Depends on what you want. I don't know the course for the final stage, but the best place to be up close and personal with the riders is on a climb. Often they'll be on a narrow road and they're going much slower. I watched the end of stage 1 in Santa Rosa. We positioned ourselves just beyond a corner on the final circuit so there was the technical aspect of watching them corner and accelerate as well as the opportunity to see them go by multiple times. It's fun to be right at the finish if there is a good sprint, but then you need to plan on being there hours ahead of time and trying to get up on the rail. Plan on lots of road closures, too.

I'd love to go and see...Basso, Cavendish, Boonen, Mancebo, Baby Face, but more than any other cyclist, I'd love to see and get a pic with the great Jens Voight. LA is an after thought. Not hatin', just not a fan.
Do you want to see riders or racing? To see riders, stake out the finish area and the team Van/bus lot. Want to see racing? emtridoc is spot on. Plan for a very early day.

[quote=Anton]To see riders, stake out the finish area and the team Van/bus lot. [/quote]

+1 When I was at The Tour (ahem, the only "The Tour" is not in California), I got to the finish line about the time they started 200 kilomters away and grabbed some rail. At the finish sprint they blasted by at 100k per hour, so the pay-off of all day standing is about :15 seconds for the peleton to whiz by. Worth it! Then they mill around their trucks and talk to media, sponsors, fans. I have a pic with stage winner at TdF 08. It's totally low key (or it should be). And FWIW, "Allez! Allez!" and "Venga! Venga!" will go a long way. And I've always wanted to go to a domestic tour (Cali, Missouri) and pay homage to (ok, blatant rip off of) [url=http://www.tourteufel.de/]Didi Senft/El Diablo[/url].

[quote=Anton]Basso, Cavendish, Boonen, Mancebo, Baby Face, Jens Voight[/quote]

My fav ([url=http://www.magnusbackstedt.com/]Big Maggie)[/url] retired :(

does anyone know anything about the Montana State guy with the antlers? he also did an homage to lance with the longhorn helmet earlier in the week...(sorry to threadjack!)

I think it would be great to see these guys live. Have fun!!

hope the sun comes out for you, and have fun.

went to the tour of missouri, some of friends were covering it for the Mizzou school paper and got me into the press tent ON THE FINISH LINE!!!! It was so cool! I can turn on the TV and watch the riders paceline forever, but it was quite an experience to feel them fly by. i'd recomend being somewhere on the sprint, even though it'll just be a blur.

the scene afterwards is really neat, one of the riders even let me pick up his bike! also, it was fun to just observe how these guys are after riding 100+ miles. its like nothing to them. must be the drafting.... ; )

sorry, duplicate post.

+1 to watching on a climb. I went to the Pro Tour race in Philadelphia 2 years ago. We sat on the "Manayunk Wall" section and saw the peloton ride past 10 times. It was much better than I expected.
It was very cool to see some of them struggling and others flying up an incredibly steep hill time after time. It really gave me an appreciation of how good these guys and girls (there is a girls race that goes off 30 minutes prior) really are.

Enjoy the race.