Tour of California

Tour of California

The start of the first leg of the 2010 race in Nevada City
Date	May (Formerly in February)
Region	California, United States
Discipline	Road
Competition	UCI World Tour
Type	Stage race
Organiser	AEG
First edition	2006 (2006)
Editions	11 (as of 2016)
First winner	Floyd Landis (USA)
Most recent	Julian Alaphilippe (FRA)

The Tour of California (officially known as the Amgen Tour of California for sponsorship purposes) is an annual professional cycling stage race on the UCI America Tour and USA Cycling Professional Tour. It was first held in 2006. The eight-day race covers 650–700 miles (1,045–1,126 km) through the U.S. state of California. A typical edition might begin in Nevada City, travel through the redwoods, wine country and the Pacific Coast, and finish in a southern California city such as Escondido. The 2009 race crossed the Central Valley from Merced to Fresno, with an excursion through the Sierra Nevada foothills, before crossing over to the coast. The tour is sponsored by Amgen, a large California-based biotech company.

With eight or nine of the 20 UCI ProTour teams (known as ProTeams) usually racing, the Tour of California is one of the most important cycling races in the United States, along with the Tour of Utah. On November 28, 2006, the UCI upgraded it from 2.1 (category 1) to 2.HC (French: Hors categorie; English: beyond category), the highest rating for races on the UCI Continental Circuits and one of only four such stage races in the United States. The USA Pro Cycling Challenge and the Tour of Utah were the only other current 2.HC being raced as of 2015. On August 2, 2016, the UCI upgraded the race to World Tour status and added it to the 2017 UCI World Tour schedule.