Things started off with the Foss1l Tornado alley crit. This was to be our teams first official event. We had been planning and working on the event since January or so. I had a bad feeling as the race got closer that something bad was going to happen or we were going to make a bunch of people mad due to something going wrong that we didn't plan for.
As it turned out, things went well overall with how we put the race on. There are a few things that we need to improve and the planning for next years event are already happening. Things are looking very good right now for a much bigger event for next year!
So I decided to do the masters race and the cat 123 race at our crit. It was a long hot day with setting up the course and doing 2 races. I was still sore from my crash 3 days prior to the race and a little gun shy going into the turns at full speed.
I had a lot of teamates in the masters race, but it quickly turned into a 4 man breakaway. 2 strong OKC velo riders and the soon to be 45-49 masters national champion riding for the Tulsa Tough team. I pretty much buried myself bridging up to these 3 guys and was in a bad position in the rotation in looking back . I ended up getting popped with 3 laps to go and got 4th.
By the time the 123 race started, it was hot. I had a set of demo Zipp tubular wheels on for this race. The good news is that they were fast! They accelerated VERY quickly. The only problem was after a few laps, my stock Shimano brake pads didn't work well with the carbon rims. They would kind of slow you down, but it felt like no brakes at all and messed up my rhythm going into the corners.
A couple of riders got off the front and ended up lapping the field. I think I ended up 17th overall.The day overall was tough. I've got a lot of respect for anyone who puts on a bike race. It's a lot of work but if you go to bike races, you've got to pay your dues and put one on.
So on June 9th, the following Tuesday after our race, 3 riders from the Bicycles of Tulsa, Matt Edmonds, Christa Voss, and John Moore were hit by a drunk driver on a training ride killing Matt and Christa. Matt and John are in the photo above racing the 123 race. I used to see all 3 of them at most of the races we've done the last few years and had a good chit chat with Matt after the NWA race earlier this year. Just a bad deal overall and it really took the wind out of my sails for quite some time.
I skipped the speedwheel race because I just didn't feel like racing. The 89'er criterium was in Purcell on the 20th. Very hot weather. I think there was only 10 or 11 riders in the 123 race. Most of them were Tulsa Wheelmen riders, and they pretty much controlled the race from the first lap. I ended up with 7th. So Sunday the 21st was the state championship RR. Super hot again. The 1-2's were combined with the 3's which really changed the dynamics of the race. Due to the heat the attrition rate was very high. Long story short, a group of 3 eventually got off the front. I ended up 9th in the 1/2's.
The summer race series #4 race was on the 24th. A crit at the Edmond fire training center and probably my worst race of the year. I went a little too hard early and got dropped. I decided to just keep going and get a good workout in and got lapped twice in the process by the time it was all said and done. A couple of things I've learned: I don't do very well in hot weather and no matter how hard I train, if I don't get enough miles in, my fitness goes down. I pretty much decided at this point to re-group and go back to establishing my base endurance, and not race the rest of the season till my form gets better.
