Get ready to hit the dirt as we journey through the world of cyclocross in Oklahoma! We're setting an entirely new pace this episode as we pedal alongside our ardent guest, Tanner Culbreath. Known for his unique approach to racing, Tanner intertwines his love for education and bike racing, bringing a fresh perspective to the sport. We're exploring the cyclocross scene, discussing its distinctive vibe that welcomes everyone - from the seasoned racers to the enthusiastic spectators.
The episode takes a wild spin as we bike down memory lane, reminiscing Oklahoma's vibrant mountain biking history. We navigate through the state's challenging rocky terrains, the exhilarating technical sections, and the invigorating energy that the Wachita challenge brings forth. Tanner also shares his personal journey, from his days of college cycling to his transition into teaching, offering an insightful look into his life on and off the bike.
As we hit the finishing line, we're shifting gears and focusing on the importance of fostering a sense of fun and inclusivity in the world of cycling. We're reflecting on its social aspect and the potential of cycling as a catalyst to strengthen bonds with friends and family. Our conversation concludes with an appreciation of the cycling community in Oklahoma, and the tireless work of the individuals who continue to push the boundaries and foster growth in this vibrant cycling world. So, strap on those helmets, and let's ride through this episode together!
OKGP- https://sites.google.com/view/okgpcx/home
Prairie Spirit Trail- https://bikeprairiespirit.com/
Flint Hills Trail- https://www.kanzatrails.org/flint-hills-trail
Flyers- Oklahomaflyers.com Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/oklahomaflyers Instagram- @Oklahoma_flyers
Gmail- oklahomaflyers@gmail.com
Get ready to hit the dirt as we journey through the world of cyclocross in Oklahoma! We're setting an entirely new pace this episode as we pedal alongside our ardent guest, Tanner Culbreath. Known for his unique approach to racing, Tanner intertwines his love for education and bike racing, bringing a fresh perspective to the sport. We're exploring the cyclocross scene, discussing its distinctive vibe that welcomes everyone - from the seasoned racers to the enthusiastic spectators.
The episode takes a wild spin as we bike down memory lane, reminiscing Oklahoma's vibrant mountain biking history. We navigate through the state's challenging rocky terrains, the exhilarating technical sections, and the invigorating energy that the Wachita challenge brings forth. Tanner also shares his personal journey, from his days of college cycling to his transition into teaching, offering an insightful look into his life on and off the bike.
As we hit the finishing line, we're shifting gears and focusing on the importance of fostering a sense of fun and inclusivity in the world of cycling. We're reflecting on its social aspect and the potential of cycling as a catalyst to strengthen bonds with friends and family. Our conversation concludes with an appreciation of the cycling community in Oklahoma, and the tireless work of the individuals who continue to push the boundaries and foster growth in this vibrant cycling world. So, strap on those helmets, and let's ride through this episode together!
OKGP- https://sites.google.com/view/okgpcx/home
Prairie Spirit Trail- https://bikeprairiespirit.com/
Flint Hills Trail- https://www.kanzatrails.org/flint-hills-trail
Flyers- Oklahomaflyers.com Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/oklahomaflyers Instagram- @Oklahoma_flyers
Gmail- oklahomaflyers@gmail.com
What is up cycling Oklahoma? We have another great episode today and another amazing Tulsa night. Tulsa, I don't know what you call someone from Tulsa, but we have someone else from Tulsa and Tanner is amazing and if it wasn't for people like Tanner then things in the cycling community in Oklahoma would not exist. I think you're really gonna like this episode. We get into everything cyclocross and Tanner has done an incredible job of growing cycling in Oklahoma, not only from what he's doing and has done with junior programs, timing systems whenever it comes to races, to his own racing and all the things cyclocross related. And, as many people say and they say it basically all year around that crosses coming, but officially crosses coming and crosses here. So this episode we go over all things cyclocross in Oklahoma. We talk about all the amazing events that are coming up and the schedule will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:I would love to see people get out and race some cyclocross this year. It is so ridiculously hard. It is so ridiculously fun. If you don't want to race it, go to an event, heckle people. The atmosphere in cross is like, unlike anything else in any other cycling event. It's just such a cool, different vibe. So if you know me and know my cycling adventures. I like all things dirt related, so cyclocross falls into that world. I do not know if I'll be doing any events this year, but I definitely want to try to get to at least one or two. They hurt so good and they're so much fun, but they are great. And Tanner is right in the middle of all of it and doing all the things that promote cyclocross in Oklahoma, so it's got a really cool story. So please make sure you listen to this, enjoy it. There's a lot of cool things going on and cyclocross, hopefully, will be making a comeback in Oklahoma. I feel like it's kind of been a little bit dormant recently. Tulsa still has a good vibe, oklahoma City it's not so much, so hopefully things will kind of start kicking up and that scene will kind of get revived a little bit, because it is a lot of fun. But, just like all the episodes, I think you're gonna love it and I want to say thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1:We are still looking for sponsors. We've been able to do amazing things with more overhead door. They've been able to step up and help and it has been a huge help for the podcast and we've been able to give that money back to the cycling community and I can't think more overhead door enough. These guys are amazing. I know I say it every single time, but they're out racing their bikes and they're in the community. So if they are in the community and they are supporting us, the least we can do is support them.
Speaker 1:Whenever we need to have a garage door fixed or looked at or you're building a new house, you want to remodel and you're looking for something to spice up the outside of your house, contact more overhead doors. Support people that support us. They are a great group and I cannot thank them enough for all the help that they've given to us and the cycling community. So reach out to them. They're located in more Oklahoma. Their phone number is 405-799-9214. 405-799-9214. You can find them on all the socials and all the Googles and all the things, but please reach out to them if you have any needs whatsoever when it comes to fixing, repairing new garage doors, new construction, any of that kind of thing. So thank you, guys, so much for stepping up and helping support the podcast and the local cycling community.
Speaker 1:As many of you know, it is dirt season and gravel season is firing back up with the G3 series in Oklahoma and Osage Passage and Truffle Shuffle and all these great things and events going on. Oklahoma is amazing in the fall and the winter months for cycling, so please get out, support these grassroots events, support our local events. If you can't or don't want to race, go volunteer. Come. Support racers whatever it takes, but it is that time of year where a lot of really fun, cool events are happening all over our state.
Speaker 1:So and I know when I say all over our state, it's everything from Western Oklahoma to Enid, tulsa, northeast Oklahoma, like I know Lawton has, or Madison Park has a six hour or five hour event. So there's all kinds of things happening. So get out, enjoy the bike, enjoy being healthy and when you're out there you know what? Just wave at people, be nice, support each other, and that's what this whole crazy little world is all about. So thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy this episode and again, we are continuing to look for more sponsors to continue this podcast and growing it and do some different things so you can see our beautiful faces on YouTube now. So if you don't like to listen and you want to see how pretty we really are outside of when I have Alan on here, then yeah go watch us on YouTube.
Speaker 1:So it's just cycling Oklahoma on YouTube and you can watch the interviews instead of just listening to them, and hopefully we'll have some cool content coming there at some point too. So I won't hold you up anymore. Enjoy this podcast. It's a good one. Alright, we are live Tanner this one. We have actually tried to get this one for like well over a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was maybe during, even during COVID, and then it was like yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this has been a really long time coming, but it happened to fall at the perfect timing because it's your season.
Speaker 2:Yep Cycle Cross is right around the corner. Yeah fall is in swing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as well, we just talked about drumming. As Mr Drummond would say, Cross is coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, always, and it's here now.
