RecumBum

After initially deciding not to try catching another stage of the Tour of Missouri, I made a last-minute decision to go ahead and go for it. After looking more closely at the route maps, I realized that the route was heading right past my sister’s place in Holts Summit, on roads I knew well. That was just too much to resist!

So on Friday morning I took off for the three-hour drive to Jefferson City. I arrived a bit earlier than expected, so I decided to try to catch the tour south of town, then make it back over the river before the bridge was closed. I set up position just north of Eugene, where Route 17 turned onto Route BB. This turnoff was not far from U.S. Route 54, so I’d have an easy way to get back on the highway and head north after watching the riders move past. Turns out I wasn’t the only one with that idea, as there was a fairly good crowd at this very rural location – perhaps 40 vehicles parked along nearby roads.

Immediately after the turnoff there was a small but steep hill, and I was near the top. A small breakaway came by first, about two minutes in front of the main field, which was being led by the Discovery boys, with George Hincapie in the yellow jersey tucked in behind them.

After the entourage had passed, I headed back north, through Jefferson City, over the Missouri River on the Jefferson City Bridge, and on to Holts Summit. Although there was a sprint line in Holts Summit, and a feed zone just past that, I decided to watch the riders climb the long hill from 54 Highway up Summit Drive. Although this is not a terribly steep climb, it heads upward and around a corner at a steady grade for about half a mile.

Again, there was a good crowd here, and again, the breakaway came through, led by Steven Cozza wearing the Build-A-Bear Best Young Rider jersey. A few minutes later the main peloton began snaking its way up the hill, once again headed by the Discovery Channel team. The photo below shows Fuyu Li, Benjamin Noval, Alberto Contador, and George Hincapie.

I’d planned to leapfrog ahead to catch them one more time, but ended up being delayed by road closures, so I decided to skip that and spend the rest of the day with my sister and her family.

The next morning stage 5 was to begin at the state capitol building in Jefferson City, and we arrived around an hour before the start of the race. Teams were just arriving, and I had a chance to mill around among the riders as they prepared for the race. I didn’t do the autograph thing, but I took a lot of pictures. I waited a bit outside the Discovery team RV, but there were so many people there that I finally gave up and moved up to the podium where riders were beginning to sign in.

The two close-up shots below were taken as the riders exited the stage and signed autographs for fans. Alberto Contador was particularly gracious and generous with his time. I was about 5 or 6 rows deep, and had a heck of a time getting any clean shots. I had to hold the camera way above my head and try to snap within very narrow windows of opportunity. Most of my photos of top riders were either blurry and/or partially obscured by others. The two below were the best of the bunch.

Once the riders were signed in, they staged themselves at the starting line, and then they were off for a quick two laps around the capitol, then they headed back across the river and were gone, on to St. Charles.

I was very impressed by what I saw of the Tour of Missouri. I’m not a huge racing fan, but still, it was thrilling to see them fly past, and particularly, to get up close and personal. The crowds along the route were bigger than I’d expected, and very enthusiastic.

This first year was a great start for the Tour of Missouri, and the entire race really couldn’t have gone better. I’m hoping that the Tour raises the awareness of cycling among local residents, and leads to more respect on the roads, but I’m not terribly optimistic in that regard.

Although the race seemed to be extremely well-organized and smoothly run on the roads, the online execution was poor at best. The live race video was of very poor quality, and the reliability of the video feed was just awful. It was a painful experience to watch the live coverage. The reliability and detail provided by the “tour tracker” page was also not very good. Even the main Tour of Missouri site seemed to take forever to be updated with daily results. If I’d been watching the race exclusively online, I wouldn’t have come away with a very good impression of the Tour of Missouri. Watching it in person was incredible, but the online coverage was just plain frustrating.

In addition to the pictures above, I have a number of other shots, which you can view at my Tour of Missouri, Jefferson City Image Gallery.