Cycling Oklahoma
Cycling Oklahoma
From Turkey Mountain To OKXC: Building An Oklahoma MTB Scene - Bobby Reese
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We sit down with Tulsa trail builder and race director Bobby Reese to map how Turkey Mountain grew to 70 miles, why Cold Turkey became a three-day fundraiser party, and how OKXC aims to unite Oklahoma racing with a rider-first spring series. From vintage 26ers to party enduro to short-lap XC, we keep it fun, fair, and community-led.
• Turkey Mountain’s trail expansion and wayfinding
• Cold Turkey Fest schedule, formats, and camping
• Enduro party timing and mini-enduro for beginners
• OKXC vision, six-race spring calendar, short laps
• Bales, Purcell, Mooser, McMurtry, Keystone, Arcadia
• One-day state championship structure and goals
• Team challenge rules and free first number plates
• Nonprofit funding, sponsors, and community impact
• Little Shredders kids racing and Saturday schedules
If you have interest in any sponsorship of the OKXC series or this podcast, please reach out and let me know
Instagram @okxcraceseries
www.okxcseries.com
Intros, Sponsors, Series News
SPEAKER_00What's up? Cycling Oklahoma, thanks for tuning in for another episode. This one, like I say all the time, is another great episode. Uh this one is really fun. Me and Bobby sit down and chat for a bit. Um, and we kind of and and Chris, we saw us sit down and just kind of go over, you know, the life and times of Bobby and kind of get caught up with him and see how he got into cycling and all the things. But the cool thing is, is Bobby Reese is really one of the main people uh at Turkey Mountain. So I know so many people want to know about the new trails of Turkey, how it all flows, what's going on, what have they been doing out there. And Bobby, that guy's out there every single day almost of the week. So Bobby knows all the ins and the outs. And if you're wanting to go up to Turkey and you're from Oklahoma City or somewhere else and have some questions or some thoughts, you know, shoot him a message. I'm sure he could give you a route or tell you some trails that you should hit. But uh, we sit down and go over all the exciting things that are happening in Tulsa and what's going on up there. Uh Bobby is also the race director of Cold Turkey, which is a phenomenal race that I I have not done it yet. This year it is on the calendar and I plan to make it up there. So Bobby has all the good things when it comes to Tulsa mountain biking. Uh, we also go into all the fun things with OKXC. And uh with that, I will say that OKXC is one of the sponsors and will be one of the sponsors for uh the podcast for the very near future. And you can check them out at OKXCseries.com. It's the only mountain bike series that covers the state of Oklahoma. We already have phenomenal plans going this year. We have some great ideas, some great things that are happening there. Six races all in the springtime, all covering the state, everything Tulsa, Stillwater, Oklahoma City. You can kind of get a little bit of everything, some fast flowy stuff, some rock techie stuff. So I think you're gonna like the series. I think you're gonna like the events and the way that they're put on, the changes that are made in this series compared to anything that you may have raced in the past. So check it out. Uh Oklahoma XD, so okayxc series.com. The races start first of March. So you need to get signed up ASAP. And of course, it's brought to you by More Overhead Doors. Everything with More Overhead Doors that they do for us is fantastic. They also are the title sponsor and the big sponsor of the Maverick crits, which will be happening in May. We have an episode coming up really, really soon covering all the stuff if you're a crit racer and everything that's going to be happening with crit racing here in Oklahoma over the next couple of months. So tune in for that. But it's all brought to you by More Overhead Doors. Without them, the cycling community in central Oklahoma looks significantly different. So support more overhead door if you need anything whatsoever related to your garage door needs. And with all that being said, I hope you enjoy this and thank you so much for tuning in for another episode. If you do have interest in any sponsorship of the OKXC series or this podcast, please reach out and let me know. There's lots of opportunities. We all that money is just going right back into our community. It's not going into anyone's pocket like sponsorships do for some of the other uh race organizations out there. All of our sponsorship money goes directly back into the event and the event only. And any sponsorship comes into the podcast, it goes straight back out into the events. Uh, none of that goes into my pocket. So if you have any interest in helping out our community uh with those kinds of opportunities and options, please let us know. Thanks for tuning in. Now we're officially recording. Don't say anything about Perkins anymore. Okay. Okay, stop talking about it. Get it all out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it only took an hour.
SPEAKER_00We'll finish up when we get done. Um Bobby. Hello. Thanks for driving down. Thanks for the invite. Yeah, this is awesome. I'm excited. We have I don't even know. We have a lot of random crap to talk about. Talk about some endurance racing, some vintage mountain bike racing. Some vintage mountain bike. No, there's someone's almost ready. I put it in the intro of the last episode.
SPEAKER_02One or two PMs a week of like interest on that. Really? And then so McMurtry and last week at Skip had two people come up and they were super pumped about it.
SPEAKER_01Beer you. Yeah, I was I keep checking the post to see if there's like questions or any any kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00Well, while we're at that topic, I mean we can get into the OKXC stuff later. Uh it's it's it's called tease in the biz. But let's talk about the vintage stuff. Let's just talk about that. Start that off just because it's fun. And we're already bringing it up. So you what do you guys want to explain?
SPEAKER_01Um well, I can I it's not my idea. I remember Chad Shanks, I think, was the one that posted about this. I don't know how many years ago in Tour Tour de Dirt. And I got I saw that he bumped the post the other day. But the the comments were ridiculous. It seemed like there was a lot of interest in it.
SPEAKER_02There was around 100 and something comments. Always is every race I've ever done. Everyone's like, oh, two things. We should do a vintage race or we should do like a quick uh Kmart Target mountain bike race. Yeah, you just go get those bikes into every done. Everyone says that, and I'm like, that's a great idea. Have fun with it. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01You know, like but I I mean I we had a an old trek upstairs at the shop and it was sitting around and I had a slow day, so I just started like tinkering with it. And then looking at it, I'm like, we should we should do this. And I I think someone actually posted about it again. Someone else brought it up. I think so. And then I you know, text you guys and like we should do this. Uh I'm excited about it.
SPEAKER_00I think it's good. I mean, here's the thing. Let's explain what it is. Yeah, it's a vintage mountain bike race. The rules I don't that we officially put out the rules. Yes. What is the official rules?
SPEAKER_01So it's on the website.
SPEAKER_02And it we we can talk about actual rules, but yeah, 26ers, so 26-inch tires, rim brake, okay, pretty much said, and then just uh period specific gearing.
SPEAKER_00Basically, if if you meet the fact that it's a 26-inch wheel and it's rim brakes, you're gonna meet the other criteria for the most part.
SPEAKER_01Troy's trying to put a one-by electronic. It's like the drivetrain has to be from the era. It does say mechanical. Oh, yeah, we used to be electronic. Okay. And to be clear for anyone that's doesn't want to compromise their race, this is gonna be kind of an exhibition or a short track event after all the races conclude. So you do your normal race and then we just do it, we're doing this for fun.
SPEAKER_00We're not taking it serious, you're doing it wrong. A hundred percent. It's think of like a goofy, fun cross race. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02It's that vibe, and that's the the vibe I will I I expect myself. Dollar bills, beer handops, hot dogs, whatever.
SPEAKER_00You know, then maybe we'll find some kind of ramps to put out there. Like it need it's going to be purely for fun.
SPEAKER_01It'll be a probably a shorter course at most menus. It'll be 20 minutes or something. Like whatever it could change, but I mean, I've looked on Marketplace and there's tons of vintage bites for I mean, 400 is the most you're gonna spend if you want to buy something cool, but yeah, like 150 to 200 bucks, you can get a bite, probably get a little bit of a tune-up on it, and that's all you need. Yeah, it's not a big investment.
SPEAKER_02Ton of fun. I know. I'm just thinking like all those bikes that I've had in the past, you know, or all the opportunities. People like, I have a sold amount bike.
SPEAKER_01I'm like, uh yeah, I've seen some really cool ones on marketplace, and I've like, I want to buy that. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, no, not one already. Did you get your matching kit?
SPEAKER_01I didn't order it yet. I'm kind of afraid of what's going to show up. That's even better. Putting my card into that website.
SPEAKER_00Well, that could be a problem.
SPEAKER_01It was like$32. It was a US postal bib and jersey for$32. I'm like, I don't know. I told Vanessa's gonna be like this big.
SPEAKER_00That would be even better. I think you need to order it, and however it shows up is what I wear. You're just gonna own it. There it may be a triple small, it may be an extra large. I don't know. You get you get to pick sizes, you may see through it. So, like a teamw. It wasn't Timu. It's not even it's the Timu of Timu. I think I'm gonna pick it up. Yeah, yeah. I think in outfits are encouraged. Yeah, like blue. This is so not serious. You need to wear I'm still on the fence.
SPEAKER_02I found this uh like a leopard print or dagger print long fur coat. I thought I if you could if I had one more old fashioned at night, I would have bought it. Oh, is that closely? Not enough. Okay. It was close. It's still in the card, actually. I put it in the card. I was like, I'm gonna think about this. Yeah, yeah. I think I think it was actually on eBay.
SPEAKER_00eBay. Oh, then it's official.
SPEAKER_01Maybe. Anyways, I'm working on it.
SPEAKER_00You should do that. Yeah. This is this is all about a good time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I mean people will be racing, whatever, but that's their problem. It'll I'll race it. I'm gonna race, but how hard are you gonna race on that bike? The chain's gonna come off, something. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00I hope so. If you're racing too hard and too far out in front, I might throw stuff at you. Right. Yes. So if I'm not racing, and even if I am racing when you laugh at me, I may throw stuff at you. Give them some kind of time penalty, yeah for going too hard.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00If your heart rate goes over like 130, you get a penalty. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So uh I'm excited. I also am very excited just to see the bikes. Yeah, yeah. Everyone's like, I have this bike. I'm like, this is gonna be like a car show of mountain bike. That's great.
SPEAKER_01Maybe we should set up a booth and you display your bike before. That would be awesome.
Bobby’s Path From Wrestling To Bikes
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah, that would be funny. And okay. Ideas are flowing with that. Let's jot start. Don't put too much info out there on that one. Don't put that down because I know somebody that'll steal it. No, too soon. Okay, I'm two couple beers in, so we're walking. Giddy up. We're starting later than usual today. We had to wait on Bobby to get it from Tulsa, so I might have had an extra beer already. Um, all right, Bobby, let's get to know you a little bit. So I know some people, Tulsa people know you. Um, I'd love for us to talk about turkey because everybody in Oklahoma City always wonders about turkey um and all that good stuff. But uh get to know you, like where did you grow up and how did you get into riding bicycles?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um, so I grew up in Broken Arrow, went to school, graduated Broken Arrow, um, lived my whole life, just been a Tulsa guy, went out for college for a little bit, um, was a multi-sport athlete growing up, soccer, baseball. My brother and I wrestled for BA, uh graduated as BA wrestlers. What did you wrestle?
SPEAKER_00What weight did you wrestle at?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, I wrestled for so long. So my high school career, I was somewhere around the 125 to 145. Um, and then when I went to college, I blew up like 40 pounds. Did you wrestle in college? No. Oh I actually was a cheerleader in college. What? I got full rides for three years to go cheering college. Shut up. So um a JUCO down in Podo called Carl Albert, and then U of A Fort Smith. Huh. Wow. I something talking about. Did you do that in high school? I did. My senior year, I was on there on the team. I that's when I started my senior year. Wrestling wasn't working out. I was actually having some injuries, and I started to get into that. So what made you go into cheerleading? Um, I could do backflips because you could look at you could look at checks. And the the scene the scenery isn't bad. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I went from wrestling around dudes and singlets to you know women's true story. You went to from dudes and singlets to girls and blue cheerleading in high school. That's definitely an upgrade. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So my SAT wasn't very high, but I'm not a dumb guy.
SPEAKER_01Think that you might be the smartest one in the group. It's honestly surprising more guys don't get into it when you think about it.
