Tour of Missouri - Stage 7

Moto 1. Final day. A technical circuit race around Kansas City. The circuit was 10.3 miles with 20 turns and a couple of steep pitches, 7 laps for the race. All the teams who haven't won a stage were looking for glory so the pace was high from the gun. I did a front wheel change early in the race. Fronts are easy, so this one was pretty smooth. Got off the moto to do another change but the team mechanic had made his way to the rider so I deferred to him. Late in the race, I did a rear wheel change. [These are a bit trickier, especially this year. The first thing is to determine whether the team is Campy or Shimano or SRAM. Fortunately, most of the Campy teams were running 11 speed, but this had to be confirmed. All this is done as you are running up to the rider (after jumping off the moto that you've been sitting on for the last 2+ hours). Then you have to pick the correct wheel out of the two rears you've been carrying this whole time. Oh yeah, then get it in the bike and make sure the brake is still lined up.] This change was fairly smooth, although, the wheel was gapped a little wide for the dropouts and took some tightening.

A break sort of established itself. They never got more than a minute and it was short lived. The rest of the race was relentless attacking with Garmin trying to defend the lead. The peloton was single file most of the day. Riders started poppinng on the steep pitches and fading back. The crowds were pretty heavy around most of the course. A Planet Energy rider took the sprint, giving validation to their last minute invitation. Dave Z took the overall, Thor the sprint jersey, Chavez the climbing jersey, Cataldo the young rider's jersey, and Saxo nabbed some intermediate time bonuses to take the team prize by a slim margin over Bissell.