Cycling Oklahoma
Cycling Oklahoma
Conversations w/ Chris Drummond & Troy Cowin (lots of laughs guaranteed)
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Saddle sores and social media spats – just another day in the saddle with cycling aficionados Chris Drummond and Troy Cowan. Buckle up for a rollercoaster ride through the peloton as we swap tales from the Tour de Dirt, debate the aerodynamics of TT helmets, and swap pro tips for bike packing with minimal mishaps. Whether you're gearing up for the Mid-South Race, discover a new gravel route, or simply looking for a hearty laugh, this is a good episode for you.
Dive helmet-first into discussions on strategy, the tactical use of a bell in a race, and how a nickname like "Bunny Hop Wizard" can stick. Plus, we address the elephant in the peloton – etiquette. Both in group rides and gravel racing, we're pedaling out pearls of wisdom that'll help you navigate the pack with grace.
www.cyclingoklahoma.com
AERO HELMETS
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/is-the-new-uno-x-time-trial-helmet-the-wildest-one-yet/
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/when-you-see-how-fast-it-is-you-wont-laugh-anymore-jonas-vingegaard-defends-wild-new-time-trial-helmet/
https://www.alamy.com/swiss-stefan-bissegger-of-ef-education-easypost-pictured-in-action-during-the-first-stage-of-the-tour-de-france-cycling-race-a-13-km-individual-time-trial-in-and-around-copenhagen-denmark-friday-01-july-2022-this-years-tour-de-france-takes-place-from-01-to-24-july-2022-and-starts-with-three-stages-in-denmark-belga-photo-jasper-jacobs-image474153536.html
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/products/tech-triumphs-and-fashion-failures-at-the-first-weekend-of-the-tour-de-france
Cycling Oklahoma Podcast Episode Discussion
Speaker 1What is up? Cycling Oklahoma? I appreciate you tuning in for another episode. This one is going to be fun. It's a little bit different.
Speaker 1Normally when we do the conversations it's with the fine Dr Alan White and he's not a real doctor and we actually get into that story. This one is with Chris Drummond and Troy Cowan. So several of you have heard Chris on the podcast before and Ryan Drummond, his son. So we bring Troy in on this one as well and I don't know if Troy knows it, but we're going to do an episode with him someday about bikepacking and those kinds of things and some of his adventures with tour divide and he's done some really cool stuff. So I want to make sure we get to share his story at some point. So we have conversations, we talk about a whole bunch of random junk on this episode and there's a lot of laughs. We talk about the new Aero helmets in the world tour, which are incredible and I will put a link in the show notes if you want to see them and have no idea what we're talking about. Also, we get into the tour to dirt.
Speaker 1Season has kicked off, the results that the fields are packed this year and with some super fast people out there, men and women. The first turnout was great. It looked like it was some good battles out there and it was really excited to see some people racing, racing hard, and the category one in Oklahoma this year is legit, so that's going to be fun to watch. But there was a ton of drama and it's Facebook drama, which is, of course, the best kind of drama for a bunch of middle age people to be keyboard warriors and it's hilarious. So if you want a bunch of funny reads, go to the tour to dirt Facebook page and just look at all the e-bike posts, because it's hilarious. We get into talking about that, some of our favorite gravel routes. So we get into a whole bunch of stuff and it's a lot of fun. It's a good episode, so I appreciate this. Also, when this comes out is going to be around Mid-South Run or Mid-South Race, and so everybody that's out there racing Mid-South good luck. I hope you had a great experience. If you're listening to this afterwards, it's the premier event in Oklahoma and yeah, we're just we're super pumped about that and we have a ton, ton of people go into that and I hope everybody has a good, safe, fun day playing bikes and taking it for what it is and just enjoying a really awesome day on the bike with a bunch of awesome people.
Speaker 1So the other big thing that I've been leading up to in talking about I'm sure everybody's tired of hearing me say it, but we have a new website Now. This website is a lot of different things, so it's cyclingaclacom. Please go check it out. It is a work in progress. It is nowhere near the final piece here, but I wanted to get it up before this podcast came out. So what's so awesome about this website is it's not just about the podcast. It's a resource for people in our community and we're going to continue to grow it and I have a bunch of collaborators that are helping me with the blog piece of it. So we're going to have a ton of different themes on the blog, where you can find all kinds of things from women, cycling maintenance tips, hopefully some race reports let's see what else we got going bike packing tips, gravel tips, newbie tips. I think there's going to be someone who's going to possibly do some triathlon articles on there, some possibly some coaching tips and tricks on there. So the blog is going to be incredible and they have some really awesome people that are going to help out and write those blog posts, and so I am not doing that, so it's going to be a community effort.
Speaker 1But the really awesome part of this website you're going to be able to find your routes there. So I have linked it to Ride With GPS. I am continually pulling in routes from around Oklahoma, so you'll have to go in. You'll join the club on Ride With GPS. It doesn't cost you anything, just click the link. Super cool, super simple, but you'll be able to find routes all over Oklahoma and download them right from this website. And if you're doing the free Ride With GPS account, you'll get some features that are not with your free account by joining the club. It doesn't cost you anything, you just click have to click a button and it gives you access to it. So if you have questions, let me know. But also we have a mountain bike tab. I'm pulling in all the mountain bike trails in Oklahoma and that will be through all trails. So again, you don't have to have a paid account. Just do the free one and you can locate all of the mountain bike single track trails in Oklahoma through this website.
Speaker 1Hopefully, I will continue to pile on the gravel routes to this website and you won't have to go search them. You can just go here and be like I want to look for something in the Southwest, and it will be there, or the Northeast or wherever you want still water routes, whatever. It's going to be a really cool resource when we continue to flush it out. Please go visit it and give me some feedback that you like it, you don't like it, something's wrong, something that we need to tweak, make better. If you have tips, like I'm all in, because this is going to be a community resource and this is all been an ongoing effort and it's taken me a long time to put together because I'm not a tech person, so I hope you enjoy it. Please use this as a resource, tell people about it and hopefully this will make it easier for you to find your next adventure.
Speaker 1The other piece of that is it's brought to you. This web, or this podcast, is brought to you by more overhead door. They have sponsored the podcast and that money is going back into the community. This is another perfect example. This website is costing money. The ride with GPS account that I had to set up is costing money, so all of that is paid for with the sponsorships of this podcast, and so I can't think more overhead door enough for helping out. They are supporting us in this community. Their dollars are going into making our community better, so please support them.
Speaker 1Storm season is here. You're going to get dense in your in your garage door with hail storms coming through. Reach out to more overhead door whenever you have to get that insurance claim, get that taken care of, or spring cleaning and you need to maintenance. Reach out to more overhead door and and support them, because they are supporting us and this is another example of how their dollars are going back into our community and I'm using sponsorship dollars to better our community. So if you are a business owner or an individual who just wants to help support this and we're putting money back into the community, please reach out and let me know. This doesn't. This isn't free and it's not cheap to put all this together. So I'm sorry I'm ranting and going on long here, but I can't think more overhead door enough for stepping up and supporting the sponsor, the sponsor, the podcast, and we've been able to put their money back into the community to hopefully provide some resources and some good things To our community, so check them out.
Speaker 1If you need anything, please go check out cycling Oklahomacom. Use it as a resource. Give me feedback. Check out the blogs. They are coming soon. They probably will not be posted by the time that you this episode is aired, but they will be going up soon, so please double check that. Hope you enjoy this fun episode of a bunch of knuckleheads talking about a whole bunch of random junk. So super long intro. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy it. Please give me feedback. And you know what? Go play bikes. All right, we're recording so I don't want to keep make sure we capture the gold here. We can always cut anything in the in the up if we need to. All right, you boys are ready to roll. No curse.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's all you want. We can hit the. If I have a coughing fit on me, I'm still coming off the covid's.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, how is your? It's not bad, I'm just coughing a lot, and is that your excuse for why Rai Rai whooped up on you?
Speaker 3You let your little boy beat you.
Speaker 2He's a child.
Speaker 3He's 17.
Speaker 2I wouldn't say I let him. I might have been able to beat him if I, if I didn't take the opportunity to teach him, but but in the end, yeah he got away from me.
Speaker 1What? Okay? Well, let's just start with with that race. What, what did you? What were you able to teach him in the race?
Speaker 2I was teaching him how to manage the lead when you have he and. I there's, there's a lot to teach us.
Speaker 1What's going to say? What does?
Speaker 3that mean there's nobody in front of you.
Speaker 2The three of us kind of got away. One of the one and other kid crashed, so then it was the two of us and then Ryan was just going full gas. I was kind of watching him. I was watching him come apart a little bit in front of me. That course was a. We started in a field and then it went. It was kind of downhill, rocky, kind of technical, like you get coast for a long time, very little pedaling, and then it was. It was kind of a slow rocky climb out and then and then straight into like a 20 mile an hour headwind like through a field and for for a few minutes. So it was like that was the hardest physically the hardest part of the race. And he just, you know, he started smashing out there but he was being like really inefficient in the rocky downhill and I kept catching him.
Speaker 1So then I just I just told him to get behind me.
Speaker 2He was just trying to go too hard, like in the rocks, you know, and you're trying to pedal really hard and you're really just like you're just bouncing around and kind of you're killing your speed. So I just I could see that like if I had wanted to attack him at that moment I would have gotten away. I don't think I would have held it, but I would have definitely. He was kind of I could tell he was getting tired from riding that way. So I just told him to get behind me and follow what I was doing. I was just kind of like pointing out to him that we were known, was in sight. So I was like teaching him you know, if no one's in sight, no one's going to go so fast through these rocks that they're going to catch you. It's impossible, like no one at this race is going to catch you here. So just be smooth, like just cruise, flow, and then just smash the climb in the headwind and then then you just cruise and flow. We had seven laps.
Speaker 2so like learning how to break that course down was you know if it was like two laps, you could just do whatever. But then he started to figure that out, like oh, I can recover for five I don't know five to six minutes, whatever that. That section was Like just rest, like no one's going to catch you. And if you, if you do that, then you smash the climb and in the headwind where they're trying to catch up, also, like you'll never get caught. Like I want, I want a lot of races like that. Like you, you've got to get away first, but then you've got to realize like where you're faster and where they're faster and kind of do the opposites.
