Morgan Hill gets stage in Tour of California

The Amgen Tour of California will run one of its key stages in the South Bay for its 2018 edition, a 21.6mile individual time trial that starts and finishes in Morgan Hill and runs through San Jose.

The route for Stage 4 on Wednesday, May 16 was announced Thursday morning. It will take cyclists from Morgan Hill, a firsttime stage host, to Monterey Road westbound on West Dunne Road to Dewitt Avenue to West Ed- mundson Avenue to Oak Glen Avenue. From there, the route heads to the north end of Chesbro Reservoir and meets up with McKean Road before to going east on Bailey Avenue to Santa Teresa Boulevard. From there, riders will head south as Santa Teresa turns into Hale Avenue and finish on Monterey Road near where the time trial began.

With riders racing against the clock individually, this is the stage where times are important. No one will finish with the “same time” by being part of the pack. There could be significant movement in the standings.

This will be the 12th time in 13 Tours of California that the race will include San Jose.

The time trial will be preceded by the May 15 stage from King City to Laguna Seca. The 122.4mile ride concludes for the second time on the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca race track. The highlight will be the descent at the legendary “Corkscrew,” one of the most famous turns in mo- torsports. The left-right downhill chicane drops 5½ stories in elevation over the course of only 450 feet of track.

The 2018 Tour of California is a seven- stage, 645-mile race that begins in Long Beach on May 13 and concludes on Saturday, May 19 in Sacramento. Among this year’s top riders are Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel and Peter Sagan. A three-stage women’s race will be held May 17-19.

This is the third time (2013, 2016) the Tour is going from south to north.