Epic weekend rides

There are a couple of weekend group rides that I sometimes do if there are no races going on. Saturday is the Francis Tuttle Vo-Tech ride leaving from 122 and Rockwell and the Bricktown ride on Sunday, which starts at Stars and Stripes park at Lake Hefner. Both rides are cool in that it's only a quick 3 or 4 mile ride from my house to either one.

This past weekend was different in that we had a special guest join in both rides! Team Milram rider Dominik Roels from Germany was in town visiting his cycling friends in Oklahoma City.
Dominik was a foreign exchange student here in 2003-2004. I rode with him a few times back then, and even at 16-17 years old, he was super strong. He's 22 now and fresh off a pretty decent Protour season. Dominik competed in and finished the Vuelta a Espana, getting 3rd in stage 15 and finishing very well in all the time trial stages. He raced very aggressively getting a lot of TV time as he was in several break a ways.

I met up with a couple of my teamates Erin and Jeremy as well as Andy Chasteen and the Willis brothers, and the five of us rode out to the Vo-Tech ride. As expected, there were a ton of people there. Depending on who shows up, this ride is usually fast, but sometimes, it's brutally fast. National tandem time trial champions Gil and Helen showed up on their fast tandem so the ride was semi fast in the beginning and super fast at the end.
Part of the ride group at Java Daves in Edmond.

Dominik and me.

Notice the Stars and Stripes jersey looming back waiting to throw down some power........

This is on the return trip from the coffee shop.
After the dust had settled on Saturday, I was downloading my power data and discovered I had set a new 1 minute personal power record beating the old record by 47 watts!

Sunday I couldn't decide if I wanted to go to Tulsa for a CX race or do the Bricktown ride. I decided to do the Bricktown ride at the last second with the thought of I would be going to Tulsa again next weekend for the State Championships, and I would probably have to spend all week cleaning my cross bike because of the wet weather.

The Sunday ride was definitely easier due to the cold and rain. There were only 8 people there so I got to pick Dominik's brain about training and talk alot about racing and riding.

Our rainy day group at the coffee shop Downtown taken from Brian Parks phone.

An awesome weekend all around. I'm a little bummed to have missed the race in Tulsa as it sounded like it was a blast. Time for a recovery week and then my target CX race this weekend.

Kids Lake Park OKC cyclocross race #2

I decided not to do the race last weekend in Tulsa due to a lack of money to race with. The second Chandler Park race was on the 7th and the second OKC cross race was on the 8th. I chose to just do the OKC race at the Kids Lake Park and race in the masters class. The OKC course seems to be more of a road riders course as opposed to the last two races I've done which are more of a mountain bikers type course. The thing I like most about the local races is that I can ride my bike out to the course from my house and not have to load up a bunch of stuff in the car.

The day started out good with some super nice weather and got better when I was registering and found out I actually finished in the money at the race they had here a month ago.
The masters start 1 minute after the B race and as we were staging, I thought I had a pretty good chance to get a top 3 finish, but I wasn't real sure because there were a few guys in there that I'd never seen or raced with before.


The starts in the masters races are not quite as crazy and aggressive as the A races. I didn't necessarily want to get the holeshot, but it didn't seem like any one else wanted to either. I found myself leading after the first corner down the long sidewalk, so I just punched it to try to catch some guys off guard. By the time we got through the first technical section, the group was already broken apart and strung out. Eldon Harding and Jason Pratt passed me on the first set of barriers so I sat on and recovered.

By the time we finished our 1st lap, the 3 of us had a pretty good gap on the rest of the masters field and starting to pick off a few of the B riders. When we caught a group of 3 or 4 B riders midway through the second lap, I attacked and got away.

The B riders were pretty strung out so each time I would pass some, I would focus on the next ones ahead and try to catch them.

By the time there were 2 laps to go, I caught up to the 1st and 2nd place guys in the B race. We just rode together and finished like this. I felt pretty good the whole race and contemplated doing the A race, but decided to call it a day. The good news is the payout was better than I expected, so I should be able to do the race next weekend in Tulsa.

Double Crossed Race Purcell

The third event this season was a Saturday night and Sunday afternoon race in Prucell, aka double crossed. I only raced the Sunday race and I'm glad I did because the course was tough!
It seems like it's taken me a couple of days to recover from each of the races I've done so far this year, so I can't even imagine going two days in a row. The Purcell course was especially tough in that there were three sections where you had to dismount, and no where really to recover. Lots of climbing and technical tight corners.

Another fast start. There were 3 or 4 super fast guys that came up from Texas that ended up getting the top two spots. Paul Bonds ended up getting the best finish of both days combined getting the $100 bonus.

