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On Tuesday the first running of the Tour of Missouri gets underway with 119 riders heading out for six days and almost 600 miles of racing under beautiful Midwestern fall skies where daily temps will run as low as 40F and up into the high 70s/low 80s late, with little chance of precipitation during the week. [In a secret that Midwesterners don’t share with coasties, the weather is like that a lot here].

Since this is a brand new road race event, we thought it helpful to explore some basic questions one might have about the Tour of Missouri, such as: Missouri, where the heck is that, anyway? What kind of place is that for bicycle racing? Will there be anything worth remembering about this course — how will it stand out from T de Georgia or T of Cal? And, finally, who’s going bother coming out to ride?

First, some social studies are in order. Missouri (pronounced Missour-uh by certain of our citizens who believe cattle yards are still the big employer in town) in Native American means “Town of the Large Canoes” (we call those “casinos,” thank you very much) is a behemoth state, fully one and a half times the size of Honduras and more than twice the square mileage of the Czech Republic. Our state is considered the virtual center of the universe for the entire U.S. Midwest, with eight adjoining states all existing primarily to service us. We get corn on the cob from Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, pigs and politicians (hard to tell apart without DNA sample) from Illinois, moonshine from Tennesee and Kentucky, and covered wagons from Oklahoma. Arkansas is there so our kids’ test scores look favorable. The US acquired Missouri in 1805 as part of the Louisiana Purchase; we’re the part the US isn’t asking it’s money back for. If you’re aged but still not afflicted with Old Timers, you’ll no doubt recognize many famous Missourians including T.S. Eliot, Vincent Price, Betty Grable, Jean Harlow, Jesse James, Laura Ingles Wilder, and Harry Truman. If Barack Obama wins the presidency, he’ll be yet another politician Illinois raised for us, like Abe Lincoln, whom we claim as kin.

As for bike racing, it’s a splendid place that will surprise both racers and spectators alike. Wiping away any preconceived notions otherwise, there aren’t mile after mile of flat roads and cornfields to ride among; that’s RAGBRAI, and that’s in IOWA, and Lance was the only Pro to show up this year (Note: Did Not Finish). Neither do we have a Brasstown Bald, Hogs Pen or “Six Gaps” with mile after mile of double digit leg busting inclines. Nor do we have thousands of miles of pristine coastline a la the Amgen Tour of a Pharmaceutical Company.

However, we do have a top rated US roadrace and, based on our success in securing teams who could have chosen among a plethora of well known events (the Vuelta a España, Tour of Poland, Tour of Britain and Paris-Brussels all fall in the same week) all wanting the same athletes — one should expect a solid race offering. We’ve got 15 teams secured including Discovery’s AAA squad led by Levi, Contador, Hincapie, etc., giving their final swan song as a squad. We’ll have Home Depot job applications for each, but wish them better luck than that. One expects they’ll be out for blood, and at the same time there’ll be more than a few top North American top squads looking to score an upset.

Racers will waste no time warming up the legs on each of the five days of serious rollers, initially heading out of our largest city, Kansas City, and hopscotching across the state to finish in St. Louis, also our largest city. To any pundits foreseeing five days of flats with group sprint finishes, please visit soon and bring your bike. Yes, you’ll need the little ring at times. The Time Trial on day three (Thursday) is centered in Branson, where all our famous people mentioned above still work and entertain, even posthumously. The sharpest climbs in the race will be encountered here - and there’s an uphill finish to top it off - so there’s a good chance the overall winner will be the one that finishes first this day.

Volunteers aplenty: I spoke today with Brent Hugh, Statewide Volunteer Director for the event, and he spoke glowingly of the community support in each start/end city. In the larger metros, up to 300 strong would show up to volunteer — and by the look of them there were a lot of cycling enthusiasts in the crowd. He’d start giving a brief overview of bicycle racing and quickly realized a lot of people in the room had substantially deeper knowledge of the subject matter than he did. Then when he got to smaller burgs such as Branson and Lebanon MO, towns with a handful of thousands of residents, they’d get 300 or so volunteers there as well. In this case, it wasn’t cycling enthusiasts, but folks from the community who were genuinely excited about the event coming to their town.

As a final note for this update, the Tour coincides serendipitously with some other big draws, including “homecoming” weekend at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and on Sunday the racers will be doing their laps downtown at about the time both the Cardinals and Rams games wrap up. In terms of visibility for the sport, it could hardly be better. Lastly, unlike almost any other cycling event I’m aware of, the sponsors are planning to stream the video live over the internet, for free. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Until next time.

By JT Fisher

Teams making appearances at the Tour of Missouri include:
Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team
Prodir-Saunier Duval
DFL - Cycling News - Lightspeed
Team Sparkasse
Symmetrics Cycling Team
Tecos de la Universidad Autonama de Guadalajara
Health Net Presented By Maxxis
Navigators Insurance Cycling Team
Team Slipstream Powered By Chipotle
Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team
BMC Racing Team
Jelly Belly Cycling Team
KodakGallery Pro Cycling Team Presented By Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Colavita/Sutter Home Presented By Cooking Light
USA Cycling National Development Team