Speaker 1:So I think this is the perfect time of year for us to have this episode and for you to talk about all the awesome things that you guys have going in Tulsa and with the Flyers and I even saw the, I think, the email that you sent today with the Cycle Cross schedule and stuff you guys are jumping in with some Bentonville stuff, so I'm super excited to get into that. First, I guess let's just lead it off with kind of telling people who you are and where you're from and what's going on with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm originally from Western Kansas, grew up there, went to school in a small town, worked for a farmer every summer until I actually graduated college. I love Western Kansas. It's very flat, but I came to visit Tulsa, oklahoma, one time for a college visit here in Tulsa at ORU, and it rained the whole weekend. It was in April and there were trees, so I was like man, this is a really beautiful place, and when I graduated college I just didn't want to leave, so ended up getting a job as a teacher here in Jinx and I just started my 18th year of teaching, so kind of fell in love with the sport of cycling through ORU. We have just a program there that requires you to have basically have to take a PE class each semester, so and I chose Introduction to Mountain Biking as my first semester course yeah, it's great, it was really great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we would meet at Turkey, I think, once a week for like four or five weeks and then have a final, which was basically just you had a chance to either go ride the Wombletrail in Arkansas for your final, which was on a weekend, a long weekend, and I signed up, borrowed a bike from a wingmate that had clip pedals. I think it was a 26 inch full suspension epic, which I didn't know any different but I had a great bike, good as it could be back then, oh I know, yeah, it was great.
Speaker 2:So went over and rode the entire Wombletrail, camped in the woods, swam in the river, ate canned food on the fire. It was awesome. That was your final, yeah, yeah. So it was on T-shirt and shorts, riding. Every time I could at.
Speaker 2:Turkey. No, we had some good friends that we would ride with pretty consistently. Not everybody was really interested in I mean as addicted I guess you could say as I was, but we had Turkey Mountain close by and just rode the heck out of our bikes Did you go do your final by yourself, or did you do that with a couple buddies?
Speaker 2:Sorry, no, yeah. So our professor, he just gave us like a pin which was kind of funny because that was back in the day of like MapQuest, and he's like you know, I'll meet you in Mount Ida, and that was it. And we would just like carpool to Mount Ida. You know, freshman high, you know, and sophomore kids in college, not really sure where we were going, and we would, we would find this campsite and spend the weekend there. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, wow, so that was so. You didn't ride at all growing up. No, I mean, you know, around the neighborhood.
Speaker 2:But yeah, yeah, I played baseball, football, basketball in high school and ended up really falling in love with the sport through college.
Speaker 1:Okay and then. So you started with the mountain, you started with the dirt stuff.
Speaker 2:Yep gotcha Yep rode around on Turkey and I just remember we had to have insurance at college and I remember just forging my insurance number, like I just made one up on the form, and I there were many times I was at Turkey Mountain, just you know, raging down these trails thinking, you know I'm not insured if something were to happen here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's her forgiveness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, we had good times, man. That was back in the day when Turkey was really really gnarly too.
Speaker 1:That's when Turkey was Turkey, yeah, I mean. Well, since we're talking about Turkey and we get any farther than that, what do you think about the changes Since you started on it on a 26 or like back when it was like the nasty, crazy stuff, and now it's got these like smooth, beautiful downhill jump lines and signs and all the stuff. Like I know some of the old timers like yeah, it's not Turkey anymore, I mean, but how do you feel about it Now that's changed?
Speaker 2:There's probably 10% of me that feels that way, like ah, it's old, you know where's old Turkey, but you can still find old Turkey. I mean, but when you go up there and you know there's three times as many people there's, I mean, my daughter and I and her friend, we went out and did, you know, 15 miles on Turkey. We would never do that with a 10 year old kid, you know. So I mean, now it's oh, it's great, now you know. I really. I mean, I really appreciate what they've done. It's just creating access for so many more people, you know right.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's. I mean, I didn't know it when it was like full on Turkey, I didn't go up there. I went. I went one time and I was like this sucks, like coming from here, like riding Draper right, and you come up there and you're like what is a rock? And then it's a maze. So you have no clue where you're at or where you're going and you take a turn and you end up right back in the same spot. You're like I didn't even take this turn last time and how did I end up here Like it was, it was so, like it was a cluster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it took time to get to memorize the trail. Yeah, and I still think you know a small taste of what that used to be is the Wachita challenge. You go over and race that race and you're like oh, this is 1990s mountain biking. You know, there's some really great sections and then there's some sections that you just you don't want to ride again, you know.
Speaker 1:So for sure it's still out there, ok, well. Well, there was, let's see, the Tour de Dere ended there two years ago and I felt like that was the best balance of four Oklahoma City people and Tulsa people, because there was some really fun flow stuff that made it livable for us. And then there was a back section of just like and that has, of course, everything up there has a name and I don't remember the name of it, but it was just this rock chunk for like ever, it seemed like, and so that was like a good taste of getting back into the old turkey kind of segment, but it wasn't like for eight miles.
Speaker 2:So it yeah right, right. Yeah, ray did a good job. He was trying to make it a little more tame in spots, but yeah you still. It's nice to have a good mix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's the way it should be, and it makes it good for everyone. It makes an advantage for everyone, so it's kind of nice. So, after you did your amazing class in college, where did it progress to from there?
Speaker 2:So you know the old adage if you want to be fast on the mountain bike, you got to have a road bike. So I ended up borrowing a road bike with down tube shifters and, kind of just getting into the sport, found out about a group ride on Wednesday nights and would go out and ride really hard, get dropped consistently and then eventually stuck it. You know, I was able to finish with the group and felt really happy with that. I had a part-time job at Sundance ski so I used my money to and the purchasing power of working at a bike shop to get my first road bike and full carbon old Tigra 2x10. So it was like a 17-pound bike and that was it, just riding a ton. And then tried out some cyclocross on my mountain bike and then ended up getting a cross bike and just have been loving it ever since.
Speaker 2:Did you do any races or anything in college? Yeah, we did. Actually we took a couple of trips which reminded me, I think the Chris Drummond episode reminded me of. We went to Elk City one time and I remember that race. I rode with a stick in my hand because the clay was so bad and my buddy it was Logan Luecker. We just we crashed in a hotel because it rained all night. We were going to camp and then you know if that's any indication like two inches of rain at Elk City? We just I think I threw my shoes in the dumpster on the way out the gate. I was like I'm never coming back to this place.
Speaker 1:No, it's just like. It is truly like a red clay yeah yeah, we did that one.
Speaker 2:I did 12 miles a hell a couple of times with a buddy of mine. That was a long drive. Did a few local little tour to dirt races but never really got into serious racing until you know, probably out of college Okay so after you got up sorry, my dog is laying right beside I told you he would show up on the episode.
Speaker 1:I was like he's gonna show up on every episode. So he decides to find a hard plastic bone and chew it on the wood floor right next to me. So it'll be a matter of time until he gets a squeaky avocado, I'm sure, which is always fun. So after college, did you start teaching right out of school?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep. So basically got married that summer and then I did my student teaching at Jinx and they ended up calling me like late July needed a science teacher and it was great, perfect, spot. I mean teaching is awesome because I mean I love interacting with high school kids, but it also affords you so much time, you know, after school, on the weekends, spring break, holidays, to really travel with your kids to host races, which I get to do, to go to races, so it's been good.
Speaker 1:So when did you become full hook line and sinker and cycling and be like this is my, I'm all in and I wanna start like for real, for real racing and start doing events and all that stuff. What was the transition and what made that happen?
Speaker 2:Man, I don't really know. Honestly. I think there was a progression in the sport where I just kind of kept racing and kept getting, you know, a little bit more intrigued by racing, and I think some local stuff was what was kind of got me hooked. There was a guy that used to live here, raton Parmain, who worked for or actually he was part of the BOT team, bicycles of Tulsa team, and he was big into cyclocross and we ended up going to a race that he put on and that was my first race on my mountain bike and then I kind of got heckled the entire time about how heavy my bike was and how slow my bike was and then eventually got a cross bike. And there was another great race out here called at Post Oak that another team put on. And that's kind of when I just there was a race at Post Oak. Oh yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker 1:They only did it once because it was super muddy and there was a huge hill and I think we thrashed the venue pretty harsh it was I've done some trail races there running races, and in the race in the run there's like two or three massive hills. I cannot imagine climbing up some of the BOT.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was one, only that we went up and it was just a long grass climb. We had to almost run the second half of it because it was so muddy and they had a tent on top of the fire and it was a really fun day because it was like our first real muddy race. And after that kind of getting to the sport, I just decided that I wanted to try and host a bigger event and we, with a good friend of mine, mike Gillan, and our team, we just were like, hey, we could put on a two or three day cyclocross race here in Tulsa. And that's kind of how Rutson got started and originally it was really it was on what probably should have been a short track mountain bike course. There was enough rock that we probably should have been riding mountain bikes. But we ended up starting that event and worked in basically side by side with Rutson because he would put on the Saturday night event, so we would do Friday night, he would do Saturday, then we would bring it back for Sunday.
Speaker 1:So I ended up making that.
Speaker 2:And it's probably been about I'm thinking like 2011 or 12, it's been a little over 10 years, and that was, yeah, we had a venue out by Bass Pro Shop. I don't know if you ever came out and raced in any of those early cross races over here. I did.
Speaker 1:Let's see which ones did I do? I did. I didn't come to that one. That was when I was working at Schlagels. I came up and did Mohawk. Okay, yep, I've done that one and I've done. Let's see where was the other one that I did up there.
Speaker 2:It might have been at Chandler Park, or it might have been?
Speaker 1:It might have been it. That might have been it. There's the motto here's speaking, I'm gonna try to grab it and he backs up and I can't get it, so we're gonna have to sneak attacking here in a second. Yeah, and I never came up to ruts and guts because I was always working and wasn't able to make it up because we had to work Saturdays. And then I was like I'm not coming up on Sunday, like there's no way, and that's when I and it was legit there was a lot of like fast, fast dudes that came up to that race.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I have to get this.
Speaker 2:And then now he just wants attention.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is podcasting and internet gold here for people. This is so, so. So when you started that was it just because you wanted a like big event, like you wanted more races, or was it like, hey, I think we can make some money here and we wanna, you know, grow Like. What was the reason? Because putting on a race is-.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of work and I definitely yeah, I attribute my some of my summer farm work to, I guess, my work ethic I there is nothing more peaceful than sort of being out in a field putting stakes in the ground. You know, after that happens then it gets really harsh with the work because you're up late, up early, it is a busy weekend, but initially it wasn't-.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, and that Ruts and Guts was tough because that Friday night race we had like 10 light towers we put up and then we had to go in storms they wouldn't get stolen, so we weren't in bed till midnight, you know.
Speaker 2:But the initial event wasn't and I should say this you know, none of my events are in order to make money, right, my kind of motto is I love Tulsa and I love cycling and I like to see those two things come together. You know, and our dream for Ruts and Guts was to create something kind of like Jingle Cross because we had seen, you know basically videos of this from a lot of behind the barriers. You know that was another huge part of my love for Cyclocross is just watching. You know what happened around the country with behind the barriers and the USGP, and we wanted to kind of bring something like that to Tulsa that would draw people. And you know, a one day event, you know most people don't drive four hours for that, but if they can be there for two or three days in race and make some money, you know you're likely to draw more individuals. Was there?
Speaker 1:anything like like Ruts and Guts around at that time. I mean, from as far as I know, that's the only thing that's like that. That's a couple of day event in the Cyclocross, especially in this part. I don't know anything, but I've never been deep in this cycle cross scene, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I know of. I think that was the only event. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the only event. I mean there were maybe some two day events in Kansas City. They had a for a while, they had one up in Missouri and then like Big Shark Racing put on a UCI event like mid week up in St Louis like a cross race for a couple of years. But yeah, nothing like that. At least Oklahoma, texas, you know, not a three day event like that.
Speaker 1:So when did you so as far as your racing schedule and whenever you were like? What made you think Cyclocross is the thing, like over mountain bike? Cause, you know, usually people find their thing, like, whichever one. It is it's crit racing or it's mountain biking, or multi sport or whatever it is. What was it that about Cyclocross that made you be like this? Is it Cause if anybody hasn't tried Cyclocross like we were talking about earlier, it is? It's no fun when you're done Like. It's a blast when it's over and you're having to bear with the guys. It is miserable in the middle of it.
Speaker 1:And then you're having fun, and then it's really hard again, and then it's over and you're like best time ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how to. I don't know how to, kind of, you know, put that in a bottle, because, you're right, it's terrible. I explained that to people. I'm like this is going to be a terrible experience when you're done, yeah you're going to, you're going to be like oh man, wow, I did that.
Speaker 2:And I think for me Cyclocross was it's off-road, so it's sort of like mountain bike, but it's also it's like a crit. You're seeing the same people over and over every lap, right. So you're kind of in this nice venue where everything is contained. You're also off-road, so you're not worried about hitting the deck. You know on pavement, you know bumping bars in a crit or something like that and losing some skin. And then there's that technical skill that you have to kind of hone. So it's, it's kind of like I mean, a lot of sports are like this, but the more you practice, you know, the better you can get, and the more time you can shave off in a crit, you know, you can get more fit, I guess. But you, your technical skill really isn't as necessary as it would be in Cross or a mountain bike.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and that's what kind of like really pulled you in, is that? Because then we have mountain biking. I feel like mountain biking is very similar because I came from a golf background, so mountain biking is very similar to golf, like you're never going to have a perfect run. It's there's always going to be, like damn it, that one corner or that one obstacle or something like. There's always going to be something to clean up, there's always going to be something to perfect, always something to get better. At and same with cycle cross, and maybe more so in cycle cross, because, man, when that year that I, the years, couple of years that I did it, it was like every time I was like, oh, that's decent. And then I'd go to an event and I'm like, how am I so awful at this? I'm so bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's easy to get where you start feeling a little confident, right, and then you mix in with some other guys that just blow your doors off, right, and then your goals to not get lapped. You know, and that's how I feel, like I'm not, I'm not great where I was ever racing at the front with, like those fast guys. You know like we can more to OKC and you know, like you said, you've got drumming and Malod and Dylan Postier was in there as well. You've got three or four guys that are really rolling. You know you're there for half a lap, but then after that it's like, ok, if I can just not get lapped, you know. So it becomes a time trial and I found a lot, found it a lot more rewarding when we get to bigger races and we get to race with a lot more people. So you know you're, you're mixing in and you're always, you know, kind of chasing somebody or trying not to get caught, but right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is very engaging, absolutely, yeah, yeah. And so I mean, while we're on ruts and guts and the things that you have going on, let's just kind of finish up and wrap up that whole thing. But you, the Oklahoma scene, and we kind of talked about earlier the Oklahoma scene, it really for Cross is just it's dead, like it's completely gone away. Once drumming, I mean it, just call it what it is. I mean I was not sugar coated, you know, because there for for a while Tony was doing events and he was hot and heavy and to to Cross, that's whenever it was Charlie's and then they were putting in Malod and Paul, I think, was going out and setting up the Wednesday night practices and we had this like awesome venue for practices, like the soccer field at the big hills. It was so cool and drumming was around, was racing hard. So we had a bunch of like four or five like good Cross leader. Oh, and Celestial Sheridan, sheridan George then yeah.
Speaker 1:Sheridan's always been a great and he did a practice during the week at the kids park here in the city, so we had a good group of like five or six like leaders in the community that were doing that. People have kind of, for whatever reason, the ones that are still here have not continued to do it and some have moved away and the scene really truly has just gone to zero here, and so you know, I think there's a few things that are trying to pop back up, which I love that, because anything dirt related I'm going to have support and be in, because I love the dirt scene. So, yeah, but what? What has made Tulsa so freaking hot and heavy with cross and it's never wavered. It's even maybe gotten stronger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say that our, our staple event really is our Tuesday night cross practice and that's. It's just like we we've always had a crit practice. For a while it was a Tuesday night crit practice and that's kind of wavered a little bit just because we don't have the manpower or the venue, but we've always had a Tuesday night practice and I feel like it's been since probably 2010, 13 or 14 years. We've had it now and it's like it used to be five bucks a night. You come out, pay, we set up a course, race, you know, we add barriers, we add run-ups, so all these practice sort of features, and and we've just kind of stayed steady with that.
Speaker 2:We've seen a huge drop off, probably, oh, in the last five years really, with the birth of gravel. I mean, yeah, you've got again. You, you know you explained how hard and how terrible it is. You can drink beer and have a party and not bleed through your eyeballs by riding gravel. You know. So, right, people choose that instead and it, and I don't I don't fault them for it, but we've in the last probably year or two, we've seen sort of a little bit of a resurgence, which has been great. We just kind of pressed on here with our practice cross races. We do a C race for beginners, we do a B race, we have a kids lap or two laps for you know, little kids, and then we do our a race and We've really had a. I mean we had a great turnout the other night. This week there was a chance of rain, but last week we had almost 70 people out.
Speaker 1:Holy cow, yeah, it was great. Wow, seven, that's incredible and that's a crime. I mean, do you, you guys have, do you have, a big group of newbies or is it, or do you guys have a really solid, like strong group of like legit racers?
Speaker 2:I Would say both. We've got a lot of, a lot of new people that just want to come out and have fun, and then we've got people that are getting more interested in actually racing. Right now, not all those will translate into racers like at an event, and I think some of that's just confidence, you know, feeling confident on your bike, you know, and there's gonna be barriers and stuff there. Some of it's your weekend is busy because your kids play soccer, you know. But we're trying to get where those people will translate into, you know, into weekend racers, yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, and then like who are the? Who are the studs up there right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right now there are juniors we we wish we had. I mean because before Chris moved to Bentonville, you know he was over here racing and Jake Leslie was pretty, they were. They were very consistent with their team coming out, you know, and they were. It was always trying out to get a lap by Chris. But now they, they haven't been out much but really it's. We've got three or four junior flyers racers that are really fast. There's another, there's a couple other local guys that are that are pretty fast. We just need more, more firepower, because these kids are racing each other and they need somebody to come kick their teeth. And is Jake still racing cross? He is, yep, yeah, but he runs the shop, so sometimes he can't make it out by the time. You know we get rolling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the kids are beating up on everybody.
Speaker 2:Yes, they are. My son is 14. And there's another kid, luke, who's not so much a kid anymore. He's, I think 19 or 20 now. He's. He was a former flyer, still is. And then my son's friend leaf, he's also a flyer. He's, I think, 14 as well, or 15.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Gotcha, okay, well, and there was whatever happened to the two kids that that raced a lot with drummins. Think they were maybe in brothers. Do you know you're?
Speaker 2:not talking.
Speaker 1:I mean Not Ryan drumming, no, you're talking about they hung out with Ryan and they went to all the races. The drummins took them to all the racists as well, and I can't ever remember what their names were.
Speaker 2:Oh, are you talking about Malachyne? Xavier? Yes maybe, yes, they are, they were. They were flyers as well. They weren't brothers, but they were, yeah, they were. They were great kids as well there. So Malachyne is now. He walked on the basketball team at OSU really is, yeah, his last three years of high school. He kind of got really committed to basketball.
Speaker 1:He was a super tall one.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, super. He's got great finesse on a bike. I mean, the kids got yes, you know he can, and he can beat you on a bad day, yeah, yeah. And then Xavier, he's not racing anymore either.
Speaker 1:He stepped out of the sport, but yeah okay, yeah, because I hadn't seen those kids in a long time and I just like didn't know if they just had to aged out, moved on in life or what had happened to him.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we hope they'll get back into this board. I mean, that's the great thing about cycling you can always come back, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it usually happens that way when she kind of get older and things change and you get out and calm down. So so let's talk about the flyer, since we're talking about how these kids keep whooping up on all you old guys. What, what is going on with that group of kids? They're freaking fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're, we're getting faster, that's for sure. We we try to make, you know, riding fun. For me that's the biggest thing. I and my wife says it's not always fun for everybody, you know, because I, whenever I get on a bike, I'm like you know, I love it. You're outside, you know you're sharing experience with other people. Yeah, there's there's training and there's intervals and some some of it gets hard, but you know, we just try to make the ride fun, whether that's a destination ride, riding with friends.
Speaker 2:I mean, this weekend we just did a little adventure ride up in Kansas. There's a there's like a rails to trails up there. We did a couple of days, we did like a little credit card tour with some more. Really, yeah, there's a, there's a trail called the Prairie Spirit Trail which runs from Inola up to Ottawa, okay, and then and then that teased in with the Kansas trail, I'm sorry the Flint Hills Trail which runs Sort of east to west, from Ozawa to me over to Council Grove, and we rode from Ottawa up to Topeka, stayed the night and then came back the next day.
Speaker 1:How many miles were. I didn't realize they had rails to trails right in that area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So we did 55 on Saturday, that we did 65 because we took a little detour. But nice, yeah, just just Keeping it like good, crushed like the Katie trail. Yes, yes, so in some spots they're still developing some it but about I'd say 85% of it was that some spots we were off on, like gravel roads, on connectors. Okay, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it pretty easy to navigate as far as like convenience stores and things like that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I can send you the link. They actually have two online platforms that are that are great, just like the Katie trail, where they tell you you know amenities, hotels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes. That's super cool. So I know people are always looking for bike and spike packing season. People are always looking for adventures and we did Katie trail, me and a buddy one time and we did it in two days, one night and we took we took way too much gear and way too much I. We didn't know what we were getting into. We're like man crap, always this big long ride. We should and I'm like man. We could have read this on like road tires.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this one's has a couple of spots where you, you know, I think we wrote 33 C tires and it was good. Yeah, definitely worth it.
Speaker 1:But so for people that don't know what the flyers it like, who they are and what they, what they do, kind of give a quick Like a rundown of what the flyers are. I just know them as like super fast kids that the beat up on me every time I see them. A mountain biking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we, you know, we started the program. It's been 12 years ago now Roughly. My son was two, Referencing back to that Wednesday night ride. That was the citywide ride that I, you know, kind of cut my teeth on getting faster and I realized, you know, I'm gone every Wednesday and my kids at home, you know, and then we didn't really have a kids version of that. So we meet right by our river trail and I just kind of thought, well, we should start a kids ride, you know, and in my, in my mind, I'd kind of always wanted to have something like that just for my kids, and that's kind of the birth of the flyers.
Speaker 2:So ever since then we've we've been, you know, trying to connect with Fun rides or races that we can take the kids to. You know, we kind of we kind of are active on three different levels, like just in our city, right. So we've got like an April to June Every week River Trail ride where we kind of train up for Tulsa Tough. That's kind of our, our culmination, you know, we have a big cookout and then any kids that are that we know are advancing or want to be engaging or want to ride more. You know, we've got group rides every weekend just about, and those are those are, you know, not just flyers rides. We'll typically mooch off, you know, a local group ride, so we'll just get these kids in the, in the group and they're, they're doing, you know, 50, 60 mile rides with all the adults, you know.
Speaker 2:And then we transition into my favorite season cyclocross. You know, and I. That's where we're a little more detailed. Right, I've got this, the schedule lined out of all the local events, our practice races. You know, these are regional races. This year we're gonna go to Trek cup with a couple of our faster kids, wow. And then we're, we always go to Cincinnati, which that's a, that's a favorite from a lot of our kids and is there, like, what are the age groups of the kids for the flyers?
Speaker 1:and is there like a Like a fee that's associated with it, like how do they get plugged into the flyers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so no fee. And really we say anyone that's on a strider, no training wheels, really, because what we do is on our Wednesday night We've got a group that does like three miles, they'll ride to the playground and back. We've got a group that does, yeah, they just they'll go over there and they'll hang out for 20 minutes and then ride back, and that's about the time that our 10 mile group is getting back. We ride down the trail to the bear fountains and then we have a group that does about 20 miles. They're actually out on the road doing our shortest Wednesday night loop.
Speaker 2:And then now our faster kids are actually riding with the, the cat one, cat twos, you know, like in the field, you know trying to just hang in there, and some of them are actually pushing the pace a little bit, which is which is fun to see too. So we kind of are like arms wide open. You know we want to facilitate racing but but mostly just enjoying the sport. So if kids just want to ride, you know they can jump in with us and that second group on the, on the river trails where they really learn their pack skills. So we, you know, we ride two by two down a, down a river trail, you know, and we've got five or ten kids that we try to keep kind of in a group and that's kind of where they just begin.
Speaker 2:How many kids do you have? Oh, you know, I it's hard to say, like I don't necessarily keep count, but I think we probably had about 20 to 30 kids out on Tuesday night across Not all of those are ours but they are, you know, from other teams. But for Flyers we've probably got about 25 kids that are gonna race cross.
Speaker 1:That are racing cross only.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's crazy, and they were in on a lot of our group rides as well, but they're pretty committed to cross, you know, and we've had, we've slowly grown, you know, over the years. We've probably have about 40 or 50 bikes now that we have these kids on. So, yeah, thanks to you know, our funders and our supporters, we're trying to get our kids on, you know, good quality bikes, so it's kind of like bike club, just not associated with the school program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which you guys are like next level, Right, yes, right.
Speaker 2:We would like to be the next step sort of and for a while we were working with bike club, you know to get those kids out into the sport, you know, and not just in a school program Graduate out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right, that's super cool, man. I mean talk about growing the sport, like that's what cycling needs. Is growing the sport that way? I mean, like I said before, I come from golf and I know all the programs of like all the clinics and camps and all the stuff. Like I grew up in at the club in the summer and the summer clinics and you know, in the summer you'd go to, I'd ever went to them. But I mean when I was in college we'd like coach them and you'd coach like the OSU golf camp and OU golf camp and all that stuff and kids would come to that stuff. But like in cycling, especially in Oklahoma, there really is nothing to get kids into cycling until like recently, I mean essentially. So I can see like some super stud kids coming out in the next, you know, probably 10 years from Oklahoma, being like cause they grew up. That was the sport they grew up doing, which is gonna be super cool to watch.
Speaker 2:We hope, we hope so, we hope we'll get those kids hooked and get them in. I mean, even some collegiate programs would be great, you know. And that reminded me like when I was, when I first started teaching, I had a kid, or a couple of kids that I taught, that raced for an old youth team called Team Power Train and there was like four or five kids in that program that raced locally and one of my students, when I was hanging off the back of the Wednesday night ride, you know, he drops back. He's like how are you doing, mr Colbreth? You know, and I'm like not so good. And then you know he's like okay, we're gonna go back up to the front, you know. And so then they rip up to the front like it's no problem. You're like shut up hon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then at that point you know the whole field like surges and stretches out and then I'm flying off the back. You know I'm like man. These kids are freaking animals.
Speaker 1:They are, and at this point you're training those freaking animals. That's doing that to all the other old guys. So you you're creating your own poison there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or trying to push them. You know, and they love the sport of cyclocross, I think, just because it is, it's technical and sometimes it's muddy, and you know, we take good care of them and want them to race well.
Speaker 1:So I mean I feel like cyclocross and mountain biking. I mean as an adult I feel like I'm playing, I feel like a child when I get to go do that, yeah, and so for a kid it's got to be just like next level, just like the best fun, like it's like. The other day I was riding up to like after I ride past like a big field and there was a little league out there, little league football out there practicing and it was raining.
Speaker 1:And I'm like these little dudes are having the time of their life football in the rain. Like couldn't be any better. But it's like like, if you're playing, if you're racing cyclocross, it's the best you get to get dirty and muddy and gross, and mom can't gripe at you and it's the best. Yep, yep For sure yeah that's awesome. So I mean, and how old is your son?
Speaker 2:So Isaiah is 15. So he's racing 15, 16. He's at the top of his age group because he'll be 16 next year. And then my daughter, addy, is 11.
Speaker 1:Okay, and she races as well.
Speaker 2:Yep and this will be her first year at Nats, which is kind of exciting because Isaiah's first year at Nats was also Louisville, when he was 10 or 11.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so they're all in Yep. Yep, does your wife ride?
Speaker 2:She does. Yeah, she's gotten more into. She used to run quite a bit, but she's enjoying the sport more leisurely with her friends and then, like she went on this little bike packing trip with us the other day.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's all and that's how I feel about the drummons. You know, like I've known them for a long time and the family affair is such a cool thing in cycling, especially when everybody's involved, and it may be even if, like the one parent, via the husband or the wife, may not race or is just like the number one supporter, cheerleader or rides a little bit recreational, like it's super cool to see an entire family get to go to because it's a lifelong situation. I mean Skyler, last week when I did, or two weeks ago whenever his episode came out, like him just talking about getting to ride with his dad and like the experiences that they had together and all his memories of just riding bikes with his dad. I'm like dude, that's so cool, cause I have all those memories of playing golf with my dad and my brother and us playing in tournaments together and goofing off, and so it's cool to see people staying fit and healthy and having these experiences on the bike as families, which is so cool Cause there's not many of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's been good. Yeah, yeah, and that's the other thing too is it's not just about, like cycling. We, you know we get to go see new places together, you know going to a city, or you know, in the summertime it's like if we're in Colorado or something like that, you know riding our bikes as a family in some new place. It's been, it's been great, it's so cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's awesome, yeah, yeah. So we've talked on the flyers, we've talked on cross. What do you have coming up? Like you personally, like race schedule, what are you doing this year?
Speaker 2:So I'm going to try and race all the events that I can. Some of the events I'll be timing as well, which is sort of another thing that I got into.
Speaker 1:And I was going to talk about your timing business.
Speaker 2:It's, it's like I don't know it's, it's, it's good, but it's also terrible because it's just one more thing on my plate that I'm not, you know it's. I always feel like really great and really in shape until the season starts, and then I'm running 50 different ways and I'm not on my bike, and which is okay, you know, because as much as I love riding, just being involved in the sport helps as well, you know. But we've got the the okay GP coming up. We're going to take some of our flyers, like I said, to Trek Cup and then to to Sency and then we'll have our first series race in Enid. So the okay GP is essentially an Oklahoma Grand Prix that we created about five I think it's been five or six years now that tries to just play on all of our all of our great cross venues and get people to race consistently, because we, you know, we provide them with a jersey in shorts If they win. We've got a nice custom kit that we designed Well first off.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say because, troy, I hate to give Troy Cowan a shout out.
Speaker 2:I hate it Did he win one, he got one.
Speaker 1:He won one or he stole it. That could be the case. I'm not sure which somebody might have. Maybe Drummond gave him his. I don't know how it happened, but the other day I rode with Troy and he showed up and I was like, dude, that's a good looking kit. He's like, oh, and it's, you know, it was a state championship kit. I was like that's like really good looking, that's like the best state championship kit I've ever seen in my life, like it's really good.
Speaker 2:He's like I know like I actually want to wear it like in public and I'm like, yeah, cross kits are like really nice, that's really good the first year we had we did those people were asking if they could buy them and I was like man, I mean I wish, but that would kind of defeat the purpose.
Speaker 1:Kind of you got to you can. You can spend a lot of money trying to buy one.
Speaker 2:That's right yeah.
Speaker 1:They are so good looking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Thank you, we do a different color each year. This year we'll probably release it soon, but it's got like that Coors light theme kind of. It's kind of like a three tone with that little yellow and then the blue and red, so it looks good, I like it.
Speaker 2:Well, I think I designed them, if I remember right. But I basically sent some images to LAL and said, you know, I wanted to incorporate some Oklahoma themes, and they sent me a few different examples that were, you know, with the Buffalo on there, and then we kind of came up with some that design. So now I just tell them, like, this is the color palette, and they just transition into that same kit.
Speaker 1:Well, talking about kits, who designs your flyers? Kits? Cause they're cool looking too.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, one of our parents, the, is Jake Beeson. Yeah, yeah, and he's man, he's phenomenal. Like well, we were just spitballing ideas. One I think it was actually last year at Cincinnati I had seen this image and I was like I was like this would be really cool, you know. And he's like yeah, he's like well, what if we made it 3D, you know. And so then we, you know, he's building some stuff and designing it and man, he's just done a great job. He's, you know, if he you have an idea, he'll, he'll run with it and make it look good.
Speaker 1:They are. The flyers kits are super cool looking and when I saw them I was like this feel like, cause I met I've met Jake this year from him crushing my soul on mountain biking, and I was like, and I didn't know he painted. And then I saw his stuff on Instagram. I was like huh. And then I went to Drummond's house and I saw this picture. I'm like who did this picture? And he's like Jake and I'm like yeah. And then I saw and I was like I have something to do with those kits cause they are good looking.
Speaker 2:So, Yep, he's done a great. He's done great work. Our, our cross kits are going to be are going to be awesome too. They're coming out pretty soon.
Speaker 1:So Nice, I'm excited to see those. Well, so, talking about your races, what are your big races that you have planned this year?
Speaker 2:So I'm going to put on three races this year. We've got two days of flyers cross, which that's kind of a fundraiser for our flyers, but also just another local race. We'll do two days of ruts and guts, which is around Thanksgiving, and then this year we're going to step out and try and try and loop Arkansas into the series. I'm going to help Chris Drummond or maybe put on they're going to help me. We'll put it that way. Put on a race in Bentonville. So I've wanted to do this for a while, but it's it's difficult over there because there's so much rock, there's just no real big open parks with really great grass. So we're going to try and we found a venue that we think is going to be really great and he's putting on his practice events over there, so they're going to bring in some lines and Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was another thing that's great this year is seeing, you know, not only Chris and Bentonville working to get a practice series off the ground, but also Oklahoma city, you know, just letting people get a taste of cycle cross again and kind of bringing that back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will say, like I know Chad was a little bit hesitant in talking to some people. I know, like you know, people had signed up for the series and you know Wheeler and stuff, and I don't think he's had too much pushback from people that are like, oh well, I don't get my last month of racing or whatever, and I haven't talked to him specifically, but I don't think that he's had too much pushback, maybe one or two people. But you know, like I don't do crits, I'm never doing a crit. I don't want to taste the concrete and it's just a matter of when and I'm out. You know, I go down and watch him and drink a beer. It's great, yeah.
Speaker 1:But when he started doing this, I'm like, well, I'll sign up, and you know. So I think I know there's a handful of people that have signed up to do these that would never have done the crits and the course. It's flat and it's just, you know, turny, and it's not technical at all, which, coming from the mountain bike side, I wish it was more technical, because it would be a little bit more helpful for us and for what we have to work with. They've done a great job and, more importantly, it's been a blast Like. Everyone has so much fun Like everyone.
Speaker 1:The first week we hadn't had rain in forever. In the first week, like in the middle of our race it just starts dumping and it rained for like 20 minutes and it was like it was a blast, like everybody had fun. The second week we had the fireball handups that start finish line every lap and that was fun. And then this week they added a little bit new part of the course and added barriers this week. So dude, sitting out and watching, because here's the thing.
Speaker 1:I'm not any good and I own it and it just is what it is. So I wear costumes every week. So I've decided like, if we're gonna look stupid and ride, stupid we should look stupid.
Speaker 1:So I've decided an outfit every week. But watching roadies do barriers, oh yeah, it's great Goals, goals, Like absolutely the highlight of my week this week has been watching. Well, like watching the handful of the roadies who have never even come close to doing it, you people just tipping over like, and they like Dempsey, who the dude is like the fact one of the fastest dudes in the state Watching him go over barriers was amazing and he owned it Like one time he came through and Sean McMichael was a local guy like was beside him and he picked up and carried his bike and Sean carried his bike and Dempsey's bike across the barrier. Everybody's just owning it, having a great time. And that's what I think Cross is about, Especially at this time of year.
Speaker 1:And so it's really good to see people just like let loose and just chill out and just enjoy kind of the off season, the fall season. And for the ones that want to take it serious, I mean we have some people are out there like for real practicing and really trying to hone skills and race hard and it's cool to let them have the opportunity to do that. But it's also fun for people to drink a beer and watch and goof off and just enjoy a bicycle.
Speaker 2:I agree, yeah, I agree. I think that's again, that's the best part of Cross. I mean, yes, the racing's hard, but afterward the camaraderie and the heckling and the enjoyment of the sport, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the thing. The group here doesn't know that part of it. Because it hasn't been around in their group, like in their generation kind of and so we sat on the corner and heckled and no, everybody's just like so, hopefully they'll get to go to a race and they'll experience like, oh no, psycho cross is about talking crap to all the riders. Yeah, that's how you support them. You don't cheer, you Give them a hard time.
Speaker 2:Right, right. Yeah, I told Chad too. If you guys, whenever you finish you know if any Oklahoma City racer wants to come over you guys, you guys can have free entry at our Tuesday night practice.
Speaker 1:So dude, I have it written down to ask you the details so I can, we can recap that and then I can put in the show notes and stuff, because I would love for some people to come up there and do it, just to have fun and and do something, so I definitely want it. So when it, what are the details of your Tuesday night practices?
Speaker 2:every Tuesday, september and October. Okay, they start at 5 30 with our C race and they end at dark. So I post a schedule every week on our Facebook page, just because it's time, time your flyers page. No, it's. The page is either CXXC or it's. I think it's CXXC because in the spring we do a short track series. Okay, yep Is that on instant. Yeah, no, just on Facebook Facebook.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cxxc practice XC on Facebook. Yeah, the details there. Okay, so 5, 30s when the C race starts and we can get the court like the details of where it's at and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep it's a great park, it's a great venue, it's I mean, it's it's difficult terrain. We also that's where ruts and guts is held. So we will may have already seen that park of that venue, but yeah, it's good, it's really cool and you run that through the end of October. Yep, and until they, until they cancel, you know, daylight savings right now, october, at the end of October, yep, okay cool.
Speaker 1:When does the first cross race start in the series? I got the email today, like I said, and I'm gonna put that in a show, so yours will have several show notes.
Speaker 2:So sorry, I just came in the garage. Oh no, you're loud.
Speaker 1:When is the first cross race?
Speaker 2:The series the first cross race. I think it's October 29th.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be in, okay, ain't it October 29th? Okay, yep, so, and that's a that's not a far drive for Oklahoma City folks, so they have no excuse.
Speaker 2:It's a great course to Christian does a great job setting up the course you know for, for what he had has there's. There's some good climbing, there's some fast sections, yep Interesting and I thought the Gobble Cross is back.
Speaker 2:It is. Gobble Cross is back. It's, it's. It's not part of the series, they're not really. They're not doing it at couch park, they're doing it something out at the lake. Okay, I feel like it has more of a truffle shuffle vibe, but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. Yeah, I'm kind of just. They said they were just like just for fun, just trying to make it organic. So yeah, it's back.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. So I mean really, truly, I mean there's not, we don't have them necessarily in Oklahoma City, but there is gonna be. I mean gosh, what? Probably six, seven days, eight days of racing around the area yep, we've got seven total events between Enid.
Speaker 2:Then we have two days of Flyers Cross, we've got Rock the Mohawk, we've got Bentonville. We've got two days of Brutts and Guts.
Speaker 1:Okay so plenty, plenty. And then you got another five weeks of practices between Wheeler and your Tuesday night practice and Gobble Cross. I mean, that's enough racing, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, and we'll host the state championship again down in Sherman, texas. We do like a border battle with with Texas, oklahoma, texas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's fun to almost a championship is in.
Speaker 2:Texas. Well, yeah, yeah, as close as we can get to Oklahoma. We we've kind of always worked with Jeff down there. He started Resolution Cross and we wanted to kind of just try and encourage people to more people to race together. You know, not everybody from Texas wants to drive to Tulsa and vice versa. So the venue is fun and he and I kind of tag team building the course, so we have our own little sections. That's good.
Speaker 1:Well, and then to highlight your other adventure, of which we just kind of touched on, is your timing business. How many, yeah how many events do you do timing for?
Speaker 2:Man, I don't know it's, it's, it's grown, so it's been good about. I feel like it's been about least once a month, you know I'm. But then crit season I was helping out with some crits, I was helping out with some. Or we have a Circuit race that happens in the spring. You know, andy picked me up for rule of three, which that's been really fun events be a part of, just to be out there with all the craziness.
Speaker 1:I did it. This year for the first time, I did the 50. Yeah, what? Truly one of the top five events I've ever done in my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah the 50 is the way to go. I feel like, as you start the interview, to hang out and party. Yes, I'm a hundred miles. Come in and they're just ready to go. Lay down, you know.
Speaker 1:We can't. And we stayed out there the night after the race and camp that night too and watching people roll in after dark. I'm like, yeah, what they have been out there for so long. Like, yeah, miss, first off, I can't imagine being on some of those trails at night Like, oh I know, especially on a road bike or gravel bike, and like I mean they have got to be so miserable. Like the 50 is 100% the way to go at rule of three, it's a blast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my gosh. So and then are you doing, are you? And you did the six hour. I think we talked at the six hour last year. Oh yeah, so you do a couple of my timing events.
Speaker 2:Yeah, helping those guys out with that. The great thing about mountain bike and, you know, also rule of three and some of those gravel events is you can use those passive tags so the bib number has the chip in it. Crits and things like that are a little more Intensive, just because you have to make sure every racer has a transponder on their fork. But it's fun, it's great to be, like I said, I just love, you know, hanging out with all my friends, you know. And Tulsa is an interesting place too, just because our river trail. You know people that I might see once a week I, you know, at a, at an event I'll see three or four times a week riding down the river trail, you know. So you've got like 300 of your closest friends sort of in the community, really, it feels like, and you get to see them all the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I love your. Like, life is a hundred percent revolved around the bicycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife tells me that regularly. I Do, I'm like, I feel like it. I mean I'm not, I'm not doing drugs, okay.
Speaker 1:I mean I can see the background. Yes, that's all you're gonna. I mean I can see like, yeah, I don't even know how many sets of wheels I see hanging from your ceiling right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a whole row of bikes, it's. It's. Yeah, we're trying to get a Like a clubhouse for our flyer stuff, because we've got my garage. There's no room in it. It's wild.
Speaker 1:So any, any donors out there that want to step up and help the flyers need some. They need a clubhouse. Yeah, yeah, all right, man. Well, let's jump in, since you've only you've listened a couple episodes. We do a segment called the yard sale. Your mountain biker here across guy, you totally understand what yard sale is all about. So we're gonna jump in. And the Question that I ask everybody the first question your favorite piece of equipment under a hundred dollars?
Speaker 2:Probably a bar bag.
Speaker 1:Oh, what are you keeping your bar back?
Speaker 2:snacks. You know bike tools. It's one of those things where you could, you can, you can take the weight off, sort of on a hundred mile ride or a gravel ride where you feel like you're like, confident, you have everything you need but it's not stashed in your pockets.
Speaker 1:You know, huh, what's, uh, what's your favorite snack?
Speaker 2:Probably applesauce, like those little squeezy pouches you know, like your little kids eat. Those are, those are awesome because it's quick sugar, that.
Speaker 1:And fig bars Okay, the little, yeah, do you just do the the og applesauce, you do the cinnamon applesauce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that any of those cinnamon or the og might my least favorite. My wife gets the like the scramble packs and you have one that you eat that has like banana mixed in or the strawberry applesauce. I'm not a fan of the banana but it goes down, so it is good sugar.
Speaker 1:Realize that they had, like, like, gone out on the limb and really had started.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, you can try all the they got. I mean blueberry, they've got all kinds of flavors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I gotta try it. I have never heard that. What's the hardest event you've ever done?
Speaker 2:Uh, trying to think about that, I would. I would probably say Washtar challenge. Yeah, I know that was drumming's also and I was like I. I mean, I can relate, I didn't go as fast, but by the time you get to the womble trail, which is the best segment, you're so blown, you know, and I was, I remember, at the top of this climb on the womble section, cramping so bad I just had to pull over and then riders were coming up behind me so I acted like I was stretching, you know, like a fool, you know. But and then they always put in that that like payment section, which you can just go fast enough at the end, you know, without blowing up, and then you got to hit that, that kicker into the finish line. I feel like that's probably my hardest event.
Speaker 1:I've never done that event. I've wanted to do it but I've never been in shape to do it. And this year I was like I'm gonna be in really good shape that time of the year and I'm not gonna be here, I'm gonna be gone and won't be able to do it. But I really want to do it. But everybody I talked to has the same story that you and drumming do like to so miserable, it's so hard, like talking about how awful it is but I'm like, oh no, I don't think I should do it.
Speaker 2:No, you should. I mean I'll go back and do it. I was surprised to hear drumming say he would know he would never do it again or doesn't want to do it again. I mean I like it just for the experience, you know. I mean that's that speaks to just cycling in general. There's not many sports where you can just unwind yourself to complete oblivion, you know, like when you're running, eventually you just have to stop running, you know. But when you're riding you can coast and then go a little more and coast. You know, walk your bike up a hill, it just it eventually, you know, just comes to an end. But you can definitely. You can definitely hurt yourself on the bike outside of Turkey.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite trail?
Speaker 2:Man. We wrote a new one and I can't even think of the name of it now, in Bentonville, after rule of three, sam Pikman took us out on. It's called hand-cut hollow, but it's it's actually a segment across the road from hand-cut hollow I think it's up there, but we did a big loop. It was awesome. I mean, yeah, it was just a beautiful day, probably Probably, you know, one of those banner days, just sun was just right, cool temperatures, you know probably that. Or or the womble trail, just because I I've done that ride a few times and then took my son out there, you know, camping one weekend and we did the whole thing and it's just a classic, great trail. That's always hold a place in my heart, since that's where I kind of started riding.
Speaker 1:What? What's favorite event you've ever gone to?
Speaker 2:Probably Maybe the first year I did Mid-South, where there was just enough mud that we had. We probably walked five miles, but there was a point where, you know, you had to stop and make sure your chain was good, stop and make sure everything was clean, and it was a big accomplishment to finish, you know, because a lot of people didn't finish. So that was, that was probably my most rewarding ride or race.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, um man, this could go any direction. What's your dream bike?
Speaker 2:Man, that's probably a Moots or an Ericsson. I've seen some nice Merlins too, but I just love the clean titanium. Just clean lines, really nice. I'd love to own one of those.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry to say I don't know if you've seen it, but I saw it today on the Escape Collective that Moots came out with that E-bike. Was it an E-bike?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I read the thread, man. There was not a single positive comment. Everybody was like what is happening? What are they thinking Like?
