Often in bike races, teams and riders form alliances to work together, whether it be riders from different teams taking pulls on a breakaway, or different teams riding at the front of the peloton to pull  back a breakaway.

But Team Columbia is finding that it has few frends in the Tour of Missouri thus far.

In Stage 1 on Monday, it had to line up at the front to reel in the breakaway that got five minutes up the road. Then, it controlled the peloton for the final lap of the circuit in Kansas City to set up Mark Cavendish for the stage win.

So far today in Stage 2, it has been much the same. A five-man breakaway — Mike Sayers of BMC, Colavita Sutter Home’s Andy Guptil, Andreas Schillinger of Spmmetrics’ Andrew Randell — got about 3 minutes up the road, and Columbia went to the front and has been working to pull it back.

“We’re not going to get any help,” team owner Bob Stapleton said Monday after the stage finish in Kansas City. “We tried to get some teams to help, but no one would.”

But that’s the price of being one of the best teams in the world. The more Columbia has to work, the better for everyone else, especially Garmin-Chipotle, which has designs on taking George Hincapie’s yellow jersey. Garmin’s David Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde and Danny Pate should be in pretty good shape for the big time trial Wednesday in Branson, whereas Columbia’s Hincapie and Michael Rogers have had to expend some of their energy at the front of the pack.

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