Riders with Missouri connections had a tough go of it in the inaugural Tour of Missouri last year.

– Dan Schmatz of St. Louis suffered a broken clavicle in the first few miles of Stage 2 after an unfortunate incident with an armadillo.

– Brad Huff of Springfield crashed spectacularly in the wild, high-speed sprint to the finish of Stage 7, the Tour finale in St. Louis.

– And Brian Dziewa of Farmington pretty much entered the race out of gas after supporting a teammate’s victory in the Tour of Hong Kong a few weeks earlier.

Though circumstances prevented the three from distinguishing themselves from a competitive viewpoint, they at least participated in their home-state race, which is something Michael Lange would have liked to be able to say.

Lange, 27, a Parkway West graduate, was Huff’s teammate last year on Slipstream-Chipotle, but he wasn’t on the team’s roster for the first Tour of Missouri.

“It was disappointing not to be selected for Missouri,” Lange said Monday after Stage 1 of the Tour de Georgia. Lange now rides for Jelly Belly, as does Huff, and Lange said he “hopes to” join Huff as a Tour of Missouri rider in September for the second edition of the race.

Lange is no rookie on the professional bike racing circuit. He spent three seasons with Slipstream-Chipotle and spent four months racing in Europe, headquartered in Girona, Spain, where U.S. Riders have been based for about the last 10 years. (Tour of Missouri winner George Hincapie has been called the mayor of Girona.

As for racing with the likes of Hincapie and U.S. National champion Levi Leipheimer, Lange said, “I looked up to a lot of these guys, but it’s my third or fourth year, so it’s not as jaw-dropping as my first year racing.”

Having raced both domestically and internationally, Lange says “there’s not much difference in the caliber of competition among the major U.S. Tours – I.e. Georgia, California and Missouri – and European races. For smaller domestic races such as Redlands, San Dimas and the Nature Valley Grand Prix, Lange said, “the fields are strong, but there’s just not as much depth as in Europe.”

Lange was looking forward to the big climb of the TdG, the mountaintop finish of Stage 6 Saturday on  Brasstown Bald.

“It’s steep, pretty tough,” said Lange, who cut his teeth climbing the same hills in west St. Louis County — in Wildwood, on 109, Babler Park. Tour de Georgia competition director and former Tour de France rider Kevin Livingston also started his climbing days on those hills.

Lange grew up in Manchester, the oldest of two boys of Marilyn and Steve Lange. His younger brother Tom attends Mizzou. Lange started racing bikes at age 12 and got into road racing at age 16, racing for and working at Sunset Cyclery and starting on the road that has taken him to the pro ranks with Slipstream-Chipotle and now Jelly Belly.

Huff, who has been out with a knee injury, will be rejoining the squad in a couple of weeks, and come September, Lange and Huff may be representing the state in the Tour of Missouri.

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