SPEAKER_02It's it's actually huge now. Like you kind of started a whole era. I'm not gonna say I started, but it's very common now with the larger high schools in college. And I actually actually really surprised when I went to college, all the guys that cheered with me, they were from the Fort Smith area. They're all like linebackers. So there were guys who did football but didn't really go the next level.
SPEAKER_00So these guys are monsters, you know, and yeah, who actually raced bikes. Uh he went to Europe and raced for a little bit and stuff. But whenever he was in college, he just ran. He was just one of those guys that's just like an athlete, you know. And he just like decided to go out. He was at OU and he decided to go out for the cheerleading squad and he got it. And we're like, what the hell? You know nothing about he was a football player in high school. Like, you know nothing about cheerleading.
SPEAKER_01He's like flipping up on him now.
SPEAKER_00He's like, Yeah, I just started uh I just went out there and I started flipping and it worked exactly. Then and then that's how we met his wife now. That his wife they've been married forever, and she was a cheerleader at OU with him. Nice, yeah. And he got to like, I'm like, out of school like that. That's how phenomenal is that. He got to go to all the polls, yeah, he got to go to all the big games.
SPEAKER_02Like, that's awesome. It was a good time. I I got to travel a lot, got to see a lot of things, and made some good friends, so it was fun. So came back home. That's the most random fact. I never thought I would learn about you. Yeah. I was into bodybuilding because of that, so I actually was lifting a lot of weights and got pretty strong, pretty big. Uh was walk around like 230. 315 for reps and stuff. Damn. How how tall are you?
SPEAKER_00Uh just 5'10-ish. Man, you were a buff dude. Yeah. Good for you. What happened? I uh started yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Started riding bikes. I quickly realized I didn't have the boss together.
SPEAKER_01For the uh 2026 vintage metal bike racing.
SPEAKER_02I a guy I worked out with who actually was the pretty big dude. We trained together. His dad turned him on to cycling as a kid. Uh-huh. And he's like, hey, we need to cross-train, we need some cardio. Um, I found a$300 Bianca road bike. It was like a 2006 or something. I actually wish I had that bike. It was gorgeous. Yeah. Um, and to cross-train and started riding. Just like every Saturday we do Riverside. It was like 22 miles, and I thought it was an animal. Yeah. I just did Riverside. Whatever. That exact same memory. Um, my name, you know, and then I kind of started the whole thing. Quickly stopped lifting uh near that much. My brother at the time um was also doing a lot of marathons. So I have a twin brother. Okay. Um, he was doing a lot of running, and that was kind of inspiring. He talked me into doing a 5K. So that kind of started my whole endurance page and uh started running and then got into bikes. Stumbled into um hammerhead bikes back in the day. It was, I think, at Ray Hall's old mount bike store, 918 XC918. They went into Hammerhead. So I stumbled in there and Ray owned a mountain uh bike stock? What was it? XC918X. Really? Huh. I didn't know that. Yep. And then he went through some things and uh they took over. So I met all that whole group, uh, started cycling. I bought my first carbon road bike from them and from Scott Robinson.
SPEAKER_00So you've been doing this a long time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, in about 15 years. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was like 2010-ish. Okay. When they had that shop. Huh.
Turkey Mountain’s Transformation And Growth
SPEAKER_02I didn't know that. Yeah, then started so Bill Clark jumped in. I I rode with Bill Clark on Tulsa Bona Joint. Uh, did a lot of road stuff. So my early days in cycling was road. Uh I couldn't afford a mountain bike and a road bike, so I focused on road and to traveling. So rode with them and did a lot of career races and rode and then um mount bike with Bill Clark and Tulsa Bona Joint. That started more the promoting side. I was I've always been a good volunteer. Like I just like to help out. So he started doing his races at the YMCA there at Turkey Mountain. I think old school turkey. Old Turkey. Yeah. He brought back what you know Ray and them were trying to do um when Ray stepped down. So that came through, still promoting. Ray Hall came back on the scene. He started doing his Oklahoma firefighter burn camp. I was still there, like, hey, I need your help. So what I really was known for and was good at was trail work and trail maintenance and rallying a group of people to go and just knock out trail work and get um the course ready. Uh I I firmly believe that mountain bike races save trails because people go do work. So a lot of the trails that are out there, um, go think of mountain biker for it. For sure. Um yeah. So especially in Oklahoma. Yeah, yeah, it's it's huge. They they definitely don't take take care of themselves. Um so got into that mountain biking scene. Uh that opened up some doors, which I'm getting to the whole Turkey Mountain. Yeah. Um at that time it was about 2014, 2015. Um, the mayor at the time was trying to turn Turkey Mountain into a mall right there at the 25 is. Yeah, he wanted to uh develop it and make it a mall, um, a portion of it. But it really was uh you know, it's like the slippery slope to you know making it no longer an urban wilderness. Uh at that point, Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition formed. Um it was kind of a a group that had the voice of the trail users, all trail users. So they find formed a 501 in 2014. They asked me to join in 2015. Okay. So I came. Man, you've been in with Turkey for a long time. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Wow. I've been yeah, it's I'm there five days a week. Wow, really? Like any given time, whether I'm doing trail work or riding or doing whatever. Wow. So it's helps that it's eight miles from my house and I can't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you've been there a long time. I mean, but you bit put years into that.
SPEAKER_02Years. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, uh it's just a great you know, the community I've seen Turkey Mountain go from a very dark, don't talk about don't go to Turkey type place to now being um they had they see more uh visitors in a month than Tulsa Zoo. That's wild. It is wild by a long shot. That's amazing. Yeah, it's a man. So when like when is that uh switch since well, what really started the boom was the Warrior Dash back in about 2013, 14, something like that. Oh, really? It's not like all the new improvements, it's been that way for a while. Well, that started you could see the growth from that, but but yeah, recently within from the master plan that started um about three or four years ago.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so that's that's some of the stuff I want to talk about. So because here in Oklahoma City, I mean and and Chris lived in Bentonville, mountain bike capital of the world, actually. Um, and seeing that side of things in Oklahoma City, like what I see happening in Tulsa, I'm like, God, how the how can that spread? Like, how can that get I we it can't get that way completely here because we just don't have the terrain for it, but it can get significantly better. And not just mountain biking, but like cycling in general, like the infrastructure around the city and bike lanes and paths and all those kinds of things. Tulsa's so far ahead of Oklahoma City, it's wild. Like, so far. And Chris, you lived up there for and saw you've seen all three versions of everything.
SPEAKER_01So what's funny is when we lived in Tulsa and we were going to Bentonville to ride, we'd come back to Turkey and I'd I would like to look at the terrain. I'm like, you could do the exact same thing here. Like the the terrain's not any, there's not any more elevation in Bentonville. And I would be looking at Turkey, I'm like, man, you can like yeah, you know, I could kind of see it. And it's still cool to see like that has happened now.
SPEAKER_02It's phenomenal. I can tell you, I haven't been to uh northwest Arkansas in years. Why would you? Yeah, yeah. Why would you go all the time? I think my bachelor party was the last time. We have no need, dude. Uh you know, I mean, this is still nice to go, but right. I mean, with all the trail systems and Tulsa we have now that you can actually connect, there's no real reason to force those types of trips. Three or four that are what, a mile apart. Yeah, I mean, that's part of our training loop. We'll go from Turkey Mountain to Bells Park to Mooser and to La Bell, which are all part of the the series. Um, and then if you want to go a little bit further, there's still a couple more that you could put in a long day and go.
SPEAKER_00If you did those parks that you just mentioned, all trails total, what do you is like 50 miles?
SPEAKER_02Oh no, there's I think there's 70-ish miles at Turkey Mountain right now. 70? That's insane. That's that's not that's not just legacy trails. That's new professionally built 70 miles. That's insane. Oh, it's so easy to like before 10 miles was like the the precedent of like a 10 miles is a good ride. That's just warming up now. That's warm. You're flying, you're riding turkey Turkey is just you can put in miles um during on a Tuesday, I'll ride from my house, do our Turkey Tuesday ride. It's a night ride, evening ride, and ride home, and I've got 35, 40 miles in two and a half hours. That's phenomenal. I mean, you guys are so spoiled.
SPEAKER_00Like it's amazing. It's great. So it's amazing.
SPEAKER_02I realize that I used to live in Owassa, which is north of Tulsa by the airport, and my wife and I about a month and or a year and four or five months ago, we just moved to Midtown. It's changed our life. We I ride the trails everywhere. Golly. It's it's we're like, this is awesome.
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing is, like so I I have had the total pleasure coming up and having you show me around recently, and um it's and you know, like I've ridden it, I guess, uh, two or three times in the past two months. And I again, there is no reason to go to Arkansas anymore. Like, just it's an hour and a half up the road if you live in Oklahoma City, not even an hour and a half, really, and you can get all of Bentonville right there. And you can get any kind of trail. You can get if you want to do downhill runs, you can do downhill runs. If you think you're really fancy and you want to like launch yourself in the air, you can do those too. If you want to do something that's like flowy and fun, and not old turkey, but like legitimately flowy, fun mountain biking, just not in Oklahoma City, you can do that at Turkey. It's not what it used to be. No, because everybody here thinks a turkey, the old turkey, it was rough, it was rough.
SPEAKER_01I liked it. Ryan and I would go ride it a lot because we liked how hard it was, and like figuring it out was fun. But like at the shop when when I was at T Town, I was like, We never sent anybody to Turkey. Like, where like you they come in and buy a mountain bike, they'd get into it. Where should we go? Go to Claremore. Because if you go to Turkey, you're gonna probably sell your mountain bike. Yeah, it was so so fucking hard.
SPEAKER_02It was so hard.
SPEAKER_01It was yeah, I mean, I think I I've only I barely got to ride it. Like, do you guys have any is there any data on growth? Like as far as mountain bikers in Tulsa? It just seems like there was nowhere for when I was there. Lubell was getting revamped and it was it was pretty early before like when we moved, but there was nowhere for someone that wasn't like I would say intermediate to advanced level mountain biker to ride a mountain bike.
SPEAKER_02It's very all levels now. Um before the weekends, Saturday and Sunday morning, you know, it was busy. Locals would avoid it. There are easily a hundred cars in the parking lot at all times, day or night, all through the week, anytime. You go Monday morning at nine o'clock, there are bike racks everywhere. So there is a huge increase. And I don't have the data. Huge. I'm sure River Parks does, but um on the trail though, is there enough trail that it's you can kind of find somewhere to ride without? Yeah, yeah. We rarely have any like it's Sunday afternoon when it's 70 degrees, and all the hikers, you know, the church folk come out and they're five wide. That's obviously a time we want to avoid, but we'll just go to Bells or L'Vale or Mooser. Like we'll just jump a mile over and it's we're back in the float. There's hiking specific trails though, now, right? There are a couple. A lot of them are multi-use, but they do have some hiking, like some of the all-ups they made bike only and and pedestrian only kind of sign that's there.
SPEAKER_01Well, I've ridden there once since it's been redone, and it was like the day before Tulsa Tuf started, and I was like it was a quick ride before the rain started. And I was kind of like riding the old routes I knew, and I kept running into like hiking trails. Yeah, so I didn't really know my way around, but I was it was interesting to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02They just exhausted a lot of that old stuff. It's really hard to follow some of those good stuff like Millennium that we used to ride, but uh they they really just they cut it right, they didn't follow the creek trails and call it Mound Bike.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I think the thing that I saw whenever the couple times I've been up there is like right out of the parking lot, it's really busy. Like really busy. Kids, families, dogs, like it's busy for like a half a mile to a mile from the parking lot areas, whichever area you go to, if you come into one of those areas, the road the the trails are going to be busy.
SPEAKER_02They have actually had that statistics they've learned that most people won't travel further than half a mile from their car.
SPEAKER_00That's out of that.
SPEAKER_02They have the spots and they have the main multi-use wide trails, and they'll go out to point or they'll go up this staircase or wherever they do. You get past that, which is really just getting started. Yep. You're just climbing up, you're getting on the trail. You get past that half mile, the rest of the mountain is just wide open.