Speaker 2And then, once you figure that out, we just kind of rolled, like it's kind of like me and me and Brandon back in the day, we're just we're talking and we're going fast, but we were talking and riding, which was kind of cool, it was a fun race and we had we actually benefited from an e-biker. It's not all negative. He bought us right before the headwind and gave us a tow all the way to the field. I said I said I'll let you buy at the top of this climb. And he's like OK, because I knew I could jump on his wheel there. Yeah, pullers like 18, 18 miles an hour through the field and through the headwind.
Speaker 3Awesome.
Speaker 2But then he about clean somebody out. I know the fundraise like. I mean. It's always fun going to tour de dirt like seeing all the people that you haven't seen in a while, and that a really good turnout. It was a short loop, what's that?
Speaker 1That a huge turnout.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it was good and it was like I was kind of worried about there being a lot of traffic because that course was so short. But it was no different than anything else and it was. It was fun. For for what it was I enjoyed it was kind of like Turkey Mountain, only not not as I mean old Turkey is kind of, but watered down, so it was rideable for everybody.
Speaker 1Did you like the short course format? Like the short?
Speaker 2laps, it was all right. I mean seven laps was. It seemed like a lot when I was on that, like lap three, my man is going to be long. But then I started to realize how short the course was. And seven laps wasn't, wasn't really that long.
Speaker 3So yeah, I don't know, do they put up a lap counter for you, or how'd you keep track?
Speaker 2Man I was, we were, we were getting confused. Ryan kept asking me like man I'm not. I think I thought I knew and I was right. But when we came through with like three to go, tom Euglain was telling us he told us three to go. And so, yeah, because seven. I mean, when you do like four laps in an XC, it's hard to sometimes it's hard to remember what lap you're on. But no official lap counter, but he was yelling it out on the way by.
Speaker 1Well, I had a tiny nightmare for them to keep track of people stopping early or like logistic wise for them. That's freaking brutal.
Speaker 3Yeah you tend or not do the chips or the?
Speaker 2time chips. It wasn't chip timed.
Speaker 1Well, because they're, they have a good know. Well, they're part of it. I think they're part of the tour series. I think them and Corey run it.
Speaker 3Yeah, some of them.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think they're not necessarily technically owners, but I think it's them and Corey that do everything. So it was fun.
Speaker 2I thought everything ran smooth and we had a great day.
Speaker 1Are you guys going to do Get CR side kick back there? Are you guys going to do all the races this year, just the Tulsa area ones?
Speaker 2I don't know yet Ryan's. Ryan's got a lot of races he wants to travel to, so like he wanted to do that one to get a race in before he goes to do UCI stuff. So I will do what's not conflicting, probably just because it's fun to go over there and race. Only thing missing was Troy.
Speaker 3Sorry, man, I wasn't invited.
Speaker 2I kept looking, I was.
Speaker 3I mean you could have texted me and said, hey, I'll meet you up there. But actually Hussleberg sent me a text and he was like man, this course isn't the best. I would save your money.
Speaker 2I thought it was fun, but I like that kind of writing, so I told Rob and had any issues, so anyways.
Speaker 3so, but I'll probably go to Thunderbird. I'll go to Thunderbird.
Speaker 1Oh you coming down for that one.
Speaker 2Probably not in me. They're gonna be in Tennessee or if I don't go to that with Ryan, I'm gonna go to Washington, haven't decided yet I want to go to Washington. I also want to go to Tennessee to help him, but there's not a whole lot I can do to help him. That amount by grace. So.
Speaker 1Vanessa's taken in. I Think there's a perfect part to jump into wash all because you're doing that to get ready for you to his dumb adventure. That's Andy's deal they might will jump into that.
Speaker 2Yeah, roll three or wash it off.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, well, let's just start with rule of three, because that's the stupid one. So is that kind of your big one for the spring?
Speaker 2I Guess. So I mean it. I don't. I know a lot of people are kind of Wanting to train for it to do well, like I want to be able to finish it, but that's really I mean. I just thought it would be interesting to go see if I could do a 200 mile ride. What's the longest ride you've ever done.
Speaker 1Probably like 160 on road.
Speaker 2No mountain bike 24-hour race that one.
Speaker 1You know 160 miles out there by yourself. I.
Speaker 2Think it's like 157.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's close to 160 Troy. What's up far this. You've ever ridden one once like stretch.
Speaker 3Three, 300, that was like a third. That was like a 36 hour stretch, though it was. It was like it was a second to last day of the divide in 16, because I was in Pytown and I had to get home because I'd go back to work and it was like 10 am On Saturday morning and we rode all the way until 10 pm. Sunday night is when I'm finished and I think I think from Pytown to the border was like 300 miles. We took maybe an hour and a half nap at like 4 am. Like I didn't even get out my sleeping bag. I like pulled out my tent and just laid on top of it for like an hour. I don't think I slept. I think it is laid down, but miserable.
Speaker 2I don't know.
Speaker 3Like I crushed it because I was like it's the only time on the divide it was flat and it was like road riding on the like these. Yeah, there's roads.
Speaker 1How's your back and stuff hold up to be on the bike that long?
Speaker 3I mean, I was younger and Well, you just get used to it like I'd been doing it for 20 days prior, so it's like oh he, just my ass was.
Speaker 1I. How many saddle sores did you have?
Speaker 3Oh, I didn't have any saddle sores. I had one big saddle sore that was like the size of a half doll, like we got a gas, because I've heard this story and I don't want to hear it again.
Speaker 3So we get you get done, and like you smell like shit, like you haven't had a real shower. Lexi picks me up. We have to. You have to drive two hours to like a real hotel like off, you know, like I ten or something. And so we get the hotel, I take a shower, I get out, I'm like hey, and God bless, lexi. I was like can you like look at my butt, like I think I got a inch, and so I just like bend over. She's like oh my god, you have like a hole in your ass. It's not your asshole. This is pretty bad. I mean it, that's.
Speaker 1It wasn't like a big like sore sticking out like you have, more like a hole in your body.
Speaker 3It was bad, it was yeah, I'm lucky to get affected. Well, I think it probably was. I mean it hurts for like a week, straight to the point like I get dressed in the morning and like I'd sit on my saddle and I just like Just the pain was like so bad for the first hour, uh-huh, and then it'd like go away, yeah, and then at the end of the day, like the last hour of riding, I would literally like I would scoot around on my seat like every single pedal stroke and it just Sounds like so much fine.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's saddle got thrown in the trash.
Speaker 2I don't want it. I don't want it that bad. I don't want anything that bad.
Speaker 3Well, but I mean, it's you know, it's my fault. You live and learn right like I think I'd be fine. Now what?
Speaker 1would you do different?
Speaker 3I would have like desitin and I would like clean it better every night. I would wear something with. I would have worn like I, just because I just wore like your, your chamois, right like I would wear like an, like a mountain biking short over the top of a chamois, just to have a little bit more cushion. Probably a different saddle. I have a Brooks saddle now. I'd probably use that.
Speaker 1Man, hopefully you guys have really fun adventures like this, up at 200.
Speaker 3It's, but that's a one-time thing, so that's. This was like.
Speaker 1Did it just show up one day, or did it? Was it like a slow progress?
Speaker 3Oh, it's a slow progress. Yeah, because you're doing like we have, like we did in 23 days, and change whatever like that averages out to like a buck 20 a day. Like a buck 20 a day for on the mountain bike, 23. Yeah, with a loaded, a loaded mountain bike, and I was not loaded the way it should have been. It was.
Speaker 2This is why we're getting a hotel. You take a shower, wash our chamois, we get up. We get some waffles in the morning.
Speaker 3Oh, continental breakfast whatever you want, boss, whatever you want, I'm just following you.
Speaker 1You need to just empty with ho ho's and what ding-dongs and Mountain Dew, that's all you're gonna smash for a hundred miles Get a hotel.
Speaker 2I don't smash again and we'll probably still win because we got waffles in us in the shower.
Speaker 3I don't know. There's this guy named Rob Bell and he came flying by me at the six hour race.
Speaker 1I mean, well, he didn't fly by you because you kind of blocked the trail. Yeah, you totally Basically trying to divide you and oh no, oh no, I saw him coming.
Speaker 3I'm like you go.
Speaker 2Yeah you go. He's probably gonna win your right.
Six Hour Race Strategy and Banter
Speaker 1Let me tell you how this story really went from. In the six hour race I catch up with Troy and he's still, you know, maybe like 20 or 30 yards in front of me, coming off full fire at section. We go in and we're talking a little bit and he gets a little bit farther in front of me and in about that time we have probably yeah, probably, 30 yards between us about that time Rob catches us, catches me, he goes past and we talked for a second.
Speaker 1Then he gets up on Troy's wheel and he says something to Troy. Troy doesn't even like Acknowledge he's there, so he says something again. Totally it's just nothing. So then I start yelling at Troy nothing.
Speaker 1And then so now me and Rob are both yelling at Troy, like maybe he has earphones in, I did, I did this one for I mean a couple of minutes, and finally we got to a point where I'm like Rob, yeah, I think you're either gonna just like have to tap his wheel or like scream at him. And I was like he thinks it's me that's behind him. Yeah, because we're just roll up, because when we met each other, rob was nowhere in sight until like three seconds later. He was honest, yeah, but Troy totally one of those guys.
Speaker 2He's one of those guys two phones in a bike race.
Speaker 3Hey, I had to get through it somehow.
Speaker 2Troy cow and no one's gonna catch me. I'm putting both.
Speaker 3He was the only one that did catch me. I mean no, you.
Speaker 2I. I was right on my wheel, though it still makes me laugh that the whole first lap of that race I thought Rob bell was Chad Hodges and I was really blown away at how fast Chad Hodges was on a mountain bike. I'm like man he's a lot better than I thought he was gonna be.
Speaker 3Hey Chad did.
Speaker 2Well, I was talking to someone saying man Hodges is riding good, and they seemed confused. And then I stopped to get a bottle and and then Vanessa told me Rob was up there. We're like oh Rob, that makes no sense. More sense because there's no way Chad Hodges could be me In that joke there with me and Chad but I just got a text message from Chad Hodges Because, like he hurt us, yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1How did you, did you guys have fun at the six hour?
Speaker 2Uh, I mean I rode by myself for most of it because there's kind of a group that went out fast and I was like all right, well, I'm not gonna go out that fast. And then I didn't really. I mean, I kind of caught Chad cook. Ryan was in front of me but he was doing a team with Aubrey, so I rode by myself, I'd say, the majority of that race. So it was kind of fun, but it was kind of boring. Like I rode with with cook a little bit, but it's kind of like he was going fast. When I caught him he slowed down so and then I stopped to get some food and took a, took a 10 minute break or something and he went back in front of me and I didn't. I almost caught him on the last lap until I started almost thrown up. So I decided that was it, I would shut it down. Good idea. So I mean, it was a. It was a pretty fun day. I always like riding it at t-bird, but yeah, that was a great six hour course.