I think this was the first lap. The laps were pretty short taking somewhere around 4 minutes to complete. The guy behind me (Jonathan Sundt) races for Kelly Benefits. He sat in for the first lap or so then just pretty much smoked everybody. I ended up getting lapped twice.

Still pretty early into the race. That brown spot about 10 yards behind up is where a groundhog kept popping up and going back down when people would come past.

I finished 13th overall,which I'm not too happy about. I thought I would be improving somewhat as the season went along, but it seems like I'm doing about the same each week. Cross racing is very painful yet a lot of fun at the same time. I'm definitely having fun, but I was hoping for better results. There is another race this weekend in Tulsa. I'll probably go but I may do the masters race this time.

Chandler Park race #1

The race on October 18th was at Chandler Park in Tulsa. I'd never been to this location for a cyclocross race before and its kind of a weird set up. The park is on the flat top part of a small mountain/large hill kind of thing, either way, its the perfect location for a cross race. Plenty of mountainbike trails, gravel trails, paved trails, open grass fields, and lots of wooded sections. The barriers seemed super high and overall, the course was very technical, hilly, and had the perfect mix of everything.

The weather was super nice also.


As with last weekend, the turnout was huge. I believe there were 32 riders in the A race.


Starts at cross races are always super fast and this one was no exception with a grass to gravel to paved trail right hand turn just ahead.

This is about 500 yards into the first lap. There is already a separation of about 6 riders ahead of this group. I wanted to start a little slower than I did last race to try to avoid blowing up, then having to slow down and recover. I got in here behind Will Gault thinking that would be a good pace to start with but, it was still a little too fast too early.


As usual the rest of the race was getting passed here or there as I tried to figure out the course and I caught and passed a few guys that went out harder than me and blew up. It took me most of the race to figure out the best and fastest lines around some of the tricky corners. I felt pretty good throughout the race and was pretty beat at the end. Cyclocross wears out your arms and back and by the time the hour is almost up, you're pretty much ready to be done. I finished somewhere right in the middle of the field. The results say 18th but there were a few guys that got lapped twice that accidentally got scored above me.

Coatney is getting really good at giving me drink hand-ups. She even managed to take a picture in the process of handing me a bottle!

Next weekend is the double crossed race Saturday and Sunday in Purcell. I'm probably only going to get to hit the Sunday race due to a big weekend of stuff to do.

There is another race at this venue on November 7th so hopefully I can make it and having some experience at the Chandler Park course is a must.

Cyclocross Action

So the first cross race of the season was awesome! I like to ride out to the race course when its at the Kids Lake venue because its a good 20 minute warm up away from my house. The temperature was a nice 45-50 degrees with a nice sprinkle mist coming down. Perfect Cyclocross weather!
Once I got to the course, I had to get a quick lap in to check out the course layout. It was about average in length, maybe a mile per lap, and a few good mud bog sections but nothing too technical. The mud was actually more like play-doh and not the kind of mud that gets all over you like you see in pictures of epic cross races.
The course steered around a lot of the really wet parts of the park that I was kind of hoping we would have to go through but, it was still a cool course. There was one weird section that went down hill to a right hand 180 degree turn, followed by a barrier immediately after the turn, about a 20 yard run up and then another barrier.

This is about 10 or 15 minutes into the 60 minute A race. I started a little too fast trying to hang with the fastest guys, blew up somewhat and trying not to vomit as a group of 4 or so riders are catching me. I was probably sitting in sixth or seventh right here.

It seems like for me, most cross races go like this: first 20 minutes go super hard then try to recover. Second 20 minutes, settle in and try to find a good rhythm. Third 20 minutes, try to hold your position and survive the last part of the race. The picture above was about midway through. Two other guys and myself were trading pulls and trying to keep a good tempo going.

Mixing it up with Matt Ankney at two laps to go! Actually I'm getting lapped by Matt with two laps to go. I was trying as hard as I could not to get lapped, but the dude was flying and put a good half a lap on second place.
I felt like I was going as fast as I ever have, but the competition is growing and getting faster. I know I can get stronger in the next couple of months and this race was a good baseline starting point to go from. I think I finished 10th or 11th overall.

I think this may have been the biggest rider turnout at this course, at least the biggest that I've seen. Right after the race I didn't think I would be sore at all, but last night and today I'm pretty sore. Next weekend is the Chandler Park race in Tulsa, so hopefully I can get some good riding in this week and hit it hard again Sunday! Cyclocross RULES!!!!!!

Cyclocross starts tomorrow!

Fall is definitely here. What I like most about Fall is the cooler weather, scenic colors, football, and CYCLOCROSS! The first race of the year is tomorrow at the Kids lake park just east of lake Hefner. The conditions should be perfect for a classic style cross race. The muddier the better.

Practicing at my practice loop. I'm going to try something a little different this year in that I've been riding the CX bike only once or twice a week at the most and