The weekend leading up to the Tour of Missouri Professional Bike Race offers plenty of activities. Rides, raffles, parties and opportunities to meet some of the athletes abound.
A new feature event this year will be the Women's Professional Criterium. The Women's race will has an all-star lineup, including top riders Tina Pic and hometown favorite Kelly Benjamin. A noon start on the Plaza!
Here is a schedule of many of the Kansas City events.
Andy Lucas, of the Kansas City local organizing committee is spreading the word that a nice raffle has just been added. Beginning with the morning of the Tour of Champions ride, you can purchase tickets to be in the mix for a nice Specialized road bike. Tickets will remain on sale through Monday's racing and the drawing will be held on Tuesday a.m. $5 per or 5/$20.
There will also be an appearance by one of Missouri's all time great cyclists, John Howard.
Just to the North in the start city for stage one there are plenty of festivities too. St. Joseph offers a Team Time Trial and a Road Race. Click here for a complete list of St. Joseph activites. And Parkville celebrates with a Bicycle Festival at English Landing on September 6th from 9 a.m – 4p.m.
UPDATES:
Some quick updates on Tour of Missouri local happenings:
Liquigas professional team will be at Cycle City on Prairie View road on Sunday September 7th at 5:00pm to do an autograph signing. Members from the team will be there for about 1 hour signing jerseys, photos and anything else they can put a sharpie to. Check out www.cyclecitykc.com for address and more details.
The Missouri Bicycle Federation and Kansas City Bicycle Club are going to offer free valet bike parking at the ToM Expo on the Plaza, from Noon to 6pm. They also need volunteers to help staff the parking operation:
http://kcbike.info/2008/09/03/volunteers-needed-for-bike-parking-at-tour-of-missouri/
And of course that means YOU can ride your bicycle to the event.