Speaker 3Yeah, how'd you like it Was your first big day I was, I was happy I finished, I was super happy I finished because I haven't. I just don't have that kind of endurance anymore, so it felt good. But I mean, I I tried to pace myself. I think I did pretty well until the last like hour. And then I was just like because I got to that four hour mark and I'm like, okay, but I was, yeah, I was ahead of like Chad and Ryan Hussleberg. They were chasing me, I could see him and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna maintain and see how I do. And then I could see Saxby for first four hours. I was within 30 seconds, yeah. And then Chad was on my wheel and Hussleberg had been dropped or whatever. And and then Chad rode with me. For God.
Speaker 3I think two or three laps at least nice. And then I told him I'm like dude, you got to go, like I'm, I'm not gonna. And in sax we was kind of starting to creep away and I was slowing down. So, yeah, I kind of stretched out my last lap. I didn't want to, I didn't want to get done and have to do another one. So I'm like, oh, came in at 602, I can't, can't, can't do another one now.
Speaker 2Too bad, but I'm just, I'm just proud of my, proud of myself for finishing. Yeah, that's not. Yeah, that's a third attempt at that race that that they've put on that. The first two, I did not get to the end and then I got to about four hours.
Speaker 2No, I last year I paced myself Really well, I was really being good, and then and it almost happening in this year, that's why I stopped to sit down and eat two burritos and then I went back out and then I was like I felt really, I felt really good to the end after that.
Speaker 3So See, you just need to follow my wheel, because I know how to chill now and you don't that's why I've recruited you for the 200 miles. Because we're like, we're literally like you're just going to be following me and you're going to go berserk in the back Like what the fuck? Hurry up, ride that line. What are you doing? But it's so, I'm going to go that way. You're just going to ride my wheel and that's fine.
Speaker 2I'm trying to wrap my head around that.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be tough.
Speaker 1Well, maybe drama, maybe you leave in the single track, since you know the trail so well. Yeah, maybe that'll work, but you can't leave him. You can't. Yeah, you gotta go slow slow for the old guy?
Speaker 3Yeah, we'll see it's fine. I got a gps on how to use it.
Speaker 1Well, just telling what hotel you're at, go, get there eventually. Yeah, I'll drop up in.
Speaker 3If he drops me, I'm gonna stop him. I'm going.
Speaker 1I think I saw Malachi when I was out there the last time, when I was riding on the back 40, I mean in that day I saw One, one other person I think, when I was riding and I'm riding along and I scoot over because this guy's coming at me and I just had to head down, I wasn't paying attention, like I mean, I don't know anybody out there to see anybody, and he's right, what are you doing? I was like I stopped and turned around and he comes riding back up and it was Malachi, you just. But he told me he's going after the 200, like For real going after it. So there's me.
Speaker 1Yeah, so maybe a good battle up there with with rob.
Speaker 3Just callable.
Speaker 1He loves that long stuff, Kitto.
Speaker 3I don't know. I think rob's probably rob's gonna be.
Speaker 2Well, I'm like riding decent for that, like washita, if I go do it. And then I listened to rob's podcast yesterday and I'm like, oh shit, he's going. It's like, well, I'm definitely not winning.
Speaker 3Yeah, there's that, we'll go go with him, go chase with him.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, no, no, I know better than that.
Speaker 1Going back to the six hour trip, my brother got drone footage of the star. I'll have to show it to you, troy. It's hilarious. So it's from the start, you know, and it goes down the Uh, the highline wire situation and you can see everybody. You know, just like starting to, you guys start creeping out, there's like a group of like five sticks or so off the front and you guys keep creeping off and then there becomes like Ones and twos, kind of just shooting off, like almost trying to get across the gap, but not really, and there's like a legit, just Like a clog in the whole couple of times. Guess who that is? Me and Troy boy. Yeah.
Speaker 3I straight up said I'm not going hard and I wasn't.
Speaker 1I get next to Troy and he's like, yeah, I'm not going Hard. I was like that's perfect, because I was like we just talk and we're just like, yeah, the whole entire race is stuck behind.
Speaker 3Yeah, but nobody. Nobody got past this.
Speaker 1No, there's a couple of randos that kind of come around. Yeah, because I think.
Speaker 3I think I passed in the first lap or two, like at least five people that were ahead of us and then, like nobody from behind got to have round us, it's like, yeah, crowd control, that's right, I was bouncing man. This is the bouncer, we're good teammates. It's blocking for you. Chris, we didn't get into the appreciate it.
Speaker 1We're doing teamwork, but whatever.
Speaker 3Oh shit, we got belt buckles. Oh, I did get a belt buckle, yeah.
Speaker 1Saxman gave me his belt buckle because he's like a minimalist about everything when it comes to stuff like that. I'm like so do with your belt buckle.
Speaker 3He drives a Porsche, doesn't?
Speaker 1he does driver Porsche. Minimalist but he doesn't have a lot of stuff. Let's say he doesn't have all things. So the good thing is this podcast is going to come out when he can't listen to it. But that belt buckles, going to Africa and coming back with him somehow.
Speaker 3So I tell him he's like, he's like.
Speaker 1Just the way you know, I was like, oh no, I got it. He's like what are you going to do with it? I was like you'll see it again at some point. You will see it again, so I gotta figure out a way to sneak it into his. I think I'm gonna zip it. I was bike for the way back.
Speaker 3I say put in a saddle bike bag.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, so that thing's gonna.
Speaker 2I've snuck stuff in aobri's bike bags when she's traveling. Before she was when she's going to europe. I had I don't know how I got it, but I had like a mosquito net that you put over your head when you're and I was like you should take this. The mosquitoes are really bad over there. And she's like shut up, dad. I was like no, I really heard they're bad. And she's like I'm not taking that. And she packed her bag and I stuffed it in there. Then she got to europe. She's like unpacking her bag with the team. There's like this mosquito net.
Speaker 1She didn't think it was funny. My dad's the worst, yeah, well, I mean, I guess we'll get into her at some other point because I want to sit down and do a podcast. However, she's on a new team, so that's going to be exciting to to see. Is she racing just us stuff this year? She'd go on anything overseas.
Speaker 2It'll just be the domestic crit scene. Yeah, a few different like the uh, most of what she did last year, but she also did the ncl races and so I think she's got like 30 33 races this year on all crits. Yeah, it's a lot of raising.
Speaker 1I think she's since the, the lifetime and the gravel scene, all that. At this point it's like basically like the retirees or people towards the end of their career, with people like her and rye rye on the upswing, like their career is not even starting yet. Do they look at that as something that's like a potential or is that like not even on the radar, like you think there's any like young people coming into that kind of racing soon?
Speaker 1Like the lifetime, like the lifetime in the big gravel races because there's really no younger. That's like in that world, guys or girls.
Speaker 2I mean cold patents kind of and I think it's like, I think I don't know, I don't. I don't think that would be the best idea to be taking on that kind of training load at like 17 or 18. But that's just based on my opinion and lack of knowledge. Maybe I'm wrong. But I mean ryan's definitely interested in and he's been talking about it lately. But he said I mean he right now he wants to chase the like the uci by mountain bike and cycle crosses, what he's really interested in and kind of seeing what he can do. But um, he's watched the lifetime, like the youtube series, and so he's like maybe he said like 23 when he's 23.
Speaker 1Maybe he's interested.
Potential Growth of Cycling Competition
Speaker 2Yeah, when he's an old man. But no, I mean he's got some interest in it for sure, and, and I think abry has some interest in it, but she really, she really likes crit racing. So I think she's just kind of seeing where that goes right now. Yeah, but I mean it's Like the bad part of it is like, even if you don't like that kind of racing, that's the only place you're really gonna make Potentially make a living racing a bike. It's gonna be Like the things they're interested in. There's just not a lot of money in it. You got to hustle quite a bit, I think, to make money, so I don't know if they'll get into it or not, but if, if you want to, I could see a lot of the younger generation going that way because it's it's what's you know mainstream as far as cycling media and what everyone's doing and sponsors want and and there's like, if you can get in the top 10 of that overall, like you can make a decent year's salary what?
Speaker 2do they?
Speaker 1make per race. They make cash money each race.
Speaker 2I don't know the payouts, so I just kind of know, like I saw the year-end payouts and when I was watching that series, you know.
Speaker 3It's like five grand if you're in the top 10, no, like the overall. Like I listen to something where they got Is one of the women I think got 10th overall in the grand pre series and got like five thousand dollars and it's like that doesn't even cover like half your shit.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, you gotta be, you gotta be in the top top Four or five probably to make. I mean, I don't know what what the winning check was.
Speaker 3I know they're like, well, and then now they're doing the top, like if you score in the top 15, they'll roll you over to the next year automatically. But like those bottom 15 people, that's just like a. Even those people, I think, are pretty legit like racers, to the point where it's like, yeah, and you're just gonna get more and more, and you're just well.
Speaker 1That's what's gonna make it even worse. Yeah, like I'm gonna have to expand that field because you're gonna have more and more like people like the 30 year old that's just tired of being like doing the world travel and they come over and gives them something else to do.
Speaker 2I don't know it should expand into a mountain bike series and a gravel series and put like legit mountain bike races in it, like like Washington Challenge, like hard old school, like single track, because the mountain bike races they have in there I mean not that I've done them, but they're mostly like gravel or or fire road type thing with some single track Like it's. It's too rough to ride a gravel bike, so they ride a mountain bike but not sea otter.
Speaker 3I think sea otter, like last year, was the exact same course as the gravel race and the mountain bike race.
Speaker 1It was the same course from what I understand and it was like my on that video they're talking about how much worse it was just because it had been running from rain. That was it, yeah.
Speaker 3And then the only other mountain bike races are what Schwarm again and that's like a two hour race in Leadville, which is everybody Knows what that is. Yeah, so yeah, I would agree with you. I I think the like the BWR series is growing and I'll get like I've heard a couple of the you know top gravel guys are just moving towards. Hey, I'm just going to go try to take that whole series rather than All series money for that I think.
Speaker 1I don't know if there's money in it. They have like a crown or something, and they have good money per race, I think.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean BWR is a big series. Now it seems like there's a race in every state now.
Endurance Racing and Training Discussions
Speaker 1Yeah, have you ever done a BWR? No, yeah, I think that would be. They're just like just a shade too long to be enjoyable to me.
