By Maria Hickey, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – The expectations are big for the inaugural Tour of Missouri, a professional bicycle race, through the state.
The 600 mile race will take place in six stages from September 11-16.
It begins in Kansas City with a road-race, and travels through several Missouri town before ending with a circuit race in downtown St. Louis.
Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder says it will be the third part of the triple crown of cycling in North America between the Tour de Georgia and the Tour of California.
The governor put Kinder's office in charge of getting the race to Missouri two years ago.
"We did not want to wake up and pick up the newspaper some morning and see that Wisconsin was doing this, or Iowa, or God forbid, Kansas was doing this," Kinder said. "We wanted this to be in the beautiful, wonderful state of Missouri."
One-hundred-twenty professional cyclists will take part, including the top-ranked Discovery Channel Team.