Race diary from original Tour of California, 1971

If you enjoyed the just-completed Amgen Tour of California, you might enjoy reading about the first Tour of California bike race in 1971.

Sponsored by Velo Sport Bicycles, Raleigh Bicycles, and the Bear Valley Resort, the 8-day road race covered more than 800 miles in Central California during the month of August.

A bike racer, Laurie Schmidtke, wrote into race pub CyclingNews about his experiences in the peloton, back when all the jerseys were made of wool and bikes had five cogs, tops.