Speaker 2Like 130 of that is that's a long day of I mean I don't want to race like the 200 is different because I don't plan to race it, but I don't want to race over like that's six hours pushing my limit, because I don't, I don't know, like I don't really have the time to train like you would need to train to race for five or six hours full gas, but I can race for like three and a half four.
Speaker 2Like that's kind of the limit of what I like to do, because I can train enough to like race my hardest, but yeah. I don't know how they race for 10 or 12 hours.
Speaker 3That's like a. That's like the old school mountain bike endurance series that they used to have, like the what do they call it? The NUH or something NUH Natural ultra endurance race series, you remember?
Speaker 2that at all. It's still going on.
Speaker 3Does it Okay? Like cause it's right around those six hour races like the whiskey 50 and like those 50 miles, 50 miles and stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, and they're still doing that series. It's pretty spread out across the U? S and it seems like it's still really popular, but I mean, it's just probably not a lot of money in it. That's what lifetime has going for them. Is they're able to pay that huge purse that is attracting the sponsors and the big writers? Yeah.
Speaker 3But I mean back in the day. Do you remember what we used to do in Arkansas? There was like three big endurance races. There was like watch that challenge. There was Silamos revenge. And then there was like a six hour race at like it was a hot.
Speaker 1Love it.
Speaker 3Did you ever do that one Maybe?
Speaker 1I did, and there's one at Arkadelphia or something like that Iron mountain, iron mountain.
Speaker 2Do you remember that Spaw City? There was one in hot springs at Spaw City, spaw.
Speaker 3City.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was a great race. They still do a marathon at that venue but it's in, it's in like November in conjunction with an Enduro. It's like one day's marathon, one day's Enduro. Yeah, a lot of that stuff like the Silamos is gone. I never did that Love it. I mean it's a marathon but it's gone, wash of tiles, kind of the only ones still going.
Speaker 3Oh, and I heard they're charging way too much money and people just said no, no, thanks. I think they've lowered it now Because what's cost?
Speaker 1It's told in random big names.
Speaker 3Really Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1Shockingly. I mean Paladero, that marathon out there.
Speaker 3Well, that's, that's part of that. Timber does a series, the sixth marathon series.
Speaker 2That's a pretty. That pays a lot of money, though. Yeah, I mean for a local type of race like I did. That two years ago.
Speaker 3It does because they have a pro profile.
Speaker 2It's like $800 to win it and I think I got fourth or fifth or something and I don't know. I made a few hundred bucks, but it's a pretty decent price this pasture?
Speaker 1I think it was 12 or 1500 bucks for the winter this year. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2It's a fun race.
Speaker 1That is a fun race. You doing anything else big this year?
Speaker 2I'm kind of thinking about doing marathon nationals, because the timing just it's in Alabama.
Speaker 3Alabama.
Speaker 2Yeah, but.
Speaker 1I looked at the horses.
Speaker 2Is that in June?
Speaker 3Oh God, have fun, that'll be miserable.
Speaker 2It's hot everywhere in June.
Speaker 1You're going to be swimming.
Speaker 3But the humidity is going to kill you.
Speaker 1Well, you're going to have to get used to it.
Speaker 2Yeah. So I don't know, maybe I'll do that. I've got a lot of maybes on my schedule, but a lot of it kind of is revolving around where and when I need to be places to help Ryan. So I don't want to make any definite plans. I'm just trying to stay fit enough to jump in if it works out.
Speaker 1What are you doing Besides the rule of three? Nothing High country.
Speaker 2Oh what the high country.
Speaker 3I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 1When is that?
Speaker 3I don't know. I think it's in October.
Speaker 2This weekend.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'll be ready. I'm ready to go. No, I might actually go to Texas on Saturday for that. Turkey, texas, the Valley of Tears. It's like a brand new race and they've paid a bunch of I think Keegan's going to go there A bunch of the pros are going. It's a brand new race and they like hyped it up. It was like a $20 entry fee or something stupid. But I'm going with the guy from work, so I'll just kind of chill. Hopefully is my idea.
Speaker 1And me and Troy might do a trans-Oklahoma route in April if you want to have a training weekend.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 3So he's in a good hotel.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1If I do it by myself, I can tell you that there's hotels involved I could be in. I'm not right on my body. There's no hotels on that route. I've scouted it.
Speaker 2I'm not looking on the ground.
Speaker 1I'll probably have to carry all my crap and sleep in the dirt like a peasant. But if I do it by myself or with anyone else. I'm staying in a hotel, so come play it's the whole point. Well, you can camp outside the hotel.
Speaker 3I'll take my shower.
Speaker 2That's why you had two holes in your ass. That's why.
Speaker 3That healed up a long time ago, mostly that easy month. Easy month Didn't even touch a bite. Oh, and then I kept eating like I was riding 100 plus miles a day.
Speaker 1That's the worst bar.
Speaker 3Oh, I was emaciated. It was crazy, like see, like gave me a hug and she could like hug me, she's like I've never, been able to hug you like that. You're like I could feel my freaking like kidneys. It's gross. You do all those pull-ups. No, it's because it's bad.
Speaker 1It's still. You didn't do pull-ups or anything, I don't know Divide.
Speaker 3No, I gave Chad Hodges my pull-up bar yeah.
Speaker 1I haven't been to the gym like a month. It's disgusting.
Speaker 3That's right. You're looking fat. How many, how many.
Speaker 2How many pull-ups do you think Hodges can do?
Speaker 3More than you.
Speaker 2Oh, I can beat him at that.
Speaker 3Oh, I'll put money on that one. I'll put money on that one, and Chad, better not let me down.
Speaker 1But either one of you.
Speaker 2I can do like.
Speaker 1I am.
Speaker 2I can do 10.
Speaker 110 probably.
Speaker 3You can't do 10 pull-ups Bullshit, 10 real pull-ups Bullshit. We'll have to see. We'll have to see. Let's set it up.
Speaker 2No, I'm far enough away that I can do it.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 2I'm far enough away that I can delay this until I can do 10s for sure.
Speaker 1See if that's a training game. Yeah, oh Lord, did you want to? Did you put the on the list? The bunny hop wizard name.
Speaker 2I did. I did because we I was listening to this podcast and and then I was like man, nobody really.
Speaker 2He wouldn't tell me. Well, yeah, I mean, what's funny is, I think I think I think people think he like he made it up or we made it up because he bunny hop stuff, but it's it's. It's funny because the person that made it up was kind of making fun of him. At the time we were out of race in Texas and this was when he was probably eight or nine and all the. So, like all the kids in his race, one kid paid attention.
Speaker 2All the other kids did the start, went up this paved road but the course every lap turned off the paved road and kind of went into the woods. So all the kids turned off of the paved course, except there's one kid, and so he was like half a lap ahead of everyone. And this course had it was resolution, cross and garland and it's it's kind of on a hillside and on the hillside they put a telephone poles like stairs, like Belgian stairs, but they'd filled the backside of them so they were rideable because they, you know, they kind of had a flat edge on the top and I think I mean I think I was doing the elite race that day and maybe like five people in the elite race were riding them and everyone else was running them and Ryan was riding them that day. You know his tiny little kid was hopping up them. But anyways, because he was doing that, he's catching the kid that's in the lead and and he's the only one like he's he's about to catch this kid and Richard freeze, who's announcing, is just kind of a legendary cycle cross announcer from the New England area and they would pay him and bring him down to announce, cause he's just really, really good at that.
Speaker 2And he kept. He kept saying something like this kid, cause Ryan was wearing glasses he's not wearing glasses anymore, but he was saying he looked like Harry Potter because he was, because he was wearing glasses Like this kid looks like a wizard, it looks like Harry Potter on a bike. And then he comes around and then the announcer sees him hopping the logs and he's like, oh my God, he's a bunny hopping wizard.
Speaker 1Oh, that's a great name. That's a great way to give a name, so it's actually pretty.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Since you're telling stories on nicknames, you want to tell us how GravelDoc since GravelDoc is not here to defend himself and or to stand up for any stories we may make up you want to tell how we got his GravelDoc name?
Speaker 2Well, I know he got his doc name. That's just evolved through the years and whatever he's doing at the time.
Speaker 1But it was. We went for him and he gave himself the doctor title.
Bike Racing Team Memories and Updates
Speaker 2Yeah, pretty much. We went to the Mellow Johnny's race in Austin when we had the Bike One team, which was a fun group, but most of us traveled down there. And he's like, he's just like I'll get the hotels, I'll book them Cause I'm gonna, if you like, book them under a doctor's name. You get this huge discount. And so you know, he, like he booked them under Dr Alan White. And you know, like no, no, no way to like prove he's a doctor. When he gets there, he just he just walks in, like he's like you know, kind of step aside, boys, I'll get this. And he any one of the counters, like Dr Alan White, and they're just looking and looking. It starts to get awkward and they're looking, they can't find it and they, they didn't book it under a doctor and he didn't get a discount.
Speaker 1So we called him.
Speaker 2we called him Doc from then on.
Speaker 1I like it I like it, I like it. None of that is surprising actually.
Speaker 2He was pretty confident that that was gonna work.
Speaker 3Yeah, most of the trip, yeah.
Speaker 1And looking back, that group that was a good group of writers, Best.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2That was the best team I've been a part of. I think, like it was Not everyone was the fastest, but man, we had a really good time.
Speaker 1I wish there was really that team aspect in Oklahoma, well, at least in the Oklahoma city area. I was like God. I remember like I was at Schlegel's. There was like there were so many different teams. There was like the, was it like Fossil or whatever it was with the old guys, yeah, yeah, Like there was just so many you had that undiscovered and then there was all the DNA guys, dna guys had a team and then who else was? I mean, there was tons of them.
Speaker 3Only the bike lab had a team for a while, and yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, but now I started that bike one team and it was just like man, I just want all the people that I want to hang out with on this team. It was awesome.
Speaker 1There's nothing like that anymore. No.
Speaker 3It's everybody's sponsor. Now you got to get paid to get on that team. Factory.
Speaker 1Factory. That's right. It's right there.
Speaker 3I'm an influencer. Is that what they're called? People that act like they really know what they're doing, but they really don't? Maybe it's called you an influencer? No, I'm not on the social, so I have no idea what that is.
Speaker 1That's why I was going to make sure that you knew our topics. Whenever I tell Troy how to do this and he's like I'm going to do technology, I'm like you just need to open an email link in your phone.
