Tour of California cycling route to include downtown Santa Rosa, west Sonoma County

FOLSOM - Details of the longest and, on paper, most difficult edition of the Amgen Tour of California, including a hectic day in Santa Rosa, were announced Thursday.

The race’s 11th edition, scheduled for May 15 to 22, was originally announced in October, but without route distances or details of either the men’s event or the corresponding four-day women’s race.

For only the second time, the men’s race will progress south to north, from San Diego to Sacramento, covering 782.7 miles, the longest trek since the event’s 2006 debut.

After a two-year absence, the event will return to Sonoma County on May 21 for the 109-mile out-and-back men’s stage 7 and the 64-mile women’s stage 3. Both races will start and end in downtown Santa Rosa.

“We were challenged by our partner, ASO, to come up with something iconic, and we think we have,” said race technical director Eric Smith, who detailed each stage of the men’s and women’s races in an outdoor press conference in Folsom.

The Santa Rosa stages will mark the city’s eighth participation in the event. The day’s two races will be on the same day as the annual Luther Burbank Rose Parade and Festival in downtown Santa Rosa.

The parade will occur during the several-hour span riders are pedaling around the Sonoma County countryside.

Four King of the Mountain points will be included in the men’s stage as it progresses along King Ridge Road, Highway 1 and Coleman Valley Road, the popular locale for area cyclists.

The women’s stage will also be a loop course, finishing with three downtown circuits and ending before the men’s finish. Stage starting times and estimated finishing times were not announced.

A few host city officials, scattered observers and about 100 cyclists who participated in an earlier 25-mile ride with new race ambassador Fred Rodriguez, the four-time U.S. national champion, attended the announcement.

The eight-day men’s race will include about 65,000 feet of climbing, the most the race has faced.

After two stages that appear to be sprinters’ days, stage 3 will be the queen stage, a day race directors have planned for a decade. The stage will begin in Thousand Oaks and finish with a 10-kilometer climb of Gibraltar Road with an average 8 percent gradient. The well-known Southern California ascent was recently paved for the first time.

Stages 4 and 5 will combine for nearly 265 miles. Stage 4 will start in Morro Bay and end after a long haul along the Pacific Coast Highway to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. A 16 percent grade awaits in the final mile entering the racetrack.

Stage 5 will take the peloton from Lodi to South Lake Tahoe. The stage will include nearly 20,000 feet of climbing. The event has never had back-to-back stages of more than 125 miles.

The amended stage 6 individual time trial in Folsom will be followed by the Santa Rosa stage. The racing finishes May 22 in Sacramento.

The four-stage women’s race will be included in the inaugural UCI Women’s WorldTour, one of two U.S. races on the new circuit.

“I love vacationing in Lake Tahoe, but it won’t be a vacation this time,” said Krista Doebel-Hickok of Marina Del Rey, who joined Rodriguez at the press conference and will compete in the women’s race for the first time. “The climbing looks great, but every day looks hard. A 90-minute criterium on the final day is hardly a day off on the bike.”

Race officials previously announced Bradley Wiggins, the 2014 Tour of California winner, would return. No additional teams or riders were announced Thursday.

Officials said they’re negotiationing with Peter Sagan, the defending champion and reigning world road champion. Team rosters are traditionally announced a few weeks before the event.