Tulsa Tough 2010

So after a short recovery week with another crit on Wednesday, our same crew of 4 Team Undiscovered riders headed up on Friday for some epic racing at the Tulsa Tough. Brian Parks' friend Ann has a town house a block away from the riverside course that she was gracious enough to let us stay the weekend. The cat 1/2 race started late on Friday. For me everything went well the first 15-20 minutes until my rear brake started to tighten up and drag the rim, plus my rear shifting was not right as well. The exact same thing started to happen at the Windy 100 crit after I hit a witch hat pylon thing.

At the Windy 100 I thought I pulled the cables away from the shift/brake lever when my hand came off the bars because the problem corrected itself. At the Tulsa Tough, the problem just kept getting worse until the brakes were so tight, they were almost locked up. I was sitting somewhere around 15th or so and by the time I got back to the wheel pit, I was at the back of the field. The race officials would not let me have a free lap after getting the brakes loosened because they said my bike was mal-adjusted. I jumped back in about 3/4 a lap down and got pulled after about 2 more laps. I was pretty bummed because I was feeling pretty good. The whole race can be seen here:
http://vimeo.com/12437810
After the race, I was inspecting my bike to find the problem, and come to find out the shift lever was slightly loose enough that is was sliding down on the handlebars and pulling the cables with it.

Saturday went somewhat better. I tried to move around a lot and find the best places to move up when needed. Around 7 laps to go I started to work my way up, peaking with around 2 to go. I had gotten up to around 20-25th, but on the last lap I pretty much blew up and got passed by a bunch of people and ended up with 45th.

Friday night racing action

Friday and Saturday nights were nice because we started so late that the temperature was not as hot. Sunday was tough due to the peak heat of the day.

Suffering up cry baby hill. Last year I made it to 15 laps to go before I got dropped. This year I made it to 13 laps to go.

Off the back. Once you get caught near the tail end of the field, there's really no place to recover. You have to drill it due to the accordion effect at the bottom of the hill, then you're climbing again. Rob did the best finishing 27th, but we were all disappointed due to none of us finishing in the money any day.

On a positive note, my daughter Chloe has really gotten into riding her tricycle. She pretty much wants to keep riding until we have to physically peel her off. She's got a birthday coming up, so I see a 12 inch bike in her future.

The OKC rocks crit races are this weekend. Nice not to have to travel.