Our own Chris Baldwin is at the Tour of California, working for the Navigator’s team in a PR capacity. Here’s the second of his dispatches, courtesy his blog. Pictures courtesy Chris as well.

@##=#<1,L>@##=#The brightest hour has come round. Today the Navigators Insurance Cycling team along with 15 other professional squads began the Tour of California, racing a short, steep prologue up palm-lined Embarcadero North Street in beautiful San Francisco.

Today’s 1.9-mile prologue was won in 4:53 by Levi Leipheimer. The course, flat for the first mile and a quarter, made a series of left hand turns up into Pioneer Park and the landmark Coit Tower, where steep, curvy Kearny Street was lined with thousands of noisy American cycling fans.

“The crowd was great, everybody screaming ‘Good Job, Good Job,’ said Sergey Lagutin, the Uzbekistani National Champion making his first American start for the Navigators after several years of racing on another team in Italy and Belgium. “In Italy you rarely meet up with that kind of support.”

On a day that smiling locals described as unusually cold, with bright, sunny skies and a mild 52 degree buzz in the air, the Navigators officially began their American season when Ben Brooks rolled out of the starthouse at 10:05 A.M. Brooks was the sixth rider of the day to start, sandwiched as he was between Mike Sayers and Lars Bak. He rode as a course scout for the remainder of the team, coming back after his five-and-a-half minute workday to report on gear choice and terrain.

@##=#<2,r>@##=# “It’s only 3k, but the climb is quite hard,” said Brooks. “I had a 55 (tooth chainring) on the outside, and there was no way I was getting up in that, so it was straight to the small ring and just try to pedal up it.”

Teammates took his advice, taming the 600 meters of incline up to the finish with a 44-tooth inner chain ring and a middle cog in the back.

“Once I got on the hill I settled into a hard pace in the 44×17,” said Mark Walters. “After I got off the steep steps I just tried to bring it up a gear every couple hundred meters to accelerate all the way to the finish line from the last corner.”

Bike choice was another key element in the prologue. Riders could gain time on a Time Trial bike in the first flat mile, and then struggle with their shifters and center of gravity on the climb, or they could sacrifice rolling speed for nimble climbing by going with their road bikes.

“I used my road bike,” said Vassili Davidenko. “For the first 2k I really felt like I needed my time trial setup, but then when I started the hill, it was perfect on the road bike. It’s hard to find the right combination on this course.”

@##=#<3,L>@##=# Phil Zajicek posted the fastest time for the Navigators, 5:12 for 28th on the day. He is 19” back from Leipheimer and placed on general classification in front of Gilberto Simoni, Viatcheslav Ekimov and Michael Rogers.

“It was alright. First prologue of the year… a test of the legs. I was feeling good, the legs were good…I don’t know what I turned, but it was okay,” said Zajicek.

Overall the Navigators look solid on G.C. leading in to tomorrow’s first stage David O’Loughlin is two seconds back from Zajicek, with Mark Walters back another three at 5:17.

“It’s a little harder than I thought it would be,” said Glen Chadwick, in 52nd on G.C. at 5:20. “The wind was blowing a little bit on the head here on the straightaway, and the last 500 meters wasn’t too bad. The lead up to it was probably what was the hardest, the step-ups.”

Around the curve of Lombard Street and heading up to Pioneer Park, Kearny Street in hilly San Francisco is a series of inclines and landings, 200 to 300 meters long, 12 to 15 percent each. The punching repetition of the climbs dashes any chance of rhythmically rolling in to the finish line and makes shifting gears at the bar ends of TT bikes difficult for standing riders. The need for a road bike and its brake-lever shifters was paramount here, rewarding those who lost time on Embarcadero with the comfort and ease of quick gear choice.

@##=#<4,r>@##=# Valeriy Kobzarenko, making his first American start ever, is at 5:20, with Lagutin in at 5:26 for 79th place, sandwiched in between Jens Voigt and Fabian Wegmann.

“Everything’s fine. This is a course for prologue specialists,” said Lagutin, the World U23 Champion in 2003. Also in at 5:26 was Vassili Davidenko, who rode the course second for the Navigators and gave advice to his teammates as soon as he finished.

“Vassili told me that it was better on a time trial bike. He said the hill wasn’t too hard for a TT, so that’s what I chose,” said Lagutin.

Ben Brooks, the first man out for the team, goes to bed tonight in 106th place, just 45” seconds off the pace.