Trails, Jumps, And Skill Progression In Tulsa
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because and when when I've been there, like last time I was there with Troy, the weather was great and the parking lot was packed. Same thing, super busy by the parking lot. Got down, was kind of it was busy for a little bit there. Then we got over to Sanctuary, is that right? So we got over to that area, wide open. Awesome, rolled through there, but then you got over to where the parks is building their office. Yeah, the bottom lot clearly busy. And then once you got up into the trails and stuff, it's fine. Like there's no then. We went over to Bales and Libelle. What about when you hit the big jumps? Uh well, it it wasn't busy there because I think you know the rocky art. Oh, yeah, we went and uh we rode one of them. And I think Troy might have gone slower than me. I think if anybody was more scared than me, it was Troy. Really? Yeah, because we uh yeah. Let's just say that nobody's tires are getting off the ground. There's some jumps big jumps.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. I think they have so like a 20 or 30 foot gaps on on couple of the lines. Big really community.
SPEAKER_01They look bigger than that in the video.
SPEAKER_02So if you like to send it, go to Turkey, ask where the rocky art is. There's two black lines, double blacks that have like 30 uh foot gaps.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just not just don't hit your brakes, Ryan.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you'll make it, you'll make it across. Yeah, I mean, you'll make something. Yeah. Well, here's the thing two of those, two or three of those at the top, I can't make the drop in. So that that's what I know. I was like, okay, well that's not miserable. I I yeah, it it weeds it out. The the entry, I don't know what you call that, the hub, whatever that whole thing is. The main hub. The main hub, it will sort your it will sort it out real quick.
SPEAKER_02Call that a squirrel trap. Yeah, scroll catcher, squirrel trap. But they have what they call the diamond board. Don't cycle any fucking six-foot drop.
SPEAKER_00And if you're not gonna hit that, that that weeds you out really quick. It's like a plank of a rock to a drop with nothing in between. I look at it and I just like jump jumping's easy. Landing, landing is like uh launching is easy.
SPEAKER_01Getting off the ground's easy. You just gotta send it. You did it Sunday.
SPEAKER_00I did. I did. I was telling Drummond I saw there was one little corner at uh skip where I was like, oh dude, I'm gonna get real fancy here. I got the skill. It's gonna be really fancy. I'm gonna like boop, boop, boop, and it's gonna be like so pro, it's gonna be so great, and then it worked, and but I didn't know what to do next. So when it worked, I almost launched myself into my face. Yeah, it wasn't I the idea in my head was fantastic, and it actually did it, and I didn't know how to like save myself from what it worked, which never happened before. Yeah, but man, I was so pro for like half a second. It's not good. But Turkey is I I hope more people from here go up there for one for skill development, because the skill development that you can have in Turkey just by riding every day is ridiculous. The climbing that you get, I mean, if you want it, you don't have to have it. You can go ride several trails there and not climb all day long. Yeah, but you're gonna get super strong from climbing a lot. The rock skills, the technical skills, if you want to jump and learn how to do that, you have the opportunity to do that. I mean, you have everything, an hour from Oklahoma City.
SPEAKER_02And I think having a little bit of that is a well-rided mountain biker is almost necessary. For sure. Because you look at some of the kids coming up and they have the ability to do almost a little bit of everything. Yeah. So Turkey, it it offers you that when at your pace, right? You can avoid it, or you can push yourself if you're feeling it that day. You can definitely ride with some guys and they're gonna get a little steezy out there and do some stuff, and you can try it, or you can just ride and and pedal through it at your pace.
SPEAKER_00I agree. I think I really think that there's gonna be a time in the very near future that somebody comes out of Tulsa that's gonna be on a different completely different level.
SPEAKER_02I would agree. There's some fast kids coming up and some people that are just starting to figure it out that either there's not well in the beginners who are GCX, I'm like, man, I'm worried about you. And no, what wait, what series? Well, when they were GCX, it's not OGX last night. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I think there's gonna be some probably some big air kids that come out of there that are gonna be able to do some things that you're like, hold on. I don't know this kid's name.
SPEAKER_02It's amazing. And I should because I talk to him and his dad every time, but there's a kid, I think he's eight, and he won the whip off at Cold Turkey last year. Oh my gosh, is phenomenal. He's on a little bit specialized, I think, in uh an e-bike. Uh the kid's a stud.
SPEAKER_01Like he's if you say it's crazy how little they can get when they have stuff to when they learn on that. When it's just like you would see it in Bentonville too, and there was I wouldn't say there's a lot of like really good kids that came out of there, but the level when you can just like jump a little jump and then work to a bigger jump. And like I think if you learn on at like a seven, eight, nine-year-old, like your level is just you get limitless.
SPEAKER_00Limitless, you have no fear, yeah, or even understand what you did.
SPEAKER_02And then it's just normal to hit like a yeah, if muscle memory, all that's still there, and you're yeah, you know, you've already learned you've learned how to fall, you've learned how to land it. Yeah, but I I would agree. I would say that I would even say probably the next five years, there's gonna be some kids out there, some some talent that you're like, wow, wow, it's it's happening.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so as someone who's like an older adult, how how much has it improved you having all of has it improved you? Has it improved our guys that you ride with? Have you seen like, man, we're doing some like everybody's jumping a little more or we're like gotten faster because what used to happen for everybody that's listening to this that has raced mountain bikes, like Oklahoma City people are really good at turning and cannot even look at a rock and ride over it. Yeah, and everybody in Tulsa cannot turn to save their life, but if it's rocky, we got you, you're screwed. So, like, are you seeing people like legitimate skill develop? I mean, personally, have you seen skill development?
SPEAKER_02I have back to that well-rounded, you can see because now we have berms, so you're having to learn how to ride a berm. Um, there's there's a lot more flat pedal-y stuff when you have to learn to go through trees. So, yeah, absolutely. Myself, I I've learned, you know, I've I've grown people who I used to ride with and whatever. So I'm I'm happy with where I am with mountain biking everywhere I started. Yeah, I was gonna ask because that brought any riders back that maybe had gotten out of it. Not as much as I thought. Oh um, I thought some of the guys that that taught me how to mountain bike, you know, back in those those days would come back and ride more. Some of them have, but um, it's a lot of new, just young, young riders. And I'm not by young, I mean just like who are just finding the sport. Right. There's so many people out there that that so I do the Turkey Tuesday with David Walker, a couple of friends. We just started it, which is started as a um kind of a mission to bring um the runners and the mountain bikers together. There's always been tots training on turkey on Tuesdays, and that's a running group. Um back before I say it's better, right? We don't have the animosity. So we started a mountain biking. We started the same place, we ended the same place, we have beers, we don't really co-mingle too much, but we uh we appreciate where we're at. Right. So that's helped that relationship of the runner, biker, and almost so we do it every Tuesday. A couple times a month, someone's like, I just got this bike like last week and I heard about Turkey Tuesday. And they're out there running, we're like, well, let's go, man. You know, we have three, four.
SPEAKER_01We can keep up. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_02How many people show up for Turkey Tuesday? We average probably 30, 35. Shut up, even when it's like minus five degrees, dude. It's phenomenal. We go there and we're like, no one's gonna show up to the day. So it's every Tuesday all year. Every Tuesday at six o'clock. Wow. How many runners show up for the running side of it? They got a group, they're still about 30, 40. Wow. Yeah, and they they take off at 6:30. So we're on trail before they start. And then we all finish, and it's right there at the bottom lot by the bathrooms. Um, we tailgate and have you know cold refreshments and beers. Sometimes we'll cook out, and the runners do the same thing. They have their own shit. Like a road trip. Dude, I'm telling you, I mean they're doing it right now. Done. I had a couple guys calling me on the way here. He's like, Yeah, I'll go take the video. I got my lights, I'm going to Turkey Tuesday. I was like, Well, you know what? I'll see you next week, but um I'm moving up here.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna have to get off early.
SPEAKER_02We happen.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I'm in. Yeah, that sounds fun. I'll leave.
Cold Turkey MTB Fest: Format And Vibe
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, yeah, I like it. Come on, it's fun. And we get we'll ride till about 7 15. Okay. So we get and we start it there at six, so we're getting an hour, hour and a half of good riding, 10 miles, 12 miles, depending on where we go. Man, so cool. On Tuesday, you know?
SPEAKER_00Let's I guess before we get into the OKXC stuff, let's talk about uh your race that you put on. Because well, let's promote that. I mean, it's not until November. You're gonna take a pee break again.
SPEAKER_01No one would have known.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm putting you on blast because I gotta go too. Yeah, I'm putting blast because you're old. You peed 10 minutes ago. Yeah. Um so Coulter, like well, tell people because I know you don't get a lot of participation from Oklahoma City that comes up. Maybe a couple. A couple, yeah, a couple, but it's a massive event for you guys. It's a it's a good thing for for Tulsa.
SPEAKER_02It has grown. This is our third year. That's something for everybody. Oh my gosh. I think we don't quote me on numbers, but I think we had close to 500 participants. Shut up. And then we're doing enduro, so we do Zingo Unchained on Friday, okay, which is kind of like the vintage, it's just uh for fun, but it's timed. Um, ripple effect, Tulsa puts it on. Um, Bicycles Tulsa helps put it. It's super fun. It's just we go down Zingo, which is a downhill. Okay, it's a green level, uh, there's no jumps, but it's basically some flowy berms, think like a Luge or bobsled type. Okay, so you're just ripping. Just fun. Um, yeah, yeah, there's TV, there's music. Um, it's crazy. It's on Friday. Friday night. Okay. Um, Saturday's usually enduro. Okay. So there's there's a five-stage enduro, and it gets pretty chunky. And for people that don't know what enduro is, explain that. Enduro is basically a gravity, um, some downhill, but there's sections where you have to pedal. Okay. And it's usually chunk. It's kind of like old turkey. It's it's more of the gnarlier raw courses, um, but they're gonna be more gravity-oriented, so it's you don't, you know, a lot of bigger bikes, you know, chest pads, knee pads. Uh if you want to take those A lines, there's usually B lines on some of those, but it's it's gonna be gravity, and they're usually, you know, a quarter mile, they're short little runs.
SPEAKER_00And the thing with Enduro, it only the downhill's timed.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00You gotta get up to the uphill.
SPEAKER_02You gotta get up there. We do a party enduro, which means uh it's all timed. You keep your your monitors or your ribbons, whatever they have. Um, so you rip it, you can rip it as many times as you want. Okay. Take your fast line. If you get a really good run, you're like, that's as good as I can get, you go to the next enduro line. You can do that as many times as you want. You can go, you know, say you ride with a pro, right? There's guys out there that are really good, they ride pro races. You can still run with them, you can do a party line. You're all getting time in different categories, but you can all ride together. Okay. You know, you're not sitting at a gate waiting for a referee or someone to say, you know, go, and then they'll wait five minutes. Go.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of traditional Enduros, you just get one pass if you if you fall or drop a chain or whatever, that's that's your time. I gotcha.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's probably you you have until two o'clock that day. Okay. So you ride as much as you can. Okay. And they try and and David Walker, who puts it on, he tries to link it to where you know it's manageable. You're not going all over the mountain, right? You're doing some repeats, you're going up and down, but you know, you're not spending two hours pedaling to get to the next one, and you kind of ties them all together. There's some strategy, but right. Yeah, that party dur uh enduro is uh been very popular.
SPEAKER_01Is there is there two like two levels of courses?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh I'm glad you brought that up. We did last year, they started um I forget the name, but they did a very tight friend. Or something, yeah, uh mini enduro or light enduro, yeah. Yeah, and it was geared towards beginners. Um, it was three of the easier uh down hour courses. That was Zingo, um Tree Hooker, which is super fun. Like I'm clear. It's still the same. It is, more or less. It's more the same. The end's a little bit different, um, but it's the same course. Treehooker's my favorite. Uh then um Grasshopper, which is over by where Balm Cellar used to be, is gonna be in the southeast corner of Turkey, closer to 75. Um, it used to be Balm Cellar or the Red Trails, uh, but there's a another beginner grasshopper um Enduro there, and that was a three mini enduro, so it was geared towards you know beginners and whoever just wanted to they couldn't really do the jobs because look, I'm not gonna do the enduro on those courses, especially not at that pace. I don't have the bike, and I like my body too much. I think that could be part of it too if you don't have the bike for it, yeah. It's just dangerous.