Speaker 2What's an email link?
Speaker 3Yeah, hey, I have it pulled up on my phone, Okay.
Speaker 1He did actually pull up a. Thing.
Speaker 3I got it on my phone. Yeah, see, got it right here. See, buddy, right there.
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 1Good job, good job. So, what's see, what else did we want to make? Oh well, we kind of touched on the tour today, and I want to make sure we have plenty of time to talk about this before we get in. Well actually, let's get into that first and then we can talk about some of the other stuff. But the that we can finish with the tour to Dirt Drama. It's keeping the socials.
Speaker 2The latest tour to Dirt Drama. The latest, there's only some.
Speaker 1Well, I'll start with this. I am very happy to report that the two dudes that crushed cat two last year also won cat one this year. So my sandbag and comments Thank you for what you want, because they went one, two and the 40 plus, and it was from the time results that I saw it was close. Jake and Ryan yeah, fast dudes, so it looks like a battle they were just really finally ready to go.
Speaker 3Jake, he'd be mean across. Race you what?
Speaker 2Robin, they were just finally ready to move up. They had to be ready.
Speaker 1Yeah, they just needed one good summer or one good winter of training to get ready for it and it really showed.
Speaker 3So all this old cat ones can now cat down to cat two.
Speaker 1Yeah, come on, come play.
Speaker 3So that's probably where I belong about this point, yeah.
Speaker 1Come on, you always talked about how you wanted a bigger cat one. Feel deep, be careful what you wish for.
Speaker 3Well, that's, I mean I do. I think that's great. I mean I'm at that point now where, like the problem that I have with tour to Dirt last year is like I would show up and it's like me and three dudes every fucking time and you're just like dude, like I'm sick of getting beat by Chad Sprig and Jason Engelke, like I'm just this is not fun, racing these two dudes every week and get my face kicked in.
Speaker 3Like I would rather race for eighth place and race somebody than just take second in a three person field, like that doesn't even. But I mean like there's tons of people that have been in cat one that just they get there, they get their teeth kicked in and then they're like oh, I guess I'm gonna go do cat two or a different type of race.
Speaker 1The field was huge in the cat one. Yeah, it's good. 50 plus group was massive too.
Speaker 3Good yeah, good for them.
Speaker 1Herrera, who's crushed the 50 plus forever. Finished like how many like fifth or something like that that I saw.
Speaker 3Like Dave's fast too.
Speaker 1Dave's? Yeah, dave's legit. So let's see if something happened, but yeah, it looks like the cat. One field this year is.
Speaker 3Well, it might just be cause it's I mean, good job to chat, spray up there just promoting it. And it's it's also the first race of the year. Everybody's getting busters Right. I mean, that's how it goes, right.
Speaker 2Well, someone said that like, oh, it was a great turnout, and I was like, well, let's see how round two goes Cause yeah, you know, right Round one everyone's excited and then it's like, yeah, but I I mean the next one will be good.
Speaker 3Like they always do a good job down in there and then they do a good job down at, like Thunderbird, but it's then after that it's like the you know, they do one in Texas that nobody ever shows up. Apparently there's one in Kansas too, and you're like nobody's going to show up to that. Like it's like why do you put that in the series? There's a massive amount of travel this year.
Speaker 1And it was like 10 races and like eight counts. So you better be committed if you're wanting to do the series. Cause, yeah you go, I think you go to Claremont. Elk City and Wichita Falls are the like outside edges. Claremont's fun, Claremont's great Claremont's great. I mean there's a lot of travel involved.
Speaker 3But like I've, I've done that Wichita Falls one. It's like. It's like it's fun, but it's like riding Bluff Creek yeah.
Speaker 1Only on, you know longer.
Speaker 3Although God have you, you haven't heard about this, Chris. Bluff Creek is like 10 plus miles now. Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 2I have, I think Ryan told me that actually I've heard it's longer.
Speaker 3It's, it's decent, it's it is pretty decent. It's kind of fun. Like I wrote over there the last week, did like two laps and wrote home. I'm like shit, I got like 26 miles today. Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 2I always liked riding there. I thought it was super fun, but only for maybe like 45 minutes or an hour, just cause the laps were short back then. But it was. It was a ton of fun to ride.
Speaker 1And they cleaned up and calmed down some of the roots on the old section. So it's not quite as bumpy and techy, as it was back then. But one of the areas that they added has, like, some ups and downs, like if you go into them with too much speed and don't know where you're going, like you could have some bad.
Speaker 3You remember, you know where the like the BMX jumps are way back there.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3If you go to the right and go north. They did like another whole, like two and a half miles up in there. That's like kind of falls along the creek bed. It's really enjoyable.
Speaker 1It's fun.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then they did oh yeah, there used to be, yeah, there used to be some trail like some pretty, pretty primitive trails back there a long time ago.
Speaker 3Like I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1Got them, but you can pretty nice.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1It's good. It's really good. It is really fun flow stuff that they go from the other side of the path, between the path and the neighborhood out in that field area. So I think I saw last week or something somebody clocked it at like 11, 11 and a half miles.
Speaker 2Yeah, I keep that into it, so it's great. How fast could you do that on an e-bike? I mean, we're getting sidetracked on our topic, yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah, back to the important. So what's the question, what's the question.
Speaker 2I pulled this back in there.
Speaker 3Good job Way to redirect yeah.
Speaker 1E-bikes. How do you feel?
Speaker 3But OK, so reading everything that I, Because, chris, you were there.
Speaker 1We just got to be keyboard warriors.
Speaker 2I actually I witnessed some of it, so Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 3I don't think it's an e-bike issue. No, I think it's just a faster. Now, granted, they happen to be on an e-bike, but they're just a faster rider, Because it could be a cat one racer cat, like you know passing a cat, three person.
Speaker 2It could be the same thing, the issue the issue is and it got way out of control on Facebook because everyone wanted to call names and go crazy but like the only issue is just a lack of education on etiquette, because I don't know all the e-bike racers but I'm pretty sure most of them are probably moto guys. A lot of them are and I. They just don't know that like I mean sometimes.
Speaker 3That is why for them.
Speaker 2That you just well, the guy, the guy that pulled us through the field. We went through the feed zone behind him and he buzzed a girl on her right side kind of spooked her. They almost locked bars and almost crashed and he never said, he never announced he was there in any way. So I was just, you know, I didn't yell at him, I was. I was like here's my chance to like explain this. I just said, hey, just tell her you're there, like tell her you're going by on the right and she's not going to move. Like you just have to announce it.
Speaker 2And I think I think that's part of it is they pass and just don't think that they need to do that, and that's just kind of what people expect. And also, I mean, you know, you come up, you come up on someone and you're racing and there's nowhere for them to go. And it can be frustrating, but like I don't, like that's happened to me hundreds of times. That's happened on the last lap of a race after I attacked somebody and I'm like all right, here's my time to win the race, and then you catch somebody and there's nowhere for them to go and you have no choice but to stop. Like I mean you can't yell at them or crash them out, you just you have to wait. Like it's not a world championship, it's a tour de dert race. So just like I'll say, hey, I need to get by whenever it's safe, like that's the easiest way to do it when it's safe for them.
Speaker 2And what's safe for you may not be safe for them. That's what another issue on education is. You're catching, you know, you're catching a rider that maybe one really tired or not have the skill set you have and not comfortable pulling over where you think they should. So you can't just blast them off the trail because you don't agree. You don't agree, and I mean, if people can't get on board with that, then they're assholes and maybe they shouldn't be racing. But I don't, I don't think there's like bad intentions. Honestly, I think they just don't know any different that like you have to announce it and you should probably just wait till they're comfortable moving. Now you know, I've also encountered people that just won't move.
Speaker 1And like like Troy against Rob.
Speaker 2That's yeah. People like put their headphones in Right, just won't get out of the way.
Speaker 3During race yeah, yeah, good for me, but that's a whole different story.
Speaker 2Like I think everyone that had issues were probably like trying to get out of the way or wanting to get out of the way, and I mean I think whoever's running toward the dirt, maybe it's on them to at the next race or at every race, like explain that at the start line, like here's how you pass. And if people choose to still not pass that way, then there's a problem with the individual, not what kind of bike they're riding.
Speaker 3Is there a use to the or like a use act? Rule on this?
Speaker 1There has to be, they have a use.
Speaker 2There is a there's a rule that they're supposed to have a standalone race, like some. Of course, someone highlighted no no, no, no.
Speaker 3I just I just meant like, no, like the rule book on passing, like because there's a, there's rules about like feed zones and like all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2And I think the main rule is is Dr Ellen White's don't be a dick.
Cycling Etiquette and Social Media Drama
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a good rule. It's pretty simple, I do believe, because back in the day, when I was faster, I felt like I passed a lot of people, and I will just say this now it is Long time ago, right, very, very long time ago. I find that you put a bell on your bike and just do that a couple of times, cause I do it at the lake and it is. It is so weird how people respond to a bell rather than rider back on your left.
Speaker 3Like, all I do is just like you just ring the bell twice and like you know when you're creeping up on them not on them, but like you let them you ring it twice, let them know you're coming, and then when you get a little bit closer, you ring it again and they just like get at the. You don't even have to say a word, almost, and it's so nice.
Speaker 2But that's another thing like you want to. You want to notify them before you're on their wheel. Oh yeah, like, if you say it early enough, they're usually out of the way, but and you don't even slow down, like well, that's, that's that's knowledge too, that I mean you've raced, I've raced enough.
Speaker 3where you call it out like you know 10 seconds in advance and then, like, like you say, they get out of the way typically because they know you're coming.
Speaker 1But I think that comes from starting at a cat three level and work in your way up. You learn those things in your racing. But if you come into the sport as a newbie, come into the sport as a cat three, but now you're passing everyone instead of getting past you. Just you don't know what you don't know and you can blame them, but not really blame them for that, because they don't know the etiquette, because they haven't made maybe their first time to ever race or they're you know. I think that's a lot of it.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, it's their first time doing a race and they, if they are from the motor world, they have some skill to ride the bike fast, but they just and I mean there's a lot of debate on when they should start and where they should be in the lineup Like that doesn't matter, because at that speed they're going to lack people, they're still going to pass people and the people they're passing then, like, like when I got caught, I was able to deal with it because it's like I know what that's, like I just got out of the way.
Speaker 2Like I saw you was there and I got out of the way. But there's people that just don't have that awareness and also just don't aren't comfortable just getting out of the way. Like they need to find a spot where they can, like put a foot down. So it doesn't matter where they start them or how they like, none of that's going to make a difference. Like, the only thing that's going to make a difference is education, and it's pretty simple to do. Like, go to the start line of the race and make sure everyone hears you and hey, here's how you pass. It's pretty easy.
Speaker 1Or you could just blast everyone on Facebook, because that usually gets good responses and results.
Speaker 3Is that what social media is good for? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1If they would have thrown something in there about the presidential election, that would have been a really nice topper.
Speaker 2You know I quit reading it, but there probably is something.
Speaker 1Probably dude. There was so many comments. The first time I got on there there was like 68 comments. I'm like holy crap. I got to read this and I was like this is like amazing, and I had a whiskey. I was on the back porch with the dog. I'm reading this. This is like this is amazing. The next time I got on there it was like 184 comments and there was like eight posts like that and I was like what has happened here? It was so much fun to get caught up.
Speaker 2People's comments got buried so they had to make their own post.
Speaker 1I don't know who this guy is. He's from. He I've got on his Facebook page to look and see if I can see who he is. He's from somewhere, I think Eastern Oklahoma, cause he had a Arkansas state championship jersey on his picture on his page. But he was like just ripping people, like calling them all kinds of stuff and like talking about how he's never coming back to this state cause everybody's so soft and a bunch of wooses, and then everybody'd rip him and he would just come right back down. I'm like Jesus, this guy, he was letting it rip.
Speaker 3So we live in Oklahoma and we're riding bikes on the weekends for fun in spandex.
Speaker 1As a bunch of middle-aged people.
Speaker 3And people are taking it that serious, and and and who at best Chris, you and Rai Rai won right.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, ryan won. What was your? What was your payout?
Speaker 3What was your payout? I?
Speaker 2got $80.
Speaker 3$80 for the best place. People, they didn't even get $100. Right, wow.
Speaker 3But, but what do all those e-bikers win? What are the cat twos when nothing right, nobody wins anything except for cat one and they get 40%. Maybe I mean that's worth dying for, that's worth killing somebody for, apparently. I mean the thing is, it's the same shit at like At Wheeler with the cat what a sea rays where it's like dude, guys, it's Tuesday night, we got to go to work tomorrow and you're gonna chop me in this corner like seriously, guys, yeah, it's yeah the only time I had an issue.
Speaker 1I will say, the only time that I remember having an issue at a race was the six hour at arcade and it was an E-bike. I there's the same guy got me twice, yeah, and it was the same thing, and I don't know. I think it was a lack of Knowledge because he came up and we were in an open area and I heard him coming because, like, he was humming and so, yeah, we was gonna get to us. So he gets there in an open area. That's okay, go here on your on my left, so I move right into the grass and the dude goes right and allows Wheel and runs up into my leg. Oh, I heard so bad.
Speaker 2I was like dude, he probably had headphones in, he didn't know, what you said. I was like that's what you.
Speaker 3That's what you call a callback. I was like Lexi, be so proud of me, yeah.
Speaker 1So we just all laughed and it wasn't a big deal. I think he just maybe misunderstood or what like totally was chill, he wrote off, we wrote off whatever. Handful laps later he catches this again and he catches this in the section that's well, I don't.
Speaker 1you probably aren't familiar with it, but it's his back corner and it's by the river and it's like a 30 foot drop down to the water, yeah it seems like legit up and down whoops that are like six feet deep probably at least, and they're really short, so it's like to do like on the south, the south end kind of, yeah, like the water tower, east corner.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, northeast end. Yeah, yeah yeah, far east side. So he, I didn't, we didn't hear him coming because he came out of nowhere in that little section and In sax he'd gotten past Saxby. Now he's in between us. But I didn't know he was between us because he came up on us that fast and I was in the middle of one of those islands, like I've gone down, and I was up getting ready to go down the next one. I turned to look over my left shoulder to see and it was. It was him. And when I did that I kind of veered to the right side of the trail because I was Looking back and then that he just like smacks me again.
Speaker 1And almost dumps it off. I'm into the river and I let it fly. I was like you saw my mother, like I let it rip and he doesn't say where I was. Like you, sorry asshole. He just rides off, sorry, and just kept on. And Saxby was in tears. He was laughing so hard Like he almost killed me, like what the heck?
Speaker 3but he got that trophy maybe I don't even know.
Speaker 1He didn't get anything. He almost got a case. Okay, he almost needed you to come to work with them, man. But yeah, anybody needs some good light reading. You should get on the Facebook tour to dirt page. That's amazing.
Speaker 2I don't know people have the time to do those like five paragraph comments.
Discussion on Modern Cycling Equipment
Speaker 1You're gonna need to commit a weekend. Yeah it's, it's a lot I gave because the original posts are now like 14 paragraphs, followed by a hundred and eighty seven comments. God. I just it's beautiful, that's too much middle-aged old people that have nothing better to do. Yeah, speaking of nothing better to do before we wrap this up, have you been watching any of the professional racing going on? Yes, like the one days.
Speaker 3I'm gonna catch in highlights when boy takes a nap, I'm sad about you, max you can see most of it, watching it to. Max and then flow. Sports still has a couple of them and then the Perry.
Speaker 1Nice, you can get the highlights on yeah and peacock. Yeah, it's on peacock but on the youth on YouTube they show that like a minute highlight overnight. So that's been good. What? Are you a drama. What do you think about the new TT helmets? Since you're Sure short-sought kind of guy figure, we get your input first.
Speaker 3I.
Speaker 2Every time I look at it I'm like I can't. I can't believe that's a real thing. How happy you so bad.
Speaker 1Make fun of triathletes. It's now. It is the roadies.
Speaker 2It makes me like I'm like I hate that in some way I'm lumped into this group of people that wear these helmets.
Speaker 1Yeah, you're a roadie. It's what you could use, your family.
Speaker 2I just because I ride a bike. It's too, it's too close. Just gonna ride a bike, you're associated with those. But like the space balls, means are the best the space balls. Darth Vader helmet.
Speaker 1It does look like a Darth Vader helmet, I mean In there is that the EF one?
Speaker 3is that the mushroom?
Speaker 1one, the EF one, is like not even that's tame, it's the Vismo last time the Vismo one.
Speaker 3Yeah, that has like yeah.
Speaker 1I mean it makes total sense when you look at it Like when they're in the TT position.
Speaker 2It looks Not as stupid, but like when they're standing up and like after heads hanging out of that big thing. I don't know man.
Speaker 1Dude, can you and I would love to see a video of when they debuted that to the team to see their reactions? Like what?
Speaker 3Well, apparently they debuted it and they got it like passed off by the UCI yeah, now the UCI, and then they were. I think they were supposed to race it in the Jiro and then they did it a little early, yeah, so yeah, the UCI is finally doing good work because, first Good one they made everyone.
Speaker 2they made everyone turn their hoods out on their roadbars, because that is the second stupidest thing going in bike racing Is it turning your hoods all the way in to be arrow? So they've, they've taken that away. That's some good work, and if they get rid of these helmets I would applaud them.
Speaker 1Tell me how tell me you're an old man without telling me you're an old man?
Speaker 2I'll be even call me an old man for that I.
Speaker 3I agree with Chris.
Speaker 2Yeah, the hoods thing is terrible.
Speaker 1I think I like. I like that they Limits it. The hoods, I think you should be able to turn them in, but I mean laying on straight sideways, I agree, but that's a little I had a.
Speaker 3The other one is I was on our group ride. It was down in Norman somewhere, maybe like a year or two ago, and like one of those some dude I don't even know who was he got on the top tube Did he have a hydrogen that's room thing.
Speaker 3I'm a group. He was on the front of the group and it was a group ride and I was like second wheel and I like pulled out from behind him and I like rolled up to him like get the, what are you doing? And I was like don't do that shit here. And that's all I said to him, right? And then we rolled into like one of the stops and he's like hey, man, you just had to say something to me and I'm like yeah, I did.
Speaker 3You got a whole line of people behind you. I don't want to die Uh-huh like, don't do that shit. You want to do that on your own, go do that. You want to do off the back of the pack Cool, Don't do it on the group.
Speaker 1Ever, I agree.
Speaker 3It's like, dude, you're in Oklahoma and you're on a group ride, like you're not a pro, sorry, you're not even close to it. Yeah, cool, he looked, maybe. But I mean I will say this like those bikes nowadays like cuz I had one of those Um Cannondale, like super fast ones it's they are ridiculous, like how much faster those bikes are. I mean you've had like one of those, what is it? A vange or whatever? Yeah, I mean they're insane. Yeah, like compared to what they you see, and like those new ones at Chad's selling. They are gorgeous and I want one, but they just they make it to where guys like they show up to these creates like they're going way too fast. They cannot handle those bikes. It's scary scary hey.
Speaker 3I'm all about like I'll go to Wheeler and I'll race the a race and my goal is to not be last, but I want to be the oldest guy there, so if I beat what I'll back in my day.
Speaker 2Our hoods were straight.
Speaker 1That would be a good question, like what are some of the things that you wish Were in cycling that have progressed? So I riding on the top two, but for sure.
Speaker 3Yeah, that was a bad one.
Speaker 1That's a bad one. So you like. You got the hoods and the new arrow helmets.
Speaker 2Yeah, draw the line on the arrow helmets. Just arrow road helmet, that's it.
Speaker 1Oh, like not, you don't like the old-school alien specialized helmet. They went like halfway down your back. No, that's okay.
Speaker 3No well, but the thing with those helmets is so the new V's for ones that looks like, whatever it looks like, if they crash, is that actually going to protect their head? Like, is it going to do the job of what the helmet's supposed to do? Because the helmet like, I feel like it potentially Caused neck injuries.
Speaker 2I mean, yeah, there's a lot of leverage, there's a lot of things that that Used to happen with moto helmets that were causing neck injuries. Like They've got magnetic visors now because the visor would stick in the ground and like tweak your neck, I don't know. So like when you see those guys crash now and their visor pops off instantly, it's by design so that the helmet will slide. Like yeah, you would think those as big as they are, what could really tweak your neck? We'll find out.
Speaker 3I wonder if they have like the the MIPS stuff inside them that you know, because that's what the new helmets have, that they're supposed to move you know.
Speaker 1I mean, as these races start getting more and more important, they're gonna start crashing in the TT. So Happens every year, I mean. But it's now. It's almost like which team's gonna show up with a dumbest-looking situation.
