Joined: Fri 09-05-2003 10:24AM Posts: 3594 Location: Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the p l a i n s !
Source: Fidelity
Official race started some time ago (days, weeks, something like that). Anyway, Rolla is serving as a staging area for the finish line of a part of the race. St. James is the starting point for the next stage. It is a big deal because of the international nature of the race, and because Rolla is the only city to be hosting (or in extremely close proximity to) 2 separate stages.
Personally, I don't see it as such a big deal, but since I had to navigate the obstacle course of trailers, unusually high density of parallel parked cars, poorly planned detours, and terrible traffic in a school bus, I wasn't too impressed with the event as a whole.
_________________ Ever get that feeling of deja vu?
Joined: Sat 10-18-2003 10:26PM Posts: 2955 Location: Stone's throw from Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs
Source: HSS Building
I think Rolla City could have done a little bit better job of planning out the route and getting that information into people's hands ahead-of-time, since, after all, they've been talking about it since June. The reaction I've heard from the community at large is they hated it because they couldn't get around town and it just seemed like they closed down the town with little to no warning. The only reliable way to get from the east side of town to the west side was taking Highway 72 out to Rt. O.
These little inconveniences could have been prevented with a little more planning, a lot more promotion, or both. Regardless, getting tourism (and tourist money) into Rolla is a good thing overall, and I think that's a good thing, but if you're going to make the public angry in the process it doesn't do much good.
The Tour of Missouri is the third biggest cycling race in the Western hemisphere so yeah its kinda a big deal. However, one of the Grand Tours, The Vuelta a EspaƱa, is going on right now along with the Tour of Britain so many of the big name cyclists aren't taking part in the Tour of Missouri. Even with that my favorite cyclist is here and won the first two stages.
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