SPEAKER_01So doing like the smaller one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, some of those you don't have like a 140 travel up front, you know, you're you're gonna have a rough day. It's gonna push your on my I'm an XC bike, so yeah, you gotta have the bike for sure. Yeah, huh? So you have like I mean, there's something for everyone. Absolutely, and then the rocky art. So you get into more you know, X game type stuff. Uh-huh. It's got big jumps. Um, they have some wood features, some almost like the one we went on, which to me is like dropping in a half pipe. You know, you're just rolling off this bridge. It's got a nice We basically fell off of a mountain, is when it happened to me.
SPEAKER_00I don't know about it. I think if I didn't tow you in, you wouldn't have gone. No, for no, absolutely no way.
SPEAKER_02Then I was following Troy, so then I was like, oh damn, this peer pressure sucks. Those are fun, but yeah, so that little kid I told you about, he towed me in the first time.
SPEAKER_00Oh he's like, peer pressure has never had an effect on me. When I grew grew up, I never tasted alcohol until I was in college. To my junior year of college, I never drank, and here we are. But until I didn't do any drug, I was a I was such a good kid. I was straight laced all the way through. Because peer pressure, I'd be like, screw off, you're stupid. Peer pressure on mountain bike gets me every damn time. Every damn now, unfortunately, until I see death, and then I'm like, I can't do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I have my limits. Like, I I know but peer pressure on mountain bike, not worth coming back from. I uh I've been hurt too many times. I'll I'll have so many like back in shapes left in my life. I have not, yeah.
Enduro Explained And Party Format
SPEAKER_00I have not been hurt too many times because I'm so scared I don't want to get hurt. And then I watch this one, he gets hurt every week on his motorcycle. Yeah, still here. Yeah, stop it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh but so Turkey's in November. Or the cold turkey mountain bike fest.
SPEAKER_02Um, it's in November, it's a three-day uh it's a fundraiser for River Parks Authority. So it goes all that proceeds go back to the trails. Gotcha. Which is why we do it. Um everything I do is I volunteer. Yeah. Like I I get nothing out of any of these like personal gain other than I I enjoy it. It's a way to stay busy. It's not a job to me. I I love trail work, I love putting on races. Um, you know, as long as I have that happy medium and my family's good and my life's good. Yeah. Uh but yeah, so three days we do the Friday nights kind of the shakeout, right? People coming in, we want people to camp. There's camping. It's a three-day festival. Was it camping all like top lot, or is it where so last year we had it the bottom lot because we moved the star to the bottom because they redid the top lot, they repaved it and it wasn't ready. Um, so we had tent camping along the south end, like where the trees and canopies are um of the bottom lot. That was um primitive for tent camping, and then all the campers and vans were kind of along that that 60 or I'm sorry, Elwood where the Elwood climb is. We we stacked them in there. That's fun. Cool. There was also, and of course we went through there, so riding through, and there's people at you know, they're at their vans and they're cooking, having grill, and you're racing right through them. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00That's really cool. Um, all right. Well, you guys uh want to get into let's talk about the endurance series.
SPEAKER_02Let's do it. Uh that's the most fun I've ever had hurting that much. It was a lot of fun. I actually those were the I've done two of them. It's the first two six hour solos I've ever done in my life. Oh, really? Yeah. I I've done like a watch tall challenge six times, and that's kind of how I approached it. Flux like I'm somewhere in four or five to six hour day. Uh-huh. I know what I'm in for, but that's the first time I've done just laps of trying to hurt myself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that and those were two good trails to see what six-hour endurance racing is all about. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, I'm glad you liked it. Yeah, yeah, that was good. I mean, the thing is, Ray into the G G3 squad. I mean, thank goodness for them. I mean, if it they do not it could not be more grassroots than anything that they do. Like it's so laid back, it's so relaxed, so easy, inexpensive. Like they do everything right. That's the big thing. I mean, it's 40 bucks. Yeah, it's so straight.
SPEAKER_01Like it's like the the fun or training value, whatever you're using it for for 40 bucks, is yeah, well worth it. Fantastic. We've had like two, what, 60, almost 70 degree weekends. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It should have been mild Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_01Trails got rain and looked like they're gonna be bad and they're about as good as they could be.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Yeah, Skip uh by the end of it was like the greatest hero dirt of all. Well, it was so fast.
SPEAKER_02I was cussing you guys because I did a six hour, and by the time the three hours started, uh-huh. I was like, they have like primo dirt, like everything's burned in on those two laps.
SPEAKER_01I hope all the six hours got all the mud out.
SPEAKER_02We did, and it's just good for it was the first lap was slimy. Really? Oh, I lost my front tire one time. Uh-oh, I was going all over the place. Second lap got a little better by lap three and four, which when you guys started showing up, it started getting fast. Those sections that were kind of boggy and and and spongy were getting fast. I was like, okay, this is gonna be like it got faster as the day went on, but I got more tired.
SPEAKER_00So I was like, this is like now that it's perfect, you're too tired to heal ahead. Yeah, so what we're talking about, it's called the HOMA. Three races, the endurance series, three and six-hour races. The first one was at McMurtry on the what's that red trail? Yeah, yeah, red trail.
SPEAKER_02They did it backwards, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which was fun, not common. I had a great time. I I actually like it that direction. Oh, really? Yeah, that was so fun. Yeah, it was less technical that I mean, you call it, can't really call it technical, but less techie that direction, I think, because the downhills, if you go the normal way, the downhills had some like rooty, a little steeper, steeper things, but yeah. Um, so it was a little bit more tame going backwards, but it was nice to I I think it's fun to do things, the trail's different, yeah. And Skip, which is in Midwest City and Oklahoma City, also backwards, it was backwards, which I'd never have like it's you could not ride that trail backwards, you can you can't you can't do it. And I know the trail boss did was kind of a little skeptic about running it backwards. It was like, I don't know. It was phenomenal backwards, it's almost maybe better. I think better.
SPEAKER_02I think better. I don't have a bad thing to say about it. I had a fun gives it.
SPEAKER_01No, I was kind of grumbling. I'm like, well, I didn't do the six hour, but I was like, man, three hours of skip is really mind-numbing. And I I had fun the whole time. Like, I agree. First time on skip, I'd never been so I had no expectations. Okay, and I was like, well, let's go check it out. I just thought it would get kind of monotonous because it's a fast lap, but I mean it was it was fun the whole time. Like, I think the course was so good, and writing it backwards was just fresh enough. Yeah, that like I was never not wanting to be riding.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because McMurtry had a smaller turnout, um, which is weird. And this is one thing I was gonna talk to you about.
SPEAKER_01Like it was Super Bowl Sunday.
SPEAKER_00Oh Super Bowl Sunday, that probably hurt it a little bit. But I was shocked that there wasn't more Tulsa people, and I was shocked there wasn't more Stillwater people there. Like I thought real I thought Stillwater would have mostly Oklahoma City people. I thought that was really weird. I thought there would be a really solid group of like 15 20 m stillwater people there um and maybe like a good group of like 10 or 15 from Tulsa. I was very surprised from the turnout from those two towns. Um because the trail was great. Weather was great but I don't I don't feel like this weekend was much different. No. There was there was more people.
SPEAKER_01But I also think the rain I had already made different I already made plans to do a road ride Sunday. Yeah. Because I was like there's no way that I think there's a good chance.
SPEAKER_00I agree.
SPEAKER_01And then when they said it was going to happen I I went but I think a lot of people maybe yeah had written it off.
SPEAKER_02I agree. No I was I was not planning on racing. No I was like yeah we're not doing it.
SPEAKER_00I'm going to do gravel Sunday you know it'll be fun. Well and the thing is with that trail if you're not from here that trail if it rains it's closed for like a week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah like that they they don't play around I mean pretty much in a creek bed a lot like right above a creek bed.
The HOMA Endurance Series Recap
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah and I go out there and ride and I'm like an hour is like hard to do because it just gets it's just it's that that trail is perfect for what it is. It's it everything about it is exactly what you expect from that trail. But an hour's enough so I was like same thing. Same with you I was like three hours out here is going to be rough but backwards was super fun. It was really fun. Yeah yeah we had a and I think it felt like everybody had good competition. Everybody had people race with there was enough people that it was fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah you were either chasing someone or someone was kind of getting you know coming around you or riding with you.
SPEAKER_00I agree. Yeah I I I thought I thought it was great. I thought the weather was great.
SPEAKER_01Chip timing was solid like you got results that night. Instantly yeah super cool if you're into reading all that stuff. Yeah like Ray said he was actually kind of relieved that not many people were at the first race because he had to you know like figure it out and yeah I think they're doing it.
SPEAKER_00They're putting on great events I'm putting on exactly what you pay for.
SPEAKER_01Like it doesn't need to be any more than that. It normally should be used for for training or for fun. Yeah and it's exactly what you you would expect it.
SPEAKER_00And everybody I talk to has that exact same attitude. Yeah like yeah I'm just what it was for me. I just forced myself to get fit by signing up as like I'm just gonna put them in my legs because I'm meant I I even talked to Lindsay about I was like I am mentally not there yet to go out and do like a good three hour ride by myself. I just I'm not there. I'll get there I'm not there today but I go ride this thing because I have peer pressure around me and I I'm my friends.
SPEAKER_01And honestly we don't have a lot of trails in OKC that it's you gotta you gotta really want it to go ride three hours by yourself on any of our trails because you're riding like loops. Loops it's not like what you're talking about where you can link stuff together. For me it's just like every time I come by the car yeah yeah screw off yeah no way too done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah Turkey's for or not Turkey but tallest is fortunate that there's three or four trail systems so you can get some variety and maybe get further from the car and force yourself to get more miles and like well I'm out here you know it's 12 miles back of the car you know so you can't just balance that's what I do in Arkansas I'd I ride two hours one way because you can just leave trails and I'm like I know I'm gonna do a four hour run now because the shortest way back is two hours.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I think that's the I think that's where you get really get spoiled in Tulsa is the um not only the different terrain but the it's so easy to get out and do an hour and a half two hours. So easy.
SPEAKER_02Actually you can get better so there's two trail systems coming online uh so there's Chandler in the Chandler Park which is out down 21st out there. Oh really yeah so they're trying to get their stuff together I think they're in the beginning of the master plan stage I need to get more connected with that group but they're wanting to do kind of what Turkey did. There's a lot of unused land out there so much yeah yeah and they have they I mean they have plans so that's coming on and then um Gilcrease so the museum plans for that like there's seen the master plans for that too so those are going to be more trails you can ride to all those we're gonna have six trail systems. So we got to get Coloma to expand yeah next year.
SPEAKER_01Exactly I think they would I mean like two down here two up there would be fantastic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I've talked to him and we'll do something in Tulsa whether it's wherever it may be I've already told him that I'll help him with at least one in Tulsa.
SPEAKER_00Oh I think it'd be phenomenal if turkey's like the kickoff of the winter season if like cold or if cold turkey's the kickoff for the endurance season you know because it's kind of fun different like a new vibe and then you have your endurance races through the winter and then it kicks into spring and have one a month and then be awesome at Turkey it would be great endurance.
SPEAKER_02Dude that loop that you took us down it was pretty close to that loop.
SPEAKER_01Oh you guys Troy started crying about the rocks so I kind of get off the box that he's getting he's getting soft in his old age he wasn't ready he's like I haven't I'm not ready for rocks I've been on rocks did you race when when Ray I think Ray put it on like the six hour at Turkey like years ago and you like crossed 71st Street bridge you went to the bear fountain no I never did that it was so hard. It was like a it was a loop of turkey I don't remember exactly what it was and then you'd come down and you'd hit the the trail and you'd go across 71st Street bridge you'd circle the bear fountain and come back I know from the that bear fountain from the river to the point of Turkey is like 180 feet of climbing. It was rough yeah and it was when it was when Ray and Chris Renshaw were both on the trek team and I was like starting to come up but I wasn't on their level and they clearly were on a mission to punch the shit out of me because I would see them on the bridge. We would pass each other two feet apart and I know they were just trying to get farther head on the bridge. It was a it was a good course but it was really hard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I I like it I think turkeys come so far and you get what you want if you want hard technical it's still there.
SPEAKER_02Well it has everything there's three parking lots and it just depends on where you start you know get get on the socials or or hit someone up and ask. Yeah there's a lot of people there that will gladly take you around for a loop if you want but uh it's not the turkey of old agreement. You can go with city people need to not be scared of it.
SPEAKER_00Even like as well as I knew that place I felt kind of lost when I went there so yeah I'd definitely recommend getting in touch with someone that knows knows like how to take you around so you can kind of learn your get some routes that you can download because even like when I came up with you and you're like oh it's so well marked no it is extremely well marked but that doesn't mean it's not spaghetti. Yeah so you kind of feel like you're like running into dead ends a little bit if you don't know the flow and circling back to where you started from 600 acres on that side.
SPEAKER_02So it's easy to drop down in little valleys and you know and then you're like where am I?
SPEAKER_01You lose track of your orientation between the river and the highways and stuff and you're like am I going north or south and then you know you're kind of freaking out because you don't know quite where you are I've gotten like when we first moved there Ryan and I went and did like a trail work day or something or we're at Help and Trey or uh I think we were getting ready for his last race up there that yeah we're doing something and I'm like it was it was him and I and I'm like man I'm I got turned around and I like had to get my phone out and like all right we need to go that way. But like I didn't know if you don't know your way around you don't know which way is which it's easy to get turned around.
SPEAKER_02As a local we we save you know people all the time we're in the parking lot yeah how do I get in the parking lot I'm like well which one do you park at the one with the bathroom. Okay go down there.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah to get turned on it's it starts to look the same. It does look the same and they're everywhere now. Yeah and there's like pockets of like phenomenal trail that if you didn't know to cross the street and go over this direction you would never see them. And it's phenomenal over there.
Course Design, Weather, And Participation
SPEAKER_02Yeah so yeah you need to talk to somebody or at least like download a route and don't quit sleeping on turkey it's quit sleeping on turkey and it's scared of turkey make it a make it a day trip maybe two days because there's retail around there it's not like it used to be there's yeah we still sit on the opposite shop exactly Chipotle and it's phenomenal. I don't I think if you're not super fit or you don't want to ride more than two hours you should make it like a two day probably yeah then you can go to those other trail systems that we have we you know our breweries are coming up back we you know we didn't have the trail system we don't have the breweries we have a lot that coming up so you can go downtown you can still eat you can make it an evening you can make it a two day and and just not make it a training but just enjoy Tulsa.
SPEAKER_00Well and plus you have like Bales is Rocky like rocky it's it's rocky I think it's more technical than turkey yeah I I think so I mean it's yeah it's fun to ride and it's easy to understand and and learn the trail that little loop I think is called slapjack uh but pound for pound it's more technical than turkey it's junky it's bumpy it's chunky yeah and then uh was it label that's across and that's like kind of like skip yeah essentially it's just fast fast it's got more elevation but it's just fast.
SPEAKER_02Yeah Mooser and Labelle those two are connected they're all both it's about six miles between the two uh Mooser is around Mooser Creek Mooser and then Label is where bike club used to be and then was their beginning of bike club um training and for the kids so it's built for bike club level high school or in mid mid school yeah yeah it's fun well let's jump into that we're uh let's jump into okay x and the fun stuff and get that kicked off so it starts in what like two weeks two weeks so March 17th I think it was seventh is the first race we're doing them on Saturdays I I kind of want to I guess rip that we're on Saturdays are on Saturdays. For a couple reasons uh did got some feedback I had like 85% of yeah socials say hey what would you prefer and more people were going to Saturday I do know a lot of people locally that I ride with through the week who tell me all the time you know I can't race on Sundays because I have you know church whatever it is or I just chant like that's always going to be give and take you know Saturdays you lose. Um if you like it you should have voted.
SPEAKER_00Yeah right exactly and you know what's awesome is all the races are in the springtime so you're not Saturday football.
SPEAKER_02I'm very excited about that because you don't have to really feel like you have to be fit all year. Right. You know you like you you can still ride all year but I'm actually it's uh relieve a lot of stress for me because I'm like okay I get fit and then have to do any here in the summer it's gonna be hot but then I have to get fit again. Right. You know, especially if you're going for the your goal channel you gotta stay in it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah you can't just fall off and then then you're like well that's so you so you say you're using Cold Bahoma to get fit uh to race through the spring and that's it. And that's it. That's fine.
SPEAKER_02And then I'll I'll spend in my pool during the summer we'll do like group rides from the house and have a good time and then come fall or yeah fall and winter I'll I'll do some gravel.
SPEAKER_00I love gravel I don't cycle cross but um we gotta talk about smart man yeah smart man I don't run I bought a bike not to run outnumber you are outnumbered tonight I tried cycle cross I raced it I did it for years um it was a lot of fun when uh ruts and guns were done let's leave it at that it was a lot of fun it was a lot of fun but it's not for me so close so close yeah so I love to watch it I agree I don't really I don't have the body type for cycle cross yeah and it's it's it's really fun when it's over yeah it's really fun when it's done I do it for the dollar bills and the beers I don't eat bacon so that kind of kills me. Yeah so uh but so OK XE, I mean I think the three of us and Ray so you and Ray were kind of the I mean you can correct me if I'm wrong but like we're the spearheaded the GCXE uh to get that off the ground last year and for a variety of reasons and we don't need to get into all the drama and all the fun things of that but you guys got GCX up and running and had a really solid first year of GCXE and which was a Tulsa Mountain bike series stayed in the in the northeast part of the state raced your trails did your thing had really solid participation for the first time series right um and then this year um you us two dumbasses yeah joined the force and figured out yeah I mean I think that's an important thing to touch on yeah is for sure I think uh maybe from the outside looking in it looks like you guys are just trying to expand into Oklahoma City where right and I got involved because I mean you guys listened to us talk on the podcast about better competition and better races and just making racing better in general and you guys reached out and like what can we do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah which is kind of kind of how things grow everyone wanting to work together like what can we do and not what can you do for me and so you know myself and and Ryan are now involved within the series of helping plan and organize and get events going um within what we can but yeah I think I just think that's important to not make it look like GCX just coming down here trying to take races.
SPEAKER_02Like we're wanting to be a part of growing it and you know we've we've already covered it enough that we tried to get everyone involved and could even the first year we had several courses from around the state call us and say we want in your series. It doesn't fit the green country plus you know we don't want to get more too big to you know fail right we we this first year so we had to kind of set some limitations with ourselves to make sure that we were successful.
SPEAKER_00But yeah from day one we had that and then it just grew to what it is now I think that's what was so interesting whenever we tried to bring the state together and try to get all the different series to work together not just mountain biking but all the series and every single time you and Ray would reach out and be like okay what do we need to do how can we be involved how we've been doing it long enough I mean he's been doing it probably two decades.
Linking Tulsa Systems And New Parks Coming
SPEAKER_02I'm reaching you know 12 years 13 years promoting and hearing that all the races all the same thing and want this growth and nothing changes. I've seen every discipline of cycling I've been out long enough which wasn't very long ago where like you know Tulsa Tough was crazy. You just see the racing kind of dying yeah racing is is dead for whatever reason and and we just wanted to try and save the sport. So we're like what does it take? One is listen to the people racing that's it I mean you you can't we can't have 1970s tactics and in this time and think it's gonna be successful things change normal business you listen to your customer and then you give the customer what they want no try things out you just you stay within your margins you don't want to just go wild but yeah like give us some feedback we'll try it. Yeah and even last year we we adjusted on the fly the things we did on the first race surveillance we didn't do race three four five we learned what worked we made some changes we had people real time suggestions hey if you did this I could race more or whatever and we was like well we don't see why we can't do it we own the damn thing we do what we want yeah yeah it's like we'll do that we'll we'll set this like it's a big corporation like like some some series think they are and we can't make any changes right it's like we can you can just change it tomorrow you do what everyone didn't have a simple my yeah philosophy with promoting a Malbek race is it's never too late till it's late too late. Right. Right? You can change a course until you blow the whistle right it's never too late till it's too late.
SPEAKER_00Well I think a perfect example of that now that I'm thinking about it is just like how the very first race of your series started. It was on what like the fourth bell of the song yeah the intro of the song and Hell's Bells Bells because it was that Bails trail and you're sitting there and you're like shit how many I don't know how many I don't know how many bells they're on I don't know what it rings and everybody's kind of thinking the same thing. And it was just like you could tell who knew that song.
SPEAKER_01Yes I think Ray Hall knew that song and that's what made it funny watched the first race I was like I don't you know I didn't like it and I'm like well I just don't like it because it's not it's not what we're standard. When I was on the star line it was actually kind of funny yeah because everyone's so tense like waiting on it.
SPEAKER_02It was yeah it was super interesting there was enough room for everyone to get sorted yeah big deal because it's fun yeah it was mountain bike racing in Oklahoma which is unsanctioned event it's fun yeah just go out there and race hard against your buddies and enjoy it for the day that it is yeah that you're gonna you're gonna race with who you're racing who just goes it was great I that mass start was amazing it was massive yeah I think we played 50 Chris back in the day and I was like this is like like this is awesome.
SPEAKER_00I was pumping like we are racing we are hell hell we're just rolling and we just at my race we have like 50 people and it was only like a row and a half like maybe so like everybody's just it was like a like a motor race like yeah everybody's like one little funnel.
SPEAKER_02And one thing we do we we we manage to start so we're very cautious to make sure you know you're not gonna wad it up on corner one with 30 people going going around the corner.
SPEAKER_00So we have long prolongs we try and sort all that out but you know this the start should be fun too so let's talk about a couple of the races and if we get into any of the stuff we can get any of the stuff so we have starts on March 7th is that correct yep and that's at Bales at Bales same course uh very little change from last year.
SPEAKER_02Uh we've been going out there been conversating with them uh even on the way up here hardly basically same some changes that are there that unfortunately so bike club Tulsa has their headquarters there is where the field was insane oh my gosh I'm insane for them yeah it is beautiful a lot of it's made out of just local um materials from there bike club is an amazing um organization I do a little bit with them I'm not part of them but I do help them out from time to time Tulsa's pretty good about that about scratching each other's back so uh so the the headquarters will be there um they're still building it it's not done we we were gonna have like Reg and go through the building and users but uh don't think it's gonna happen but we can still use their back patio which has like which is enough okay cool it's gonna be one of the best little little spots that of any mountain bike trail that you're gonna go to where you have cool benches and fire pits and little paved trail and the trail goes the race goes literally right by you. Yeah um still technical you have the the climb just like last year he's gonna do the downhill prologue okay kind of sort everything out where you can go through and you do the little that's one of my favorite courses yeah that was a great prologue loop it was fun prologue I mean the course it's just like it's such a perfect mix of everything. Everything yeah yeah you if you're fit like there's spots where you're gonna gain some ground but if you can't ride rocks it's gonna expose that yeah and vice versa yeah because it's got fast and flowy so Oklahoma there's a the Oklahoma City people there's pretty much from the climber on the field if you can pedal you've got a big advantage big advantage rocks you have a big disadvantage and then if you can that was my recovery that field I was like okay this is where I'm eating because I'm gonna gain them on the rocks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah you know and you have that big climb because my whole thing was like I got to get to the climb first because I'm gonna get my ass handed to me on the climb. So you get a roadblock it yeah basically that's all I tried to do he's just chopping gourd free touch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah you have everything on that trail which is fun it's it's a super small trail like three miles roughly yeah so a lot of what we did last year was try to keep it around so when I approached them with with the ideas I told him I I liked the 5k atmosphere so BV ever got 5k it's so fun but you're not really racing the guy that's going to win you're racing yourself. So I wanted to keep that and then I like the shorter distance um I never enjoyed traveling two hours and say my wife or my girlfriend whoever it was and it comes and they're like hey the next time I come through I'm done you know go yeah so having a shorter format you get to see your loved ones or people go three four five six times and then you can see progression of the race is kind of where I mean and if you wanted to walk like it's a pretty easy place if you walked out you could walk across yeah and bat and a lot of that race yeah you could go watch almost like uh you know quick you can go watch all the corners like I go watch this corner where they're over the down here or whatever it is and you can do that and then still go back and watch the finish.
