Lisa Brown writes from St. Louis, Missouri
I felt very lucky to catch the Hermann-St. Charles stage of the Tour of Missouri from start to finish. It was so humid in Hermann that most of the teams stayed in their RVs before the start. Who could blame them? Danny Pate (above) was nice enough to come out early and sign autographs and take photos. He was good enough to pose for a photo with me, however my camera died and I was unable to get the picture. So, I ran two blocks to a gas station to get new batteries.
By the time, I got back to autograph alley, the teams had all exited their RVs and were lining up to start. Danny was pedaling to the start and stopped for yet another attempt at a picture when I told him I had new batteries. My friend commented how nice of him it was to stop. Danny joked that he is a nice guy most of the time to which I said, “I saw that Neal Rogers TdF interview on VeloNews.”
After the stage, we were heading to the highway on-ramp, when the car carrying the champ Christian Vande Velde pulled up next to ours. They rolled the window down when they saw the camera and even though I accidentally dropped the f-bomb on Christian (sorry again), he was gracious enough to carry on a conversation and have a picture taken. Oh the memories!
