Tour of California battles prime time

Word is flying that the Tour of California, always held in late winter, will now compete with Giro d’Italia's time slot of late May. Late winter in California can be a bit damp, or maybe just crazy foggy. So this is a good thing for fans within California... although most certainly an aggressive move by Amgen to attempt withdrawing fans from Europe's prime races now.

Another interesting tip in the article mentions that the Tour of California will become a UCI ProTour race in 2011, which doesn't mean as much as it used to since the Triple Crown races withdrew from ProTour status during the ongoing spat between the UCI and the ASO. Is this the UCI attempting to gain more circulation as more independent races spring up?

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