I don’t like (tropical depression) Ike.  Ike came in early, but at least he left early too.  There was a lot of wind and a lot of rain.  The house was undamaged except that water found a new way into the basement.  Ike left town by noon so Anne and I decided to bike over to the Central West End to see the Saint Louis stage of the Tour of Missouri.  There was a lot of debris on the road and many downed branches and quite a few whole trees were downed.  The photo above shows a bike-trail-block in the Park.  The branch was too big for me to move.  Anne remarked that it felt like Cabin weather and not the beach day kind.

Anne and I went to the Pasta House Company on Euclid.  This was the same place we went last year and the staff remembered us.  We sat outside under an umbrella so we could watch the Tour of Missouri bicycle race.  The umbrella was nice since it did sprinkle a few times.  While sitting there we saw several Kaldittes, Karie and Mark, Phil and Mary and Kubie.  We also met Lt. Governor Peter Kinder (R) who is running for reelection.  We got 10 miles.  The following is the official ToM synopsis of today’s race: 

Today’s shortened race was far from short on excitement. The day’s big break took off in the first lap with Jelly Belly’s Jeremy Powers and Health Net’s Kirk O’Bee setting out together. Powers and O’Bee stayed off the front, taking turns winning the intermediate sprints, with Powers taking two and O’Bee one.

Controlled primarily by Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O, the peloton was content to let the two-man break gain up to a 3-minute lead on the shorter 10.5-mile circuit. Race organizers had to shorten today’s 70-mile circuit race to 50 miles to avoid St. Louis’ Forest Park, that had flooded overnight. Fortunately however, the rain held off for most of the stage, and sunny, blue skies greeted the growing finish crowd for today’s spectacular finale.

As the race headed into the final circuit, the chase ensued with O’Bee dropping Powers and attempting to go it alone. The former U.S. criterium champion was caught with 3-miles to go. Teams Columbia, Sparkasse and Liquigas drove it home to the finish. And though Team Columbia seemed to have all the stars aligned it was Liquigas’s Francesco Chicchi who took the final win in downtown St. Louis.

The following video is a Marquis Production: