Race Diary - Tour of Missouri, Stage 6
By Neil Shirley, Kelly Benefit Strategies

I’ve had motor-pace workouts go slower than what we averaged in stage-6. We averaged 30-mph for 110-miles! It was the fastest Tour of Missouri stage in it’s three year history.

The attacks began immediately and never letup the entire day. Pretty much every team was willing to race aggressively and try to put Garmin on the ropes. The constant attacks actually helped Garmin from time to time. Since everyone wanted to be in the break, guys would keep going across to the move and in turn eventually someone would drag the whole field single file up to the break. But, there were a few moves that got organized and had a lot of horsepower that Garmin had to turn themselves inside out to shut down.

I was in a ten-man move in the second half of the stage that was the biggest threat of the day. I was completely at my limit trying to pull through with some big Belgians at 33 mph. Zabriskie had to help his Garmin guys shut down the move after we had been away for 5 or so miles.

Zwizanski was riding heads up and slipped into a move after the break I was in was countered. Garmin wasn’t about to let him go anywhere since he is still so close on GC so eventually that was shut down as well. Although Garmin looked to be in trouble a few different times they were always able to stay organized and not panic. When we got down to 30-miles to go Cervelo put a couple of riders on the front to help Garmin control things. Cervelo wanted a sprint for their ace Thor Hushovd so it was in their best interest to help keep things under control.

The last serious move came from Astana over the only KOM of the day with 6-miles to go. Although a few riders got a small gap over the KOM the speeds of the peloton behind were way to high as we barreled toward the finish. The last few miles had a couple of rollers and technical turns that kept the pack lined out speeding into town. A couple of us were able to help Cando get up to Hushovd’s wheel within the last mile just before the sprint got started. Cando got shuffled around and hit the front with 250 meters to go but didn’t have the speed to hold a podium spot by the line.

I was happy with how hard the race was, it literally flew by. I hope everyone was hurting by the end because I was definitely feeling it.  Stage-7 is supposed to be really hard circuit with four climbs per 10-mile lap. 7,000 feet of climbing in 75-miles should be a decisive stage. Garmin will have their work cut out for them today.

Neil