miles. Alright Mike, we are on the course, and we are just about to go down the ramp. What is that like waiting in anticipation and then going down the ramp?
Mike Sayers: Well, I am usually pretty nervous, you know that time travel is short in a prologue event. You have got to be really on the gas right from the very start.
Blair Robertson: How long is it going to take the guys to get up to full speed?
Mike Sayers: Well I think it will take about one block. You can't really, you can't hesitate --
Blair Robertson: How fast are we are going right now in the race?
Mike Sayers: I think by this point they ought to be hitting near 30 miles an hour, and they are going to try to continue to build speed up to between 35 and 40, or up until we make the U-turn. I mean, if there is a possibility of losing three four seconds just in this one corner.
Blair Robertson: So it seems to me that in a race that's short, the margin of victory might be a second or two, you could win or lose it on a bad turn.
Mike Sayers: Absolutely, that's absolutely true. Usually prologues come down to bare minimum in seconds. But I think ideally you want to come out of that hairpin and you are going to be sprinting to try to get back up to speed again. Some guys, they like to go maximum effort right from the blocks, so that they get, so they are hurting immediately, and they don't have to work it.
Blair Robertson: Can you describe what that feels like?
Mike Sayers: It basically feels like your head is going to explode. It's almost like you feel weak, because you are going so hard. Your legs have so much blood loaded up in them, because they are trying to feed the muscles that are working. It feels like you are paddling squares, that's kind of how we describe it. There is no smoothness to it. You are smooth, because you are professional, you have been doing this your whole life, but you don't feel smooth.
Blair Robertson: Now this is a nice long straightway Mike, the time for us is known as the Race of Truth, what do they mean by that?
Mike Sayers: Well, you have nowhere to hide, and you have no team mates to help you out, and so it's just essentially raw strength of one rider versus raw strength of another rider.
Blair Robertson: Alright Mike, we are coming down the finishing street, we have got three blocks to go. What does that feel like right now?
Mike Sayers: Well, in your mind it feels like you want to get up and start sprinting, but your body is probably protesting a little bit, and honestly, I think if you could -- if you are sprinting at this point out of the side, you probably haven't gone enough, hard enough early in the race. So at this point in all reality you are probably holding on. You've got it up to a speed, which is maximum speed for you, and you are just trying to get to the finish and just keep your form as smooth as possible.
Blair Robertson: What does it feel like when we cross the line?
Mike Sayers: Heavenly, you stopped, and you have a pretty good idea of how well you went, I think as a rider, so if you think you had a good ride, you are probably feeling pretty good about yourself.
Blair Robertson: Are you pretty close to being really uncomfortable ,maybe even sick?
Mike Sayers: Yeah, I would say that having a case of throw up is not uncommon.
Blair Robertson: And you kind of want that, right, so you don't feel like you left anything out there.
Mike Sayers: That's right, that's kind of what you are looking for.
Male Speaker: To witness a 150 of the world's best cyclist going off one at a time and leaving it all out there on a 2.4 miles course through downtown, get here early on February 14th to watch the prologue for the Amgen Tour of California. It will be a day long festivals. A celebration of cycling in a way to showcase Sacramento for the rest of the world to see.
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