Tour of Missouri

[Pyannyplayer]

Oh my gosh! What fun today was! Stage 4 is a pretty tough, hilly course, with the "dreaded" Spring Creek Hill. This particular hill is a killer, really steep and long and it's where the peloton split up! WOW! Of course, they made it look so EASY!

Living in Rolla (and teaching in Castleman Hall on the campus of Missouri S&T - which served as the FINISH LINE!!) made this a big deal and SO FUN to watch. They averaged over 30 MPH! Having them zipping by was exciting and scary (almost lost my head to Michael Barry as I'm trying to see where he was!!). I think the most exciting thing, besides getting to see all those cyclists and their bikes, was knowing the route they were riding since I've ridden part of it. This was also the fastest stage so far in this Tour and, I believe they said, any tour in the US! They were supposed to be getting into Rolla around 3:00-3:30 to finish a 4 mile or so circuit through town; the winner crossed the finish line well before that! I believe the race was over by 3:10 or so! WOWZERS! The peloton was TEN MINUTES behind the four or so leaders (one reporter commented that they must have stopped for lunch!)

I was also pleased by all the people that came out to watch. Totally cool!

I have a few pictures that I'll try to post if anyone's interested. I'll be going over to St. James (Stage 5 start) to see if I can collect any more pictures or anything.

My dear husband and I have never been to anything like this. I'm still just in awe.....getting to see so many of my heros and "up and comers".....and it gave me some cool extra credit questions for tests I've given this week!

Lorie

[uforgot]

Hey, I was there! I worked at it today. You are so right. It was really great to watch these world class cyclists compete! It's going through our little town tomorrow and we are putting up fence posts, flags and balloons every hundred feet tomorrow morning. Then I'm heading up to Jeff City to watch the finish. I helped hincapie.com set up their stuff this morning. They were from South Carolina and they couldn't believe that the humidity was just like at home. Scott did a great job organizing the Rolla portion. They had so many volunteers that they ran out of shirts, but it was all good. I just loved being part of it! The people next to me were here from Utah.

I have some pictures too, but I'm not sure if they are very good, they were zipping by so fast and I found myself ignoring the camera.

We almost met again! You must have been opposite me as I almost lost my camera to Jeff Louder trying to see where HE was! Did you see me? I was the one in the yellow Tour of Missouri shirt.

[Pyannyplayer]

I was wearing a yellow Tour of Missouri shirt too! I didn't work the Tour, though. I should have - didn't know until Monday that my classroom was for sure going to be used for interviews. BUMMER! Day off for me!

I need to figure out the picture thing - might have to ask my DH to do it for me. He also took a couple of short videos with his camera.

I'm still in total awe....total awe that they did this SO FAST! The Multisport Club sponsored a "Ride the Stage" a couple of weeks ago (I was smart and drove SAG). We had 6 guys decide to do this particular stage. They were all really pretty good riders; it took them a little over 6 hours, though, and I though THAT was fast!

Will you get to see the whole thing tomorrow? Any other TE gals at the Tour?

Lorie

[uforgot]

I'm going to just see them ride through Belle and then finish in Jeff. I'm not sure where I'm going on Saturday. Start in Hermann or end in St. Charles. Decisions decisions. Dan had the Tecos team at his shop after the finish and Jelly Belly is at the St. James winery for a meet and greet right now.

Here are a few pics I took. The first one is Castleman Hall where pyannyplayer works and is also the awards stage. The second one is Michael Barry who was the Stage 4 winner.

[luvmypwds]

Thanks for the visual!

[TrekTheKaty]

The Tour is going to pass withing 2 miles of my house and I'm going to MISS it! I'm headed out of town for work, but made DH swear he would ride his bike up to check it out. LBS is having a bbq and fun ride in St. Charles. I dropped my bike off for a tune up yesterday, and they looked at me like I was NUTS! Obviously, everyone would rather be at the race.

I got to see them go by last year--get out and see it if you can!

Blow a kiss to Hincapie for me

[singletrackmind]

I'm gonna try to make St. Chuck or the last KOM, but I've got a couple of volunteer things to do first.

[Pyannyplayer]

For a look at a few of pictures we took yesterday, go to http://web.mst.edu/~jfrancis/BikeTrips/stage4_08.html.

Let me know if the link doesn't work. We had a little trouble with it!

Lorie

[uforgot]

The race went through our town and then I sped to Jefferson City to see the finish. I put my camera away and just watched the race for once. Ever notice how sometimes you are always looking through the camera? Anyway, they were still completely grouped together, unlike in Rolla and it was a huge sprint for the finish! Today's stage 5 winner was Boy Van Poppel of Rabobank.

Following are some non race moment pics.

1. Our little town tried, but didn't win the spirit town award. We had balloons and flags up and a couple of my students, who are drummers, wanted to play their cadence as they rode by but needed a snare, so I volunteered. (Which is what they had hoped). I'm in the yellow shirt.

2. The state capitol in the background with the expo in front.

3. Anheuser-Busch was there of course. This Clydesdale was so beautiful.

4. The winners. Leader is still Christian Vandelvelde of Garmin-Chipolte. Roman Kreuziger of Liquigas was the best young rider. Dominique Rollin of Toyota-United held on to his KOM jersey, David Veilleux of Kelly Benefit Strategies-Medifast was the most aggressive rider and Mark Cavendish of Team Columbia won the sprint jersey.Attachment 7093

[Kalidurga]

Can I just say two words?


Yay, Christian!!! Go Argyle!



Ok, so that was four...

[singletrackmind]

One more to go......
And it's looking to me like the rain's gonna clear out in plenty of time! A lot of wind for them today.

We'll be there.

[uforgot]

One more to go......
And it's looking to me like the rain's gonna clear out in plenty of time! A lot of wind for them today.

We'll be there.

Did you make it there? Plenty of wind for sure! They probably didn't even need to peddle on some areas of the circuit. Let us know how it was!

[singletrackmind]

It was very very very good. Course started out wet, light rain a couple of times for the first couple laps then stuff started drying out, pavement was dry for the finish. They did cut off part of the course due to flooding....no surprise-there was lots of flooded areas everywhere. Think it came to around 50 miles rather than around 70.

I only have an old slow digital so it was hit or miss on the 239 shots I got....some were pretty blurry, like the one that most needed to be not, Chicci's win. That and the shadows. Urgh and darn it all to pieces!!!

Awaiting the start



Chicci wins it

and interviews about 4 feet from us...

Team Columbia

gettin' silly

and a George shot...

[Deborajen]

Great pictures - thanks for posting! It was a good race. Must have been exciting to see it in person.

Deb