OKXC Vision: Statewide, Seasonal, Inclusive
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah so that's Bales and we have Purcell which is the one after that is right correct yep it's like two weeks after it I believe yeah they're all about two weeks two weeks I think we're doing six races in like 13 or 14 weeks.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and there's a couple that I got for like rainouts right to play around with um kind of anticipating that hopefully we don't need to this year.
SPEAKER_00Last year kind of beat us up last year was rock uh which per sale is going to be fantastic because it's a fun little trail if nobody's been there yet it's just super fast and flowy. They got a little of everything not not much tech but your tech comes in like tight corners and like twisty little like oh here's a little you know 10 foot climb out of a tight corner kind of tech. So a good trade off for Bales. A hundred percent yeah everyone can write percentage everyone can write but if you're really fast you have that and if you don't have the skill but have fitness you can you have an advantage like everybody has their spot per cell it remind me so I've written it once it kind of reminds me of Skip yes and how laid out but uh percell has a lot more elevation so like 450 per lap it's a it's sneaky it's sneaky it's everything's a false flat yeah we do everything up and I look at I was like oh did you be down there yet no no everything's a false flat you're either going up or down yeah but it's gradual you you don't realize you're climbing until you get done and you're like why am I smoked and oh my gosh I did 12 you know it's weird it's weird.
SPEAKER_02Yeah the beautiful perfect setup for a course that that group did a good job I was really happy with or sales seems far it's like 40 minutes from downtown Oklahoma City. Yeah yeah Tolson just go like the back way through Norman yeah and go you can just kind of go in so you don't have to mess with uh five minutes off the
SPEAKER_00Highway. Five minutes off I-35. I mean, it's right.
SPEAKER_02Well, you exit, you go down, you go by the bronze and cross over there. There's a bronze for after the race.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All the things you need.
SPEAKER_00Shake and some fries. Game on. All right. And so we'll be the first race that they ever host there, which is good. I mean, they just finished the trip.
SPEAKER_02Just finished it. The day that I went down there, I went down there with Nike kids. Um, there was a Tulsa group, there was a couple OKC groups. Uh, I think we had 25, 30 kids, and we finished the last couple. Well, we tried to finish the last couple of miles to close out the loop. I think we got a couple hundred yards short, but in four hours we did almost half a mile, three-quarters of a mile. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00It's a fun trail to go just rip around. Uh, what's after Purcell? Uh Keystone, I believe. Ooh, there's some Rockies.
SPEAKER_02Uh Purcell. No, Mooser.
SPEAKER_00Mooser. Okay. So that'd be a fun flowing.
SPEAKER_02That is Hollow Hustle.
SPEAKER_00That is going to be a pedal full. What's the date on that? Uh April 4th. April 4th. Okay. And then that's super fun, flowy. Everybody from Oklahoma City, you can ride that trail. It's great.
SPEAKER_02You know, I would you could do it on a gravel bike. Yes. There's no tech. Uh it's yeah, it's gonna be another pedal fest, but it's fun.
SPEAKER_00It's a little bit of elevation. Not elevation as in like be scared, it's an elevation as in like it's not deadpan flat like Skip if you're from Oklahoma City.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, kind of kind of crest up and over like a hillside. You drop down into Moose or and you're down in the bottoms. Wide trails.
SPEAKER_01Is that the one that's directly across the street from Bales? Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I haven't ridden that it's really fast. Really fast. I think that's Union. So it's like 61st in Union, but it's right over there. You'll have to if you want to go ride it, you'll type in uh Rymmington elementary school. That's it's an outdoor classroom, but that's what will get you to the Bell Trails is that school. Park at Park at Lou Bell. You park there at Rimington? Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's a really fun, fast.
SPEAKER_02That's really gonna be a challenge. And I should probably say here, uh Lou Bell, there's not a lot of parking. Uh last year we were able to open up a gate and park in the in the the grass. There's a big field and there's a playground and a gazebo and stuff. So that worked out. But you know, if it if it goes, could you park at bales?
SPEAKER_01Or is that like kind of awkward to get to the start?
SPEAKER_02You could you could just cut through that moose or you're gonna get on trail, but you could park at bales if you want to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, and then after that we have what McMurtry. Oh, McMurtry. Oh, that'll be fun. Yeah, yeah, that'll be fun. That's a Nica race. Yeah, yeah. So and Nika, I think he has some big plans. I don't know if they're all gonna have come out yet, but he has some big plans for as like a weekend event um of stuff for the family, camping, kids, adults racing. Like it's gonna be he wants to do in a weekend if he can get it all sorted. He was both Nica and KXC. Yeah, so be another in-between race that everybody gets to do. And most people from here I know don't go to Stillwater and ride. But if you haven't been there, you gotta go. It's so good.
SPEAKER_01It was so much fun. So good. I had fun two weeks ago. I probably hadn't, I don't know the last time I was there, but it's probably been like eight or nine years to go. I mean, there just hasn't been a race there, and I've been gone, of course. But I actually had a movie. It was exactly what I liked was it was exactly how I remembered.
SPEAKER_00And I don't know what course he wants to do up there.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I mean, I'm assuming we're gonna ride on the same side. That's where they've always raised.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think they'll ride on the same side, but I don't know what trails he's gonna incorporate over there. There's so many options. It's just good, like old single track.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just little like berms or jumps, it's just routes and corners and yeah, yeah, fun stuff. Fun stuff.
SPEAKER_00Both sides. Yeah, so fun. The only thing that's sketchy there is like, you know, it's I mean, it's not very busy, but you have traffic going both directions sometimes on a few little areas if you go up like on a weekend or something like that. But and the race will be sorted out, but that whole trail system is phenomenal. I think it's way up.
SPEAKER_01I mean, years ago we started. There's there's a trail system to the north, you know, of where like kind of where the guard check was. Like we started in that field and we rode some of that north section. Stuff over there is and then we popped over the road into the red stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh it was kind of cool. I think it was just a start loop if I remember right, but that yell that's yellow over there, yellow and something else. That whole side over there is it's rocky over there. There is a there is a corner like where you kind of like reach the peak and you kind of start coming back, and it is I there is one climb out there I've never cleared. Yeah, there's some tough stuff on that part. You can't, it's rocky and bumpy and slippery, and yeah, it's really good. There's some really good and some drops and downhills that are rocky. I've never raced over there. Every race I've ever done's been pretty much what we did for the other race.
SPEAKER_02The only time I've gone on the other side was like Chili Bike. Yeah, yeah. And that's the last time I was there, which was like seven years ago. But yeah, that's the last time I rode it. Yeah, the section on the other side of the lake is yeah, really fun.
Race Calendar: Bales, Purcell, Mooser, McMurtry
SPEAKER_00If you haven't been there in a while and you're thinking about it, it's still good. 100%. I think it's still water racing. And the old stuff on Blackwell, or was it Blackwell? Is that the name I never wrote over there? Dude, that stuff was fun. I don't even know if it's still there. That stuff was really fun. They had a dual slalom that was great. And uh Tour de Dirt had a race there years ago. Um, I remember that. I don't even know if that trail still exists. I don't know. I mean, we're do you remember Lewis? Uh I don't remember Lewis's last name. He owned um Malon Bike. I don't think I knew him. That poor guy. He launched it on that dual slalom because it was like a couple like whoops in it, and he did not take one of the whoops very well and right over on his neck. He whoops, he whooped, he whooped, he whoopsed, and I remember seeing him in the parking lot. And he was, man, he is like the nicest guy on the planet. And I saw him in the parking lot, and he's like, I'm done. Like, I don't know, I'm never doing this again. And he was like, I mean, we were like this about the same, but we always competed against each other. I was like, What do you mean? He's like, No, I went, I wrecked, I went over my bars and landed on my neck, and I didn't couldn't feel my arms for like a while. Jeez, and he's like, I'm never racing a mountain bike again. And I've never he his shop is he sold the shop, it's closed down. He I have never seen him on a mountain bike again. Oh my gosh, it was it was scary, it was scary. I mean, that'll do it. Yeah, yeah, it was one of those like whoopy things where you just kind of get going too fast and get out of rhythm, and that's what happened. He just got out of rhythm and you just blanched it. Kind of what I almost did is skip very similar to that. Yeah, I was very close to making that same memory. Um, and then so and then after McMurtry, we have that's Keystone. Keystone. Okay, so we gotta go. Oh, I talked about Keystone.
SPEAKER_02Let's do it. It's also changed, uh, it's not the Keystone Bowl. We've cut up, there's like three real techie.
SPEAKER_01I was a little sad at the video we saw, but I understand. This makes me really happy because I I put a lot of work into being able to write Keystone, but it's okay.
SPEAKER_02For a race, we had to make some changes. So we we cut out the the butt crack little rock. Yep, uh, that's gone, and then the little the boneyard or whatever afterwards is really like an off-camber rock, which it was fun to ride, but you know, people it shines people. So those are out, and then the third probably tech part was that off-camber rock slab climb in the direction we go towards the end towards the end, as you gone back before.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so is it just that trail's still there? You just made a reroute for the race. Rerouted.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so yeah, it's actually good because it's carrying water. So uh Kevin Wagner rerouted and kind of came a little bit above it and bench cut it and still. He does it. He gosh, he's put a lot of time. He's he's actually the one that brought that race back. Yeah, how much time he's put into it. So that's phenomenal. That's such a good trail. Such a good trail. I had it. It can last it's hard. Yeah, yeah. It's still Keystone, you're still gonna have those rocks, you know.
SPEAKER_01But it's but it's really it's really those sections that are like really hard.
SPEAKER_00The thing is, if you are in if you can ride bikes, if you can ride Arcadia in Oklahoma City, there's nothing in Tulsa that we're gonna be racing that you can't ride. Nothing. I agree. You may not be as good at it. Right. Like that's be a better rider when you leave. Yeah. That's what I want. There's so many out there. Medicine Park's more tangent than Medicine Park is the hardest place around. Yeah. Medicine Park is the is I if you want to ride all of Medicine Park, there is nothing in Oklahoma that's like Medicine Park. Nothing. If you want to ride the black and the yellow and stuff that's like right there in Medicine Park that we don't race, or up by the church, screw off. That stuff sucks.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's so hard. It's pretty level. You're there's no more like I'm not ever going to that course. They're they're all rideable. Yeah, you might dab, you might there might be sections that you walk, but it's not better for most people. Yeah. Oh man, there's certain races I still dab or get off on certain sections, and you know, whether it's just I'm saving more energy, you know, walking that or running it, or uh just having cleaned it.
SPEAKER_00But I think that's the beauty of mountain biking. You can ride skip, where we talked about it before, you know, a lot more before we started recording, but like we pedaled for three hours. You pedal for six hours a trainer, you were on sitting on a trainer because you never stood up and you never coasted, and that's that mountain bike trail.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I I enjoy riding a trail that has a section that I'm like, I don't know. Every live you don't know if you can make it. You think you can make it, but if you mess up a little, you don't make it. Yeah, that's kind of part of the fun of it.
