individual time-trial

I drove about an hour and a half to Sedalia, MO on Friday for the time-trial stage of the Tour of Missouri. The start and finish lines were on the state fairgrounds with lots of great vantage points for seeing the riders up close. It might seem obvious, but these guys are good. These are only about a quarter of the pictures I snapped. Many were blurs, or shots of the road where a rider just was. The first four are of riders coming out of the starting blocks and preparing for a 90 degree left turn.

I'm not sure if he's adjusting his helmet, or saying to himself, "what the hell was I thinking?"

I took several pictures as riders rounded the last corner of the 19 mile+ course and raced for the finish line. Then I moved down to, and eventually around the last corner and got shots of riders coming to the last turn. Again, these guys are fast! I love my Canon PowerShot camera. It's small enough to carry on the bike, and it takes pretty good pictures of scenery. But, I could have used a camera that would let me snap several frames in rapid succession to capture the action here. Still, I was able to come away with some shots of a few of my favorite riders.

Here's one of Floyd Landis, riding for Ouch Presented By Maxxis. He was quoted as saying it's good to just be racing again. On his bike is where he's happy.

David Zabriske of Garmin Slipstream claimed the yellow jersey by winning the time-trial with a time of 36:30. He was 30 seconds faster than the 2nd place time posted by Gustav Larsson of Team Saxo Bank. Zabriskie put enough time between himself and the sprinters who had dominated the early stages of the race that he will wear the yellow jersey as the tour comes to Kansas City for the 7th and final stage on Sunday.

As I sat near the last turn, I got these shots of Levi Leipheimer coming and going.

And finally, after he had crossed the finish line, I got this picture of George Hincapie.