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know, I don't know what. Like they did the thing the other day for the and I get it and I understand. I think it's a great idea for the people that are really tall having the bigger wheels. Like I was like, oh yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, I was like I think that's genius. I think that's a great idea. Someone who's five foot you're not wearing the same size tires and bike and all things, and somebody's six five, I get it, that's wonderful. But Moots with an E-bike, that's a carpet. Yeah right, I'm out. I'm out.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, yeah, too bad I agree.
Speaker 1:It Moots, and I think, was it that? What's the brand? It's there's Sage Titanium, I think makes incredibly beautiful bikes. Yeah, what's the is it 22?
Speaker 2:Firefly does some good ones.
Speaker 1:Is it something 22?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, they do nice ones as well.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is. Yeah, beautiful Titanium bikes are beautiful, so nice. Yep, I agree. If you could go on a group or a bike ride, say you can pick one, two or three people, dead or alive who would it be? They don't even have to be people that would ride bikes. Just who would you want to go ride a bike with?
Speaker 2:Oh man, Probably David Goggins. I don't follow him that much, you know, but I know he's the kind of guy that likes pain and suffering. It'd be fun to maybe maybe try something with him. Yeah, I'd like to do. I'd like to do like almost an XL style event either, not maybe like a DK XL, or maybe there's a. There's an event like Breck Epic or the BC bike race, like with my son for sure, Just cause we love riding. You know, I love riding together and just I kind of want to see where his limit is mentally.
Speaker 1:You know I've been like that. I tell you you're going to find it at Breck Epic. I did the last three days at Breck back in 19. Take him to the last three days at Breck and you will find his limit on the Wheeler Pass. Yeah, I guarantee it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a tough one, yeah, yeah. And then probably my other one would be my college buddy, rob. He was always down. He was kind of the guy that got me hooked on mountain biking a little bit, but he was always down for whatever we. He was the guy who at college I would call me like, hey man, you want to go to church? He's like, yep, let's do it, you know. So, yeah, you still take a touch with him, we do, I do some. Yeah, he's up in Canada now. That's where he's from, so he, he's a favorite in Victoria, he does. He got into triathlons, which I was a little disappointed in no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2:Then he started mountain biking more and road biking, so yeah, I like it and into that you reminded me with your break up comment that that definitely was my favorite event was I did the firecracker 50. And if you've never done that, one do you start. The fourth of July parade is all the waves of the cyclists. So you roll down main street and you high five like a thousand people before you go off onto the course. How cool is that? It's one of those two where you you find your limit with elevation, for you know that, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, there's. Yeah, starting at 10,000 feet and then going up. That's not a good place for an Okee Like. Let's just be honest, we did me and a buddy of mine, they, who I'm doing a race with later is we did the Pikes Peak apex last weekend in Colorado Springs and it's not as severe. The first day I was there I really struggled, but the second day you go up even higher. You started like around little over around 8,000 and go up to like 9,500. And it was hard, but you're climbing on like Jeep roads mostly, and so it wasn't as brutal as anything in Breck and you're. I mean, it's amazing that there's a difference between 9,000 feet and like 10,000 feet. It doesn't seem like there should be that big of a difference, but it is wildly different. Yeah, yeah, it's rough. Yeah, it's rough. How high do you go? Up in the firecracker?
Speaker 2:So you're, we were above tree line. So I remember riding above tree line past some snow banks. I saw I'd say it's, you know, close to 10.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's wild, like that's the only time I've ever done that in my life and I honestly I have no interest in never doing it again because like it's, it's awful, like you can't you can't do anything at all Right, especially coming from here. Yeah, cause we, yeah up wheeler, you go over 12, 5, twice and I'm like this is stupid, like this is in your walking, like it's just miserable. So you ride with a lot of kids and get people into bikes. Let's just, we're going to do this a couple of different ways. What would be your one piece of advice for a new mountain?
Speaker 2:biker, clip in, I mean as soon as you can, you know if you can that's. I guess I'm only able to have one piece of advice. It would be you know it would be clip in as soon as you can, I think yeah.
Speaker 1:What would be your one piece of advice for a new cross racer? Say maybe they ride, they've never done cross. What would be the one piece of advice that you would say hey, this is what you should do to forgive. Cross a try. Practice your dismounts.
Speaker 2:You know, consistently practice your dismounts Cause I mean, like you said, with those barriers, watching people get off a bike that have been riding bike a bike for years is hilarious. Sometimes they just it's just difficult. You know there's a whole. There's a whole balance to it with your body and the way the bike should shift or move. You know it can get ugly sometimes. It's real fun to watch.
Speaker 1:And you guys had those breakaway barriers.
Speaker 2:Oh, and I'm going to throw Evan under the bus right now, which is strange for some people.
Speaker 1:I'm going to throw Evan under the bus right now. So the last lap last night, they had like PVC barriers and Evan exploded this barrier Like running across it. I don't know what he did, but parts went everywhere. It was so bad Like the guy that was in charge of the barriers was just like holding up a pole, like there was no putting it back together.
Speaker 2:It was good.
Speaker 1:What would be your one piece of advice for just a new person who just got a new bike and is just like wanting to get out and get moving?
Speaker 2:Destination rides, you know. I mean we, for Tulsa, we're lucky enough to have a river trail, you know. Find your favorite coffee shop, your favorite lunch spot, you know. Five miles away, 10 miles away, there's no shortage of new destinations to ride to. So, you know, pick a spot that you can get to and enjoy the ride. Enjoy the experience of, you know, sitting on the porch drinking a coffee or eating a sandwich, you know, and then getting to ride home. I think a lot of people, you know, take cycling as so much of it is. There's an expectation that you have to be fast or good or race or whatever, you know, and really it's just about physical movement and enjoying nature.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. I mean, that's not my brother. He's a marketing freak and loves it, and that's one thing he always talks about. He's like all of the advertising, all the marketing and cycling is misery. Like guys riding up a mountain their faces look terrible, they're in the rain, they're covered in mud. He's like I don't see anything. That's like fun, happy hanging out with the boys. Like he's like you see a golf advertisement or a beer advertisement, it's in the backyard playing cornhole high five in your buddies. Cycling is the other way. He's like that doesn't make you want to get into it. Like make certain people want to get into it, but not the masses. Like it should be fun. Like my favorite times are sitting out there dressing like a dumbass and drinking a beer with the guys and the ladies afterwards and watching people look like fools walk over barriers. Like that's the best part.
Speaker 1:And that's what I think should be sold to people, because it is fun. It doesn't have to be hardcore and serious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Most of that marketing, I think, is for sure toward the casual racer, probably to get them in more, yeah. But there are, yeah, there is definitely an arm that needs to be relatable to those people that are looking for just getting out Agree.
Speaker 1:Well, is there anything that we didn't cover you want to chat about?
Speaker 2:Man, I don't think so. I just want to keep the sport growing. I love cycling, I love cyclocross. To everybody out there who rides a bike, like you said, try something new. Yeah, what's it going to look like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and speaking from someone on the outside that ingots to enjoy what the people like you do, I want to say thank you very, very, very much, because if it wasn't for a handful of people in our community, in Oklahoma in general, very few things would exist.
Speaker 1:So I mean, speaking for the Tulsa people, I'm going to say go ahead and say thank you, but I mean for the Oklahoma City people who like to do things in the dirt. I greatly appreciate what you're doing and I think the generation of kids that are going to be coming out in the next 10 years are going to really thank you as well. So thanks for all that you guys do up there and hopefully we can get some OKC folks up there. We can get the cross scene going again, because it is a good time and it is a party. It's tough and it's hard, but you don't have to race. You can go out and yell at people and make fun of them. That's just as fun as well. So Exactly so I appreciate what you guys are doing up there and I'm sure I'll see you at a race soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Thank you, Ryan.
Speaker 1:Thanks bud, I appreciate it.