SPEAKER_00But it can be tight turns or it can be bumpy rocks, yeah. One or the other. Because I watch because I feel like I'm my skill level is kind of in the middle in any direction I go for the category that I race in. But I go to the tight turns. We talked about it, the couple of the guys that I rode with. Like, I'm like, dude, every time we got an incline, they drop me. Every time there was an open row, they drop me. But then we get in tight turns and I could catch back up. So they have their skills, I have my skills. We go to Tulsa, and anytime this rocky stuff, I get dropped because they're better on that. But anytime there's flowy tight stuff, I catch back up. So like everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. Just don't be as scared of what your weakness is on a mountain bike row. That's how you get better.
SPEAKER_01Or you can make that weekend trip to Tulsa, like we talked about a couple times. It's making a huge difference.
SPEAKER_02Pre-riding a course does wonders for you, you know.
SPEAKER_00The beauty of only having six races in the OKX Z race is you don't have to spend 20 weeks of your year pre-riding and uh racing like you used to, exactly within another series. Exhausting. It's a it's half your year to win a like a bag of coffee. Like, come on. So uh elemental. So I think that's the beauty of it is like everybody's gonna have their strengths and everybody's gonna have their weaknesses in the OKXC series. Everybody, but everyone does. I mean everybody tulsa guys are gonna come down and ride a trail around here and be like, what in the world? Hopefully. I hope. I mean, I think there's that you know that's stigmatic.
SPEAKER_01Here's the thing you're not good at it. So just but just take your lumps and then come back to the trail you're good at and you get it back.
SPEAKER_00But it's kind of points series, yeah. Yes, you're gonna have good ones and you're gonna have bad ones, and you're gonna have flats and you're not gonna be able to do that. There's no one to sign you to a contract for this.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, everyone's still going to work Monday.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, most importantly, you can raise your vintage bike.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and most importantly, when all else fails, and you're gonna raise it in the end on your vintage bike, and I get it.
SPEAKER_01We'll post the link to the US postal kit and we can wants to be on my team. No, no one wants to be on your team. No.
SPEAKER_00Um, so let's say we have and after Keystone, we got what?
SPEAKER_02Uh the last race of the year is our Arcadia.
SPEAKER_00That's gonna be a one-day state championship. That is the one-day state champion. You guys did it last year. Yeah, I think everybody was happy. Well, not everybody, a lot of us were happy about that. Uh I think a one-day state championship should exist. It should because it is the state championship. It's not a series, it's you have a series championship and you have a state championship. Completely different.
SPEAKER_01You could win two championships that day.
SPEAKER_02Yes, you know, two jerseys. You should have two jerseys. Yeah, I mean, it was super fun when we announced it and Ray always wanted to do it, and it everyone's like, that makes sense. It's a total championship. And I guess it's been a topic for a long time. A long time. I think it's been a topic longer than the vintage race.
SPEAKER_00Probably, yeah, and probably more hotly debated. For sure. And being here, I I I really I really hope that OKXC becomes a true state series. Yeah. Because we've really struggled with that for years. Where Tulsa people don't want to come here, Oklahoma City people don't want to go there. But I think hopefully we can marry the courses enough to be happy for everyone that people will just go ride their bicycles. And I think it will.
SPEAKER_02I think people need to trust us when we say there's not a huge swing in those courses, right? There's not. It's not you know death-defying and then gravity. Right. It used to be much different, I think. It was a lot. There's a lot more middle ground. It's yes, you you can ride them a lot better than you think you can if you just give them a shot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm excited.
SPEAKER_01And I mean, you're really if you're if you're on one end or the other, you're talking about two to three weekends. So why not just come make a weekend of it? You know, you could you could boost the economy a little bit. Come get a hotel. If you know, I mean, I'm sure there's people that you could stay with if you know people, but come down and pre-rite on a Saturday or on a Friday night or whatever and race on Saturday and you're back home Sunday.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and to that point, we're we're gonna try our hardest to have all the courses marked at least one week ahead. So people could, if they want to pre-write them, which probably is not a bad idea, but not necessarily needed like back in the day. You can come the week before and come.
SPEAKER_00Well, and the thing is that I did even at Bales, like I didn't come up the weekend before because doing short laughs, you can come up the day of your warm-up is your pre-ride. Yeah, yeah, just go out and do a lap. You just go out and do a laugh really smooth and slow and check things out. And if there's a section you don't get, you just get off and ride a couple times and it's really fresh. Yeah, it's fantastic. That's how I did it last year, and it was it worked perfect.
SPEAKER_02So and then the line gets burned in. You see where people are taking the lines, you're like, oh, there it is.
Keystone Updates And Tech Balance
SPEAKER_00And the cool thing about the OKXC stuff is gonna be bigger fields when as far as age groups, yeah, because that's gonna be different than people are used to, especially in Oklahoma City. People are different or used to that, so you have a bigger field, so you're always going to be following somebody. There's always somebody around you, there's always somebody to race. It doesn't matter if you're in 18th place, you're right. You're going somewhere. There's somebody to race with. So you're you feel like you're racing there on a solo, you know, death march switch training. Right, because it's a 10-mile loop and you just once you take off, you don't see anybody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so they're they're usually not more than four miles, you know. McMurtry, some of these on these sides don't have the shorter courses or uh options, so but it's still a short laps, yeah. You're gonna go through, you're gonna see people.
SPEAKER_00But then your maybe your goal is to not get lap. Like, yeah, uh honestly, my goal at Skip was to not get lapped by Drummonds. Like that's my goal. So when I would see them at certain points, I'm like, okay, they're this far apart, like I'm good, like here, you know, because I'm this far into the race and stuff. But like, so even people that are like newbies, that maybe that's your goal. Like, but you're always going to be racing with someone, you're gonna be around people and actually gonna say the same goal.
SPEAKER_02I was in a section where him and Ryan came around right, and I was like, this is where they passed me that sign. I'm like, Oh, they're not passing me twice in some place. Yeah, you can't do that. That's not good.
SPEAKER_00That's not a good sign. Yeah, so I think that's the that's the beauty of it. And I really with OKXE, I think we're really trying to bring the sport together. I think we're and maybe we're naive and we're just totally missing the boat, but I think we have the intentions of trying to bring the sport together to try to bring the fun back to it, to bring the racer experience back to it, like the competition.
SPEAKER_02We're all racers and riders, and what is we've always just wanted to grow the sport. Like I said, I don't have any other motive. Honestly, if some I honestly don't want to be doing this, but someone's got to do it, right? Right. It's for sure change you want to see type thing, which is kind of who I am. But you know, it's just we I want to grow the sport. I want people to experience the friendships, the ex you know, all the rides to places that I've seen and experienced through this sport. Uh, and you just gotta grow it, get people out there. Half of them don't even know that there's racing. No, they're like, oh, there's a race, you just race your bikes. Just come right here by that's it. And yes, it is. The best advice that was ever given years ago is from a very close friend, and uh it changed my whole outlook a lot on racing. It's just race your race. Yeah, I was always trying to race, you know, for like I was like, oh man, drumming, that's the pit of I gotta race Drummond's race. Just race your race. And once once I click and I go out there and I'm just racing to my ability on my race, I love racing that. It's less stressful, you know. I'm not like I can eat before race nasks and nerves are coming. I'm like, man, I'm just gonna go, yeah, I'm gonna go race my race, and that's all I can really ask myself. I mean, you can only do what you can do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's it. So, and with the series, we got what, like six races counting five. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think five to count for the series. Yeah, five. If you were if you're interested in the overall series results, that would be five of your six count. So if you have a mechanical or you can't make one, like whatever.
SPEAKER_02So there's also that team challenge. Oh, we are doing the team challenge. I haven't yet. So it's still like last year on your team, I think it works. Six rangers. It'll be, I think it's up to six. I think we count the top four. Okay. Uh it's all on the website, I'll have to refresh it, so don't quote me on that. But you you can have up to six on your team, top four finishers each race, get the points. So you still go for the biggest.
SPEAKER_00Wait, you're telling me that a bike shop can't have 40 people and stack certain categories to win the overall series. That's interesting. Huff. Okay. Yeah. So that's the way it should be. So it should be. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like four or five because that's that's a def that's a fun killer. And that's a funny thing. And you don't the way that's been done for years is a definite fun killer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so whoever hasn't been. You don't have to be on the same team. You don't have to have the same jersey. No, right. I ride for Sound Pony. I can team up with a fat tire guy and do everything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I raced with you guys, and yeah, yeah, you didn't coach me or anything. It was just you needed you needed somebody else on the gym because you needed more people. Jump on a couple buddies and make your own team and make some stupid fun days. It's free. It's free. We don't have a charge. Yeah, it's just for fun. Just throw you in you mean any category on your team could be any category. Yeah, you could be female, junior, whatever. Just open beginner, like just create a team and it's just something for fun to get people racing, to get people more incentive, and just do we and do we want to touch on since we're talking about money, cost, um timing, number plates, yeah, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic idea.
SPEAKER_00Again, racer, racers putting on a race. Yeah. Right. So what what what's the what's the hurdles with doing events? It's always cost, it's money, you know, it's time, or there's always travel.
SPEAKER_01There's always the person that maybe's like they find out at the end of the year and they want to do one race.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's like if you've got to pay, you know, a$40 entry fee, you gotta drive there, you gotta eat, and then you gotta buy a$25 number plate. And you gotta live. Yeah, I'm not going. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's uh easy$150,$200 weekend for you know like to ride my bike to try it out for 40 minutes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, most people are trying it out. That's the scenario.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so that is that's a great, that's a great point to bring up.
SPEAKER_02So uh timing is donated this year. So we're OKXE offers timing to the promoters, which they're all gonna take it. So free timing. Um, we're giving you your free number plate, one first free number plate. So when you register, you get your first number plate. Um, the second number plate you'll have to pay for. So if you lose it or damage it, you're gonna replace that. But with your entry for the series, you get a number plate. Um, because the people who are doing these races, these promoters, they're fundraisers for their groups. Yeah, they're nonprofits. Um, you know, the Centir is a Special Olympics group, they're associated with Special Olympics. A lot of them are trail organizations where that money goes back to their trail. So if you know you gotta make it worth your while, or you're gonna lose promoters. It's it's a lot of work. So if it's not if you know, if the juice were the squeeze, that's where racing's gonna die because people aren't gonna put on races.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I'm trying to help that out. And again, all of these are fundraisers. It's money going back to the trail, it's money going back to their team, it's money going to Nica, it's money going to something.
SPEAKER_01Nobody's nobody's making money.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Here's the thing. And and a side note, your your regular number plate's good for your vintage race too, right? I believe so.
SPEAKER_00I believe so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not that you would have to buy another one, but I think you can use the same one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we'll figure that out. We'll we'll make sure that that works. It's it's more of a like a software timing issue that we'll have to make sure we work through it on the on the computer stuff. Figure it out. Yeah. And it's, I mean, we can there's always that option to just do it manual. Like we'll figure that out, but we'll get it.
Arcadia State Championship And Fair Courses
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And that's the thing, is like you know, and I talked to a couple people like and that are interested in joining our series next year, races or uh venues. And I'm like, look, if if this series, we'll call it the series. If OKXE is going to make money, it's going to make it from sponsorships outside of the races or things like that. Like, we are not in this to make money for our personal selves, right? So any of the money that's in the races are going to a good cause for whoever's putting the events on.
SPEAKER_02So I we are promoting OKXE, I'm promoting one and and Keystone and and Holl Hustle Hollow go back to OKC, but I mean, we're you know, we have Insurance to cover arrows, so our course and so there's some cost. Um I just bought all the number plates today out of pocket to cover it. So, you know, okay because we'll recruit some of that, but it's just a function to keep these on. We're not trying to, you know, you're not getting a new four.
SPEAKER_00No, we're not going shopping. Bobby get that new truck. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's the thing, is we're putting this race on purely to put the series on. That's it. Like you drove down to Tulsa tonight to help promote it. You're like, we you know, we're doing all these things out of our own pocket. You know, we talked about paying out, you know, after me and you have talked about it, like putting money towards um like advertising, you know, and I'll cover that. Like it is what it is because I want to see it grow and want it to work. We're not trying to raise sponsorship to put money in our pocket for like three or four or five thousand dollars that I've seen from other series. We're not selling you a$25 number plate to put that money in my pocket because I own a timing series. We're not charging our race directors money to putting an event on in our series that we're hey, that you're making money off of. That you're making money off of.
