Notes:  (latest notes always appear at the top)

- Saturday's Tour of California Stage 7 departs Santa Clarita at 12pm PST (3pm U.S. Eastern, 21:00 CET).  Live streaming video via Tour Tracker should start at that time.

- Stage 5 update (from Paso Robles) from The 3 Riders of the Apocalypse Featuring Christy Craig here.  (photo of Cavendish sprinting for the line, exclusive Tips for the best ToC experience ever, taking out tree limbs with the RV, and why you need to check Twitter more often.)

- Coming up later today: Tour of California Stage 7 info, on site report from "The 3 Riders...", and more fan photos and race photos.

- These crowds are unreal.  Have covered many Tour de France TTs and the crowds are never this big stretched out so far from the start ramp.  -Pete

- Live coverage on the Versus Channel is now underway, for those that have it.

- Our UK correspondent Bernie S. is on top of things for the European bike racing live coverage this weekend, including the Tour du Haut Var in France and GVA Trophy Cyclo-cross in Belgium.  There should be live streaming video in both cases, before the weekend stages of the Tour of California.  More to come.

- cycling.tv is also now live with the race.

- Solvang Time Trial LIVE video streaming now on Tour Tracker.  Text tickers are live too.

- Important:  Start Time changes.  Final 10 riders will depart at 3-minute intervals instead of 2-minute intervals.  The link above has been updated.  Or click here for Start Order and Times.

"Live" from the Solvang Start House: Paul Sherwen (Versus)
"We just pitched cyclingfans.com to Phil and Paul!"
Phone photo by The 3 Riders of the Apocalypse Featuring Christy Craig

The 3 Riders of the Apocalypse Featuring Christy Craig
sporting cyclingfans.com hats at the Tour of California

"Live" shot from the Solvang Start House
Photo by The 3 Riders of the Apocalypse Featuring Christy Craig

- Today's Stage 6 Individual Time Trial at Solvang begins at 12:00pm PST (3pm U.S. Eastern, 21:00 CET).  Tour of California live video streaming should begin at that time on the Tour Tracker.  Live coverage on cycling.tv is scheduled to begin at 11:40am PST (2:40pm U.S. Eastern, 20:40 CET), though the site also lists 12:30pm PST (3:30pm U.S. Eastern, 21:30 CET).  The latter time would seem more accurate, unless they plan to provide coverage before the first rider departs.  Eurosport.......nevermind.

Pick the Solvang Time Trial winner and win!

- Today is the all-important 24km (15 miles) Individual Time Trial at Solvang.  Email the Editor with your pick for the stage winner and you could win the above-pictured poster celebrating 60 years of the Criterium du Dauphine Libere stage race, a race won twice by Lance Armstrong.  Poster features, in addition to Armstrong, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Thevenet, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain and others.  In the event of multiple winners, we will randomly pick one poster winner.  Only picks received before 1pm PST (4pm U.S. Eastern) today will be considered.  Poster will be mailed to a U.S. address only.

- First Update From the Road from "The 3 Riders of the Apocalypse Featuring Christy Craig" is here.  (Hincapie, fans who don't understand the fuss over Astana, writing with chalk, where to eat, and who to meet.)

- We recommend you open our Twitter feed in a separate window now.  If ever we have a server outage, we will update on Twitter and direct you to a live coverage page on another server.

- Welcome to our live coverage guide for the 2009 Tour of California.