This fan, far left, grabs his drink at the last second out of the path of the charging bunch sprint at the Tour of California.
The big news coming out of the US late last night was that world champion Peter Sagan had sprinted in to kick off his 2016 Tour of California with a stage win and land the first leader's jersey of the race.
The Tinkoff man left it a little late, but in the end was untouchable; taking victory by a decent margin at the end of the 170.km stage that started and finished in San Diego.
He took the win, after almost 4½ hours in the saddle, from Wouter Wippert (Cannondale) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo).
The stage was decided in a mass dash to the finish line after an early escape went clear inside the opening 10km and had built a lead of over six minutes less than 25km later.
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In that move were: Daniel Patten (Team WIGGINS), Daniel Eaton (UnitedHealthcare), Jacob Rathe (Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis), Joonas Henttala (Novo Nordisk), Danny Pate (Rally Cycling), Michael Sheehan (Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis) and Oscar Clark (Holowesko-Citadel).
And while the last of them was only recaptured inside the final 5km, their lead was under 1:30 for the final 35km of racing.
Apart for Sagan taking possession of the race leader’s jersey and bringing his tally of stage wins in the race to 14; a fan by the side of the road very nearly played a star role in the bunch sprint.
As the clip below shows, the man had left what looked like a cup of coffee in the road inside the final kilometre.
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And realising it was in the bunch’s path; he darted into the road and grabbed it before retreating at the last second out of the way of the big peloton.
It must have been a nervous moment for the riders charging towards him, especially at such high speed when one unexpected touch of the brakes can cause a nasty crash.
In the end, both spectator and bunch thankfully got away with it.
Ireland has two men in the race; Stephen Clancy of Novo-Nordisk and Matt Brammeier of Dimension Data.
Clancy finished in the main bunch; in 100th place on the same time as Sagan.
Brammeier lost 53 seconds after performing lead-out duties for team mate Mark Cavendish.
Today’s stage 2 of the UCI 2.HC eight-day event takes the riders 148.5km from South Pasadena to Santa Clarita.
And while there are four categorised climbs to contend with, the only cat 1 ascent is crested just 22.5km after the start leaving plenty of time for a regrouping.
Tour of California, stage 1 finish
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