Cycling: Tour of Missouri Stage 1 in St. Louis MO

I just thought I'd share a few pictures from Stage one of the Tour of Missouri in St. Louis on Monday 7 Sept 09. It has been a couple year since I shot any cycling but C&C is welcome. Note: sharpness seems to be lacking due to Flickr's compression method.

1) The starting lineup.

Sweet! Thanks for posting.

Good to see some Cat. 2 (non-Pro) in #4 where I see one of our (Wisconsin's) Beans and Barley riders. I was going to head down and shoot some, but wasn't up to the 12 hours of driving round trip. That loop for the Pro's was 7+ miles long, where did you end up shooting most of your stuff?

Is that Marc Cavendish winning that stage in the last picture? If so, he changes glasses. Also, Is that Ivan Basso comming in 4th for Liquigas?

This race has kept me from going to the Vuelta de Espana this year because Christian VanderVeld (Garmin) chose to ride the Tour of MO instead of the Vuelta. Grrrrrrrr...

Oh well... Nice photos. Tell us what you did on your creative shot please.

Wow a win for Cav....shocking. That guy is so fast. Chas, Basso is racing TOS right now. Good job Scott.

Great shots. Wish I woulda remembered this one. I wanted to drive over and watch the big guys. Thanks for posting, hope for some more.

Biffbradford wrote in post #8609638
Sweet! Thanks for posting.

Good to see some Cat. 2 (non-Pro) in #4 where I see one of our (Wisconsin's) Beans and Barley riders. I was going to head down and shoot some, but wasn't up to the 12 hours of driving round trip. That loop for the Pro's was 7+ miles long, where did you end up shooting most of your stuff?

The Gateway Cup was was held in conjunction with the TOM and Monday was the final stage of the 4 day Gateway Cup. I got a ton of pics from the Cat 1-2 race and The Cat 1-2 women as well but haven't really done much with those pics yet except for a few.

I primarily stayed around the start/finish area and the first corner about 300 yards away I did venture to the top of a parking garage for some shots but wasn't too happy with them. I wasn't too up for the idea of jumping into one of the media cars since there was no guarantee that I'd be able to get back to the finish line in time for the finish. I could have jumped on the back of a motorbike but chose not to for fear of my life and equipment, maybe next time though. I do wish I would have ventured down the course to the final turn for some shots, but I guess you live and learn. As it turned out there were quite a few photographers that were left 'stranded' out on the course and completely missed the finish.

At the finish line they had a small section about 50 yards past the finish line for us all to cram into to get our shots. Was quite an interesting experience to say the least. Here is a pic of the group getting positioned for the finish. (I jumped in the back row between the guy in the Khaki hat and the guy in blue with the ball cap on.)

ChasWG wrote in post #8609924
Is that Marc Cavendish winning that stage in the last picture? If so, he changes glasses. Also, Is that Ivan Basso comming in 4th for Liquigas?

This race has kept me from going to the Vuelta de Espana this year because Christian VanderVeld (Garmin) chose to ride the Tour of MO instead of the Vuelta. Grrrrrrrr...

Oh well... Nice photos. Tell us what you did on your creative shot please.

Yeah, that's Mark Cavendish winning then Juah Haedo 2nd, Thor Hushovd 3rd and Francesco Chicchi 4th.

As for the "creative" shot I think it was shot at 1/60 and I just zoomed my 70-200 as I released the shutter.

Dan-o wrote in post #8610418
Wow a win for Cav....shocking. That guy is so fast. Chas, Basso is racing TOS right now. Good job Scott.

Yeah, Cavendish won stage 2 on Tuesday as well. Fast is an understatement

Thanks everyone for the comments. I might head to Kansas City on Sunday for the finish, however, I'm not sure yet if I can get away or not.

If you would like to see any of the other pics I shot from the race they are posted on my Flickr Page.

Hard to tell, but that's probably Casey Gibson of Velonews in the Khaki hat. You had media credentials then?

this came through our area last night - was stuck at volleyball. go figure. great shots!

Biffbradford wrote in post #8613771
Hard to tell, but that's probably Casey Gibson of Velonews in the Khaki hat. You had media credentials then?

Your probably right I was talking with someone from Velonews there but can't remember if it was in this mob or the awards mob. Yes, I did have media credentials while I was there.