Tulsa Weekend

Tulsa races were pushed back to November this year. Last year they were in October and were some of the hottest of the year. This time they were more windy than anything else. 25+ mph both day with stronger gusts.

The big money race, Ruts N Guts was on Saturday this time, which meant the Friday night race was pretty conservative, with people hanging in big groups and looking around at everyone else. The course was pretty awesome, wide open on a driving range. The front half of the course featured a hill with some barriers at the top into a fast descent that caused the group to string out every lap. The back half was a little more twisty with some off camber turns around bunkers and such. The grass offered great traction though, so the only way to screw up was to clip a pedal coming out of a corner. Last year there were also a lot of flats from goatheads and other thorns, but the promoters did a great job of picking courses that didn't have those this time. 

Anyway, so after the first lap there were 7 of us in the front. I felt pretty ok in the group, but being at the back was pretty hard because anytime anyone at the front would attack the whole group would get super strung out and yo-yo. I finally went to the front near the end, and probably should have been up there more of the race. At 3 to go, the real attacks started and I found myself off the back again. I reconnected for a little bit with two to go, but was dropped for good on the last lap. So I just cruised in since we couldn't even see the chase group. 

Saturday morning Janelle raced in the 5K that was a part of the Route 66 Marathon in downtown Tulsa. She won by a pretty good margin. It was still very windy, but a little warmer and also more humid.

By race time for me, it was about 75 but cloudy and windy. I was expecting many more people to show up to the race for the big payouts, but the fields were very small all the way around. Our group only had 20, with the only notable addition being Joe Schmalz. The course was really cool again. Better than last years course. They built some cool stairs and added some singletrack in the woods, had a headwind paved section. I don't know what european cross courses are like to ride, but this seemed like the type of courses they might have in Europe for some reason. If only it were raining, then it would have been really fun. 

I got a pretty crappy start out of the second row, but had several chances to move up after that, but didn't have the legs to do it. So I slotted in around 10th for the first couple of laps. I had chances to jump up into the lead group and when I tried to accelerate, I had nothing. On the 3rd lap, I hooked up with Stefan Rothe on the pavement section (actually he was blazing by and I barely got his wheel). And we picked up another TX guy for a few laps. We traded pulls pretty well the rest of the race. Stefan pulled in the open sections and I lead through the rest of the course. It worked out pretty well and we seemed to be pulling back Mat Ankeny and Bryan Fawley near the end. With 2 to go, I think Stefan messed up on the stairs and I kept going hoping Mat or Bryan would fade some more. This was the first time I actually felt good during the race. I didn't end up catching them so I was 7th again.

Some pics posted on Facebook from: Seth Liken and RJB Photo

Pretty cool video from the race:

Rut N Guts2011 from Design Your Ideas on Vimeo.