Speaker 3Do no. X. It's that Ronald McDonald? Look, I don't know I've seen that, I've just not seen it looks like maybe the helmet of the juggernaut maybe One of the guys and one in the Peloton was saying something about how I guess guys are riding like TT helmets Just in the regular Peloton now too.
Speaker 1Yeah well, it's the new arrow road helmet, but they have like a fin on the back Like yeah they're the ones with the, the ears go in.
Speaker 3Yeah, Filippo Ganas right.
Speaker 1It's ridiculous. And then they have the, the, they're like this, the point off the back of them. Oh god, yeah, looks good. Those are awful, those are. Those are worse. I told you.
Speaker 3What does that look like?
Speaker 2I gotta look at it now. Yeah, the.
Speaker 3UNO X TT are the worst.
Speaker 1They are the worst. Not even close. Yeah, because they look like they almost want to be like the Yumbo helmets, but they like Didn't finish them, like they were halfway through.
Speaker 2That is terrible.
Speaker 1Oh man, yeah, that's good, all right, well, damn rotis.
Speaker 2Whatever rodents fun I'm getting one for the rule of three.
Speaker 3Oh, I'm Efficiency you won't need it. You're gonna be you're gonna be drafting behind me, you will be riding my wheel. You will not need any type of arrow advantage.
Speaker 1I think we're gonna have to have a post rule of three episode with the two of you to use.
Speaker 3It's gonna be good we should just take a log of our Chloric intake. That oh that yeah, so yeah drumming right down all this.
Speaker 1How much, how many grams of sugar this one eats?
Speaker 2Well, I'm bringing him, so he tells me what to eat.
Speaker 3I'm better now. You're a pro. There's some protein and shit now, not just all carbs, not all sugar he's gonna tell me when.
Speaker 1Wait a sec, hold on, he's listen to. I'm doing much better now. I'm eating protein. I'll sit. Let's talk about the two items that he brought into this house when he I it's a snack, one one. I give him credit. It was a big bar big bar. Yeah, good little snack the second one you want to show him.
Speaker 3Oh, he knows what it is. It's mine, it's my vice. This is an improvement. That see, this is an improvement. He knows what I used to do Bed wetter every fucking day. Oh, dude, I used to. 44 ounce are on the way to work. Die Mountain do 44 ounce from the afternoon.
Speaker 2It's diet, it's diet.
Speaker 1It's fine Good state employee right here.
Speaker 3No, I could only have like I try to do like two cans a day. That's a huge improvement. Then the Red Bulls, the monsters. Oh, that's been tamed down. That's weekend only. Hey, I have a whole fridge of those. That's what I drink instead of beer now. So that's it. Well it's. You gotta be careful now that you're getting old and you gotta do. I got two year old.
Speaker 2It took him like 46 years, but he's maturing now, starting to yeah, he's getting there, he's starting to we'll get there one day.
Speaker 1All right, let's get into these. I had a few questions that came in a couple weeks ago whenever I asked, so I want you guys to To answer these, okay, man, from several different people. And these are perfect for both of you guys because, well, drumming, you're probably getting ready to do your first one. And choice approach, prepping for your first bite packing trip slash race what would be, have you done by packing drumming? No, even better. You guys can't get a hotel. You have to. That's gonna make it even funnier.
Speaker 2It's just gotta fit in my pockets if I'm going to ride.
Speaker 1Are you doing anything besides bringing a credit card for the rule of three two hundred?
Speaker 2I haven't put a lot of thought into it. I need to talk that over with Troy.
Speaker 3You need, you need to do the mapping and figure out where all these cases general stores are gonna be at.
Speaker 2I don't want to put any stupid bags on my bike, but I'll probably put at least one on there, yeah you're gonna need one.
Speaker 1Yeah, what's what's your biggest concern with? Going into your first like ultra big, like kind of a, by packing a shit?
Speaker 2In all seriousness, not being able to find a hotel when I want to, because if I don't know the route and if it doesn't work out I'm gonna have to keep riding. So then I'm gonna. I need to know if that's the case, because I'm gonna have to plan much different through the night.
Speaker 3I Pull over and pop up my tent, my sleeping pad and just go to sleep.
Speaker 2Is it a two person.
Speaker 1Nope, it will be. No, I've slept with.
Speaker 2Roy, I slept with Troy one time in a hotel Coming back from 24 hours in a Pueblo and he he put a pillow wall between us in the bed.
Speaker 1I.
Speaker 2Don't know what he was thinking, but there was. He built a pillow wall between us.
Speaker 3I like my space.
Speaker 1You have a lot of community right.
Speaker 3There's a big body pillow.
Speaker 1Yeah, I can fit that in what would be your for someone doing their first by packing trip. What would be your first couple of tips?
Speaker 3I mean, the rule is you pack your fears right, so you want to be as minimal as you can. But if your level of confidence is not to the point where you think you can put a new chain link in and fix your chain, you might take a whole new chain. That's a mistake right.
Speaker 1I have two chains over there in bags going with this on my trip.
Speaker 3I mean you can take them just, but like, yeah, take probably a lot less stuff than you have packed and realize that everything can do something else. You're down jacket or whatever. That's a pillow, right, make sure everything has that. You don't need a layer of leg protection and rain pants, like, just wear your rain pants if it gets that cold. But I mean it's three things right. It's like it's protection from the elements.
Speaker 3So you got to have everything watertight, whether that's your gear to ride in or your gear to sleep in. And then you're warmth. You got to make sure you're warmth, right. I mean it's back to basics. And then it's your food, and food and water weigh so much more than you think and take up so much more space than you think, because people pack their bikes and they're like, oh yeah, I'm down to like 15 pounds dry weight on top of my bike, which is great. But then you put on like I mean, a Biden with 20 ounces of water is like almost two pounds. And then how far am I going? How far is one bottle really going to get me? So I mean you got to know what you should be drinking.
Speaker 1And then you got to. What's a high calorie food that you would say everyone if you're going to go on a trip that you like to pack, I mean I don't really.
Speaker 3You don't really pack. That's the thing. I'm not. I've never cooked. You're a convenience store kind of guy.
Speaker 3I'm a convenience store guy, because I just don't. I'm not going to take a fucking stove. I don't drink coffee too. So I understand that one Like if you're a coffee drinker and you want that, take your stove, and if that'll make you happy, it's more like. To me it's what you can eat, because it doesn't matter what you eat at that point, because you're just you're putting out so much more effort on a bike that's weighed down and you're usually just cruising that zone too, burning it anyway.
Speaker 2So Are you eating like super heavy early in the ride just to get ahead? Or do you ride the first few hours normally and then, when you make a stop, start piling?
Speaker 3Yeah, I would just treat it normal, because if you're bike packing like here's the thing You're not Lachlan Mortland, whoever you are, so you're not racing, right, you're riding, and guys make the mistake of pushing way too hard on a bike packing bike and then they just burn up their legs the first day and then the next day they're toast. So it's just. It's kind of like that six hour race like Ryan was talking about, like just go your speed on the. I knew I was going to ride for six hours a day, so I'm just going to cruise. You don't need to go fast. And on bike packing it's even worse. It's almost like you wanted to do, like you would, a recovery ride and try to ride that all the time. We're just going to ride it all day Because you're riding all day and you'll get your workout. You'll get a workout because it's always a loaded bike and the more you do that, the more comfortable you're on that, the better, because the handling is super sketchy and you need to learn.
Speaker 1I would say make sure you pack your center of gravity correctly, right Like.
Speaker 3I see. A bunch of weight on your bars and stuff People have in front of their bars. They got like a you want to put light shit out there. You don't put heavy shit on the front. Put your heavy shit behind your seat post or low in your frame bag because you just don't want to.
Speaker 2Well, and I would think on the side of that you probably need to do some riding fully loaded just to kind of figure out tire pressure. You're not going to run with tire pressure when you load your bike down. So if it's Well never and like that, change in all that stuff. So the bike actually handles like it should with all the weight on it.
Speaker 3Well, and I wouldn't ever do a bike packing trip without testing or at least using everything. Once. Even if you like, go to Lake Hefner, do two laps, ride home and go in your backyard and set up your tent Maybe not even sleeping in it, but set up your tent, set up your sleeping pad, all that stuff, just to be comfortable with it, because you're going to be doing it when you're tired, in the dark for the first time and it's going to be frustrating as hell and it'll take forever and you don't want to do that. So Drummond.
Speaker 1what did you learn from there?
Speaker 2Scouting- I need to go slower.
Speaker 1Yes, you need to go slower and you need to scout your hotels before you. Yeah, all right, they asked for three gravel routes between us. So let's just say, pick one or two of your favorite gravel routes that you've ridden, either in Oklahoma or Arkansas. I'll go first on this one. My favorite gravel route that I've done in Oklahoma was down around Wichita Mountains.
Speaker 1We started at Mears and Road North for a little bit, so the first couple miles were pavement and then you got into gravel and I don't think we had a stop sign. It was only like 40 miles, 45 mile ride. But you kind of go back into a bunch of private land. You go back behind the refuge, on the west side of the refuge, and it's like no part of Oklahoma I've ever seen you riding kind of through like valleys, those mountains we call them mountains or hills all around you in some areas and there is legitimately nothing out there. You go across some cattle, guards in your own private land and cows running with you and it's phenomenal. So that's my favorite gravel route I've ever done in Oklahoma by far not even close.
Speaker 3Is this Oklahoma all night.
Speaker 1Oh, you can pick whatever you want. If you have one in the region, then yes, but if you have another one that you've done, that you're like, oh, this one was just epic, and say that one.
Speaker 3Like I don't know, epic.
Speaker 1Drummond, you have one.
Speaker 3He doesn't ride gravel.
Speaker 2I ride gravel but I don't really have a specific route. I mean, there's just so much gravel you kind of over here. You end up on a lot of the same stuff getting out of town all the time.
Challenges Facing Regional Cycling Community
Speaker 2So probably one of the most fun gravel rides I've done. New Year's Day two years ago there was a big group right over here in Bentonville. I don't know the route. I think we did like 60 miles. It's just kind of the same gravel we always ride, but it was a fun. It was like a big group of like I don't know. We probably started like 40 people, 30 or 40 people and it was a chill day. Nobody was riding like idiots. It was just, I don't know, it was one of those days. It was just a really good ride. I don't do a ton of group rides over here, but that one was fun. It was a fun route, but I don't think it was a specific route. Yeah, it was kind of put together.
Speaker 3I didn't want to go out on gravel.
Speaker 2I just go out and try to gravel and see where I end up.