SPEAKER_02A lot of people keep asking, like they'll they'll text me or whatever of some new promoters or someone in. They're like, okay, well, what's the catch? Nothing. And we're like, there's no catch, man. I just I wanted to see you succeed. I want to see our sports succeed.
SPEAKER_01We I think we all have have really positive impacts on our life from this sport. For sure. It's changed my life forever. And we don't need to make money from this, so we just want we want other people to experience that same thing. 100%. That's where it's coming from.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've I've seen it turn around so many people's lives. I mean, some of my best friends and lives are from cycling.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02You know, 100%. It it's it is such a great influence. Any of them? I like no, I don't like cyclists.
SPEAKER_00I like mountain bikers. Yeah. He's probably talking about cycle crossers. Oh, yeah, I don't like them either. I don't know any of them. Yeah, they're weird. I know one. Ryan, he's cool. Yeah, he's pretty cool. Yeah. Uh yeah. So I think that's the I think that's the beauty of what we're trying to do here. Yeah. We're not trying to make money. It's not a piece of our it's not a piece of our pie. I mean, it does, it does take money to do it. It takes money, take a lot of time. You know, if you want a sponsor, yeah.
SPEAKER_02We don't need much, but it does ease some stress. But yeah, it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00It goes a long way for us to cover costs. It really does, yeah. Yeah, because it's coming out of our pockets as of it.
SPEAKER_02And back to what Chris said, we're trying to make it mean something to say you're an Oklahoma mount biker, especially when you go through the ranks and then you're trying to take it to another level. Um, so we're trying to build that base of of competition. And the only way we can do that is get people to know what the sport is, realize what cross country is and whatever other disciplines are out there, and get them to just kind of come learn the sport. There's a lot of really fast people on Coloma. There's a lot of fast people. There's people on our Tuesday night that never race, and they and they may never will. Yeah, they they just maybe don't want to race. But we ride every Tuesday and they are right on my wheel. Uh-huh. And they're just getting it, and we're just riding. I'm like, these guys are fast. So it is what it is, but there's a lot of fast mountbacks.
SPEAKER_00A lot of fast. I mean, um, we talked about it on the podium from the Colbahoma race at Skit, the guy that finished third. I didn't know Clay. I didn't know who he was. I've never seen him before, I've never met him. I'm like, who's this guy? Like, he clearly he's fast. He finished right behind the two drummins, and like I've never seen the guy, and he was riding by himself, so I know he dropped everybody else that was fast. And I'm like, there's there's fast people everywhere, everywhere. We just gotta give up an avenue and a fun avenue.
SPEAKER_01We just need to create a a space for real competition for them to do whatever they want with it. That's it. It doesn't mean you have to do something with it, but we need a space for people that do want to do something with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's still grassroots. I think it's still people you shouldn't be too nervous to come out and try it. Like you're talking to someone, they're gonna help you out. It's fun, it's cheap, it's a good time.
SPEAKER_01There's people if someone's not wanting to help you out, then they're not your people, right? For sure. Maybe maybe you need to report them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Report those a remoteer. That guy's kind of suspect.
SPEAKER_00Uh well, is there anything else you want to add to this? Is there anything else we need to cover?
SPEAKER_02Uh so you know, the re the season starts. Go to Is the registration live? It is live. Okay. Um, another thing with registration, if you sign up for all six races at one time, uh like off the off the first, then there's a 10% discount. Oh, so we'll give a discount to commit to the series, uh, sign up for all six, you know. Okay. Push yourself, commit to yourself to a whole season. It's really it's 14 weeks. Perfect. Six races. Right. You can put that six races. You can make six races happen. Yeah. Um okay series.com.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, get on that. There's socials, but it's okay, which is Oklahoma Cross Country. So OKXE series.com. That'll get you to our website. You can get there to register. Um, find us on socials, okay series on Instagram and Facebook. Message me if you have any questions, I'll give you links. Um, you know, people were calling me all here, it's on Siri, rich Richie Bean, my homie. He's like, hey, where's the where's the schedule? And I'm like, No socials, I'm driving, but um, either find the website or it's here and you can you can get it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and get signed up because it's coming. It's like in two weeks away. And uh we'll get we'll get rolling and reaching.
Short-Lap Racing, Fields, And Goals
SPEAKER_02We don't have to be don't think you have to be fast. Just come race with us, you know. No, it's there's people I think we're all grilling. It's just a good day. You know, everyone's gonna have some food, so you'll you'll be able to eat kids, music, dogs. Yeah, there's little shredders. I do want to mention that. Yeah. Uh so there is something for the for the kids. I think it starts at four years old to 13-ish. Okay. Uh, so we have little shredders. Um, the courses are really short, but anything from striders to pedal bikes that fit in those groups, the information's on the website. Um, that is obviously through OKXE, but um Steve Bruns does that for us. He's volunteers, he's a local surgeon in Tulsa. Him and his wife, um, I think Missy, Missy, they do it out of the kindness of the heart. They cover awards, podiums, they do it all myself. Cool. All we provide is is a kind of a generic course. We walk through it usually the week before and say, here's what we're gonna do. Um, that's his contribution back to cycling. He is a cyclist, he's a mountain biker, they're just good people. But um, I confronted with him this week. Um, he just sees like that's what he wants to do. They cover everything, and so bring your kids. The way that we have I do want to touch one thing, our schedule. They're earlier. So we're actually gonna start the the open or the expert at first. Oh an hour in is gonna be sport. Okay. So we're gonna have races starting, I think it's eight o'clock, nine o'clock, and then we're doing um the little shredders and then the beginners. Okay. So we actually kind of flip the rotation when the races start. The whole idea is it's not gonna be an eight-hour event where you're there all day. We're trying to make it where you can race, you your kids can race, you can do whatever, and you're home by two. Fantastic. Right. So earlier starts, early in the morning, and then you've got your whole Sunday. Yeah, and then you have Sunday to recover. As a promoter, you have Sunday to go and clean course, tear ribbon, or just you know, have a little hangover. Right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I that that's the I think that's one thing that I love about this series. And here's the thing me and Drummond are just the pretty faces of this series. Let's call it what it is. We all have good radio faces, right? A true story, true story. And um, but you you have been doing a lot of the groundwork behind the scenes, and I greatly appreciate that and very thankful for that. Um, so we're just trying to spread the word for it. But this isn't a Tulsa series, this isn't an Oklahoma series, Oklahoma series, this is a statewide series, it's not catered to one or the other, and it's there is no ulterior motive. I just want everybody to know that and has something for everyone.
SPEAKER_02We'll probably keep it six races, like it's gonna be a spring series. I I really believe in what you guys you know mentioned and brought up that we should have seasons. Um, we're stepping on a lot of other races, making it a year-long, you know, between cycle cross and gravel, even road stuff. Right, you know, and it's frustrating as promoter. There's still running events. Like if you try to put on an outdoor event in Oklahoma and it's not an open weekend, it's hard to navigate that.
SPEAKER_00So um because you have people that want to dabble, like you have mountain bikers that want to do like uh but like to run or like to do multi-sport stuff, and vice versa, or like to do road or like to do crits or like to do cross or gravel, like everybody likes to do all the things, so there's very few people that are very locked into one thing only. So it's nice for us to be able to offer that this year. Yeah, and I think even that I mean Ray with the G3 series even has told me thank you so many times, and I'm like, dude, I we have I I have done we've done nothing in this series, and he's like, Well, it was the push because you guys talked about it, yeah. And and so now we have an endurance series.
SPEAKER_02I do want it to grow. I think you know both sides of the state should come together because we all have great memories to grow sport, and you know, the courses are gonna change every year. Yeah, we already have enough interests that we might have one or two staples. You're gonna race, let's just say every every third or fourth year, that course is gonna come back, right? Every other year, every third, you know. So we'll have we have enough options now in Oklahoma to change it up where it's not gonna get stale, but but people get their their fundraisers, they're gonna get their chance to do something for their club or their trails.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully those will continue to grow and we'll be able to offer different opportunities. Yeah, we have their ideas. Um, so maybe we can grow those as well.
SPEAKER_01There's even the potential to rotate the endurance series. Yeah. So to utilize all the trails, you know, maybe ones that don't get into the XC series.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I love it. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg of what Oklahoma can offer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I I think we're building the culture that needs to happen. And that's that's listening to the racers. So if you're listening to this and you have some ideas, let us know. They may work, they may not. We'll listen to them. Yeah. Um, sometimes we've gone down that road and we can tell you, hey, XYZ, this will work because of this, or not at this point. Uh, or hey, that's a great idea. We'll go do a vintage race, you know. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, just hit us up, talk to someone, you know, hash it out, and we'll try it.
SPEAKER_00And I definitely think people like you don't get thanks enough. So I for me, I really truly want to say thank you from the OKXC series because you do so much groundwork. You know, if people had a clue how many text messages go between the three of us and Ray Hall, like every day, like it would be I had no idea what happens on the back end, and we're not even doing anything.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot so much work. I'm just doing a while, you just know what it takes to do some of this stuff, and you know the hardest part is the time frame. Yeah. Yeah, because you know, you sleep on something for a week and then you're like, oh, well, you know, those are gonna be late. We gotta plan B, but um there it it does take work, which is why it should be worth a promoter's time, because it's a lot of work, it's a lot of strain on family, right? Like if you're doing this and you're doing it for free, uh you're gonna get burned out if you don't get something. Or if you're losing money, if you're losing money, yeah, yeah, which is probably more likely than very not. Very common within the bike industry to easily lose money.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, you can go. And that's where if anyone wants to sponsor, it's not to make money, but these promoters are probably I mean, when you when you factor in the time they're putting in or you just running the series, like you're losing money to provide something for the community.
SPEAKER_02Is it that big much, but uh each race probably needs a couple hundred bucks, you know, because if we're giving we're gonna feed you, right? Well, usually we're gonna have food, so we'll give you food with your entry, and then there's insurance and some awards. There are some little fees, they're not astronomical, no reason to you know tax people, but it does take money.
SPEAKER_00But the thing is if you're a business owner or just somebody who has who does you know good enough in life that you can do it, and you don't even have to, it doesn't have to be like a title sponsor of any sort. It can be like, man, I just want to make a donation to that race because it's in my backyard, or I like that race, or I like that trail or whatever. And it's 200 bucks, 250 bucks, 500 bucks, whatever it is. We can filter that to who it needs to go to and and it can be what it needs to be. Um they're all 501c, so yeah. Yeah, it's perfect. But like, but if you have a hundred bucks or three hundred bucks or five hundred bucks, like that will make truly make the difference on a trail and a race.
SPEAKER_01I mean it could make the difference of the event happening or two the following year.
Team Challenge, Timing, And Costs
SPEAKER_00I mean, it yeah, it makes a big difference. So yeah, if someone can afford to do that and wants to do that, wants to get involved in that way, we can we I I will advertise you and your business on this podcast for however many times we need to do that. Um, or if you don't want to be anonymous, we can do that too. Like some people want to the notoriety and some people don't. So if you want to get involved with the OKXC series and spreading the mountain bike joy and love to everyone, like just let us know and we'll figure out a way to plug you in, whatever that is. If it's time on trail, if it's helping with events, if it's money, whatever it is, we I think everybody has a spot for you. Yeah, reach out to us, like message someone. And if you have ideas, if you think something would be cool in a race, like the vengeance stuff, which just came about well, like two or three weeks ago, like put it together. So if you have ideas, like let's do it, let's make it happen. Let's make it let's have a good time, let's party in the trees. Yeah, yeah. So cool. I think uh anything else you guys want to add? No. All right, see you guys on the trail. Cool, yeah. I love it. Thanks, guys.