The Tour of Georgia just took place in the North GA mountains. I have always wanted to see the pros ride over the hills we have trained on for years and hear thier comments of how it compares to the climbs of Europe. Here is the peleton ride up the back end of Woodys gap (the easiest of the climbs). Lance Armstrong is the one in the yellow jersey being lead by his Postal Service teammates in blue.

Here are some of their quotes:
Jans Voigt said, "I have never seen something like this in my career, which has been for some years now, that is a really, really hard one," the German said. "Plus the heat on top if it, and it's at the end of a stage makes it even harder. We had a great public here, people cheering, shouting at us, but it was damn hard."

Armstrong admitted the climb was as bad as anything he'd ever seen, and had kind words for the stage winner. " It was much harder than I'd anticipated," he said. "I kept looking up and thinking, ‘There's no way we're going to the top, because we only have less than 10km to go. I don't know how we can get up there,' But now I understand. When you go up the side of a wall, it's pretty easy to climb fast. [It was] very, very hard. That was a maximum effort on my part, and I'm sure it was a maximum effort on Jens's part, and we couldn't catch him."

"Oh, I used my 28, many a time," Horner said. "That was a beautiful gear to have. I felt sorry for anyone that was running a 23."
The pace quickened as the field took the right-hand turn onto the final 5km of steep roads, a climb Colavita Olive Oil's Nathan O'Neill says "rates up there with anything they have over in Italy."