Speaker 3Tanner put together a ride. Jesus, probably like a decade ago. It was up by Tulsa, but he went up by the Osage and did like the Buffalo Wildlife Refuge and all that. That'd be cool Up in, what's it. It's a Bartlesville up in that area. It is like a two day thing. And then we ended up back in Stillwater and yeah, it was a really cool route though, but Tanner knows that one. It's probably part of the Osage passage. I would guess some of that stuff, yeah. And then, like I wrote the other, I told you I went out to Roman Nose back in the day like Brandon and I wrote out there one God awful summer night. But that one came almost died.
Speaker 1Oh, I almost died, oh, you almost died. I think somebody was.
Speaker 3Hey, taylor almost died. I almost died. Brandon thought I was going to die. Dez, like was, there is good stuff. Yeah, it's good stuff. But there's a good route. If you don't do it in the summer, out to Roman Nose, it's pretty. It's mostly gravel once you get to like Piedmont.
Speaker 1So I did a route to Red Rock, did a backpacking trip to there From the house here in Oklahoma City. It was like 75 miles, really 60, 40 pavement to gravel and it's beautiful. Once you get out past El Reno it's mostly gravel. It's really pretty from El Reno to him.
Speaker 3You can go out on like or Hefner Road and once you get past like a certain point, it's just gravel from there on out, like Sheridan used to put on a gravel ride way back in the day that went out there. It's like a 50 mile route. It's a really cool route. I've done that multiple times.
Speaker 1I did a gravel route. We'll move on after this one. I did a gravel route this past weekend and started in kind of got three like Liberty actually started like Liberty went up to Langston and came back and it was one of my favorite gravel routes I've ever done because it was good roads and you're out there it could good. I mean, I think we were like 55 miles. I think we got maybe like 3,500 feet of climbing so it was good rollers like really nice. But dude, the amount of animals I saw. It was amazing. I saw many horse like mini horses, mini donkeys regular horses llamas everything was having babies.
Speaker 1So many big, white, fluffy dogs, goats, sheep, like it was it was incredible. I was so happy, buffalo she's in Buffalo.
Speaker 3I didn't see any.
Speaker 1Buffalo man long horns. Yeah, I led someone on my Strava as Oklahoma Safari. I highly recommend that route. It was amazing and we'll finish up with on that one in a second with where they can find these routes, because we'll announce that and I'll put it in the intro. But I'm afraid to ask this question because I think we've talked about it with the EVO what's the biggest issue facing local Oklahoma cycling scene? And we can even group in the Bentonville cycling scene, let's say the regional cycling scene what?
Speaker 2would you say a big? Issue is there might be a whole another show. We start over here, yeah.
Speaker 1I would say in Oklahoma man, that's a tough one. I think.
Speaker 2I feel like it could potentially just all be the same thing. We talked about the e-bikes, new rider education, trail etiquette right, I get annoyed a lot over here because most of the trails are two-way trails, they're not directional and the standard for trail etiquettes if you're climbing or if you're descending and you yield to the riders that are climbing that's universal everywhere and over here, man, every ride I'm on there's just people blastin' downhill and I usually move just because I'm like, well, what does it matter, I'll just move out of the way. Yeah, that's frustrating and I think a lot of us just new riders that don't know that's a rule and they're having fun ripping down a hill and you're climbing up a pretty steep hill and they're just waiting on you to get out of the way.
Group Ride Etiquette and Gravel Racing
Speaker 2So let's see that. I think over here we have a lot of new riders, people getting into it or people that have gotten into it and travel here, and then I think you know they're in COVID. You got a lot of new riders and majority might have stuck with it, but, like Dektory said, on the group ride someone's sitting on their top tube on the front or, like Kevin, they're doing puppy paws Just shit that gets people worked up and causes drama is in most cases, a lack of education, people not knowing. Oh, I shouldn't do that.
Speaker 3Well, I think and people don't want to hear it anymore Like I mean this is going to sound really old, but like back in my day, I mean you get yelled at if you did something stupid on a group ride. Like, hey, rotate to the left, dumbass, or whatever. Like don't pull through so damn hard, or whatever. Nobody calls people out anymore because they're like afraid of the. I don't want people, I don't think, respond well to that anymore these days, which is fine, but there's also not anybody educating them or telling them like, hey, dude, you don't need to do that. Like I was on a ride the other night and it was like guys, like the winds out of the north, you need to stay to this side, and it was like a foreign concept. I'm like guys, just go, you want to stay into the wind. Give everybody a draft. Like we're not guttering people here, we're not racing, and they just couldn't seem to understand that. So I'm like, move left, move left, and they just yeah.
Speaker 2I wonder what that is, because it seems like I mean, you're right, like when I started riding, when our group rides, if you did something dumb, someone told you and you just didn't do it anymore, like that's how you learned. And we have, we have a Tuesday night road ride over here. That's huge, a lot of people on it, super, it's like a drop ride and there's just pretty much zero etiquette on it, like potholes, don't get pointed out, just everything. That's kind of the standard that you would do on a group ride and it's it's a lot of experienced riders and then a lot in there that maybe aren't so experienced.
Speaker 2But yeah, it's like I feel like I want to like say something to these people, but it's just like you're right, they don't respond, they get pissed at you If you like, you're like you're trying to call them out, but you're really just trying to say, hey, don't do that or do it this way, because that's there is a proper way to do a lot of that stuff. But and then you I mean you have, you have a lot of people too that I think you know have gotten really, really fit on trainers and just you know there's that's all there's to, but they go out on a ride and they're strong enough to never get dropped. And they're. They have no idea what they're doing, they're just a hazard but they don't want to be called out on it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I would. I would my, my, my old man. Gripe is that people take it way too serious.
Speaker 3Oh yeah.
Speaker 1It's like it's just fun, man, like just go play box. That's why I keep it. It's like just go play. There's times to have a goal race and you want to gear up for something and you want to go smash it. But like this is the thing and you know, sometimes like a tour of dirt race is that for some people like I. I can appreciate that and understand that. I mean whatever, but it's at the end of the day we're all just like a bunch of middle age people that are not really that good and in a not really competitive market and we're wearing the bandaid helmets Like you know what I mean. I know you understand. You think you're really good, but you're like pretty good here. So let's just keep all of that in context. And I say that like jokingly but very serious, because it's just like it doesn't matter. Man, like it really does.
Speaker 1Like it's just, it's not that serious of a thing. So yeah, that's that's my old man gripe for sure. Okay, and the last question that we have it is or will gravel be the national racing, or kind of think it kind of already is heading that way, the road way that road was years ago? Will gravel continue to take over and or get to the level that the road seat wants, you know, back in the 80s and 90s?
Speaker 3I think it's different. I mean it won't be like sanction, like USA cycling was, because there's too many of the. You know the promoters are like trying to keep it. Like nope, this is our thing, we don't need you, and keep a lot more money and I think it's good for them. Like, do what you want to do, you don't need some you know governing body. Like those are garbage. So I mean, but anybody will tell you like you know the pros, nowadays they're all in the gravel series. That's what it has to be. So, but I don't know.
Speaker 2You also hear all that there's always a debate about. You know people complaining about what, whether it's you know women in men's fields have an unfair advantage or feed zone attacks. You know all the all the drama that comes with it.
Speaker 1So it's like that's.
Speaker 2that's where you're going to end up with a governing body because it's like, all right, well, there's no rules, or there's rules, like you know, in the beginning gravel, there's no rules, let's just do whatever. And that they're slowly like headed that direction because it's gotten so serious that you know people are so serious about it that they want rules so that to protect their race results or whatever. So I don't know It'll. It'll either go that way and they'll start enforcing a ton of rules or it'll kind of just stay where it is. I mean, it's definitely the most popular, but I don't know if it'll be like the thing. I mean roads died off. But I feel like it's coming back a little bit.
Speaker 1I love the wild west side of it. And then like traditionalists, like stepping and coming in and just getting pissed and crying at the time because somebody did something they weren't supposed to do. Like yeah, but it's unwritten rules and I'm like screw off the amount coming in the cycling at a later point in life. Like not growing up in this world, like all those learning all the unwritten rules and I'd watch the tour or watch all these various.
Speaker 1I'm like this is so stupid Like he dropped his chain, that's that's part of racing, but you don't wait for him or he's your opponent. You're trying to beat him. He had an issue. Why would you not capitalize it?
Speaker 3Like all of that crap.
Speaker 1I don't. I don't understand. And in traditionalists and cycling would say that's like poor sport and crappy today, but I'm like dude, this, this is racing, it's competing. If you're playing football and you're running to tackle a guy and he pulls his hamstring here, you're just going to like not tackle him because he slowed down and let him keep going, and like we're going to walk in together because he already beat you. No, you're going to smoke his ass and like I don't understand why I love whenever there is the no rules and they skip, somebody comes up with a new strategy to skip a zone or you know the arrow bars or whatever they do. I think it brings all another level of strategy into racing. I think it's great Because you have to think about everything then.
Speaker 1But I don't know, I think that's an outsider point of view when it comes to, just because I'm not in the traditional side of things.
Speaker 2Well, without, without rules, it's just whatever. Your opinion is so and I have whatever yeah.
Speaker 1And I'll tell you, believe me, that's part.
Speaker 3So, if you like, sit on a group the whole time and you don't do a poll and then you sprint at the end and win. That's cool, right. They should get rid of it I mean they do that and rode literally every race, and then like somebody does it in a gravel race and it's like fuck that guy, he's not a good sportsman. It's like dude, like then get rid of them, right. Yeah, like go harder and drop them or make him do something Right.
Speaker 2Like I mean, the goal of a race is to win the race is to win. It's not just a high power.
Speaker 3It's your boy, vanderpool, right Like I get paid to win races. That's what I'm here to do, so, oh yeah, I agree, well is there anything else that you guys can touch on?
Speaker 2You have enough of a look at your voice, pretty face, never. No, this is good for part one. Yeah, yeah, I think Alan may have gotten the boot. It's too bad for him. So sorry, you've been replaced.
Speaker 1He can squeeze him in. Oh man, we do need to get him to the top, okay, okay. So next one may do a four way. Is he a doctor? It's on, it's on social media. Doctor of what? Of what? Hey, he could have inspected that issue you had after the divide.
Speaker 3He would have loved to.
Speaker 2You want to look at my ass?
Speaker 1Yeah, he would have no problem.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think he's going to be a good guy, yeah.
Speaker 1He would have no problem. Yeah, so all right and thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2Yeah, thanks for having me. All right, man, I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 3Okay.