Of Missouri is in the books. A LOOOOONG, unnecessarily long, headwind stage over the rollers of the Ozarks ended up in a field sprint and the GC is unchanged. A tough day for all, things started out with 90k of flat out jump and cover racing until a breakaway finally went up the road and things settled down a bit behind. Disco rode a stiff tempo, everybody else lined up behind, normally in the gutter on one side or the other (just enough wind to really be annoying and always keep some pressure on the legs, but never enough to prompt a full on throwdown). We had both Timmy (superman today - must hvae been in at minimum 40 moves, countering his own attacks before they were even caught) and Cozza up in the split of 10 and would have been happy for it to stay clear but a couple of teams were set on a bunch kick and with 50k to go formed up on the front and chased things back together. We led into town to keep safe and to give Brad and Meatball a smooth ride into the sprint and then the sprinters went crazy and did their thing. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew out there to help me through the day - I barely touched the wind and never was in need of a thing. Couldn’t ask for anything else. For those out there into numbers I turned in 4180kjs today, on the wheels. Danny, in the peloton but doing a lot of work was 4900ish, and Timmy and Cozza both up in the break were bumping 5000 - big numbers for small guys.

Tomorrow is another stage similar to what we rode today. 205k of rolling hills, probably a bit of wind, and surely to be lined with a huge crowd. These Missouri folks are getting shown a little bike racing, we’ll see if they figure it out:)