As announced at last night’s Festa del Fondo fundraiser at St. Francis Winery, race organizers at AEG are planning to make Santa Rosa the starting city for the 2012 Tour of California.
This comes directly on the heels of yesterday’s announcement of the 2011 ToC route, which bypasses Santa Rosa entirely. Concurrently, local cycling star Levi Leipheimer immediately took to Twitter to promise Santa Rosa that the ToC was “planning big” for 2012.
At last night’s function, an AEG representative gave an equally vague promise, leaving the crowd hanging, sources say. Goaded on by Leipheimer to finally break the news, the AEG rep confirmed Santa Rosa as 2012’s start city.
Though his comments were intended as “off the record” to the large crowd, bike blogger and Leipheimer nemesis Fat Cyclist immediately went online with the news before receiving a good-natured noogie from Levi himself.
