Special edition of ROAD magazine by H3 Publications, distributed by the city of Santa Clarita to promote the city's second hosting
of the (third annual) Amgen Tour of California in 2008.
The Amgen Tour of California rode into Santa Clarita for the first time in 2007, one year after the race was established by AEG, the world's largest owner of sports teams and sporting events.
A cycling stage race, the 8-day, 650- to 700-mile event is held annually and runs along the coast or through the wine country between the San Francisco-Sacramento area and greater Los Angeles. The route changes each year to keep it interesting and competitive, and the host cities change accordingly — although through 2017, Santa Clarita has been tapped as a host city more often than not.
From the outset, the Tour enjoyed the highest rating on the UCI Continental Circuits; in 2016 it was further upgraded to World Tour status, same as the Tour de France, and was added to the UCI World Tour schedule.
Technically the Tour of California, the race is known as the Amgen Tour of California by virtue of an agreement with its title sponsor, Amgen Inc., a major biopharmaceutical manufacturer in Thousand Oaks.
The actual race owner is AEG, or Anschutz Entertainment Group, which also owns the Staples Center, the L.A. Galaxy soccer team and a 50-percent stake in the L.A. Kings, as well as other entertainment venues and sports teams in the United States and Europe. Based in Los Angeles, AEG is a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corp., which started in 1958 in Denver and is still headquartered there. The parent corporation's other major subsidiary is Regal Entertainment Group (REG), owner of the Regal, Edwards and United Artists movie theater chains (as of 2017).
The Amgen Tour of California has been a natural fit for Santa Clarita, which prides itself as a healthy city and has created a system of Class-1 bike trails (and pedestrian and equestrian trails) that make it possible for cyclists and others to get from one side of this 50-square-mile city to the other without crossing a major traffic intersection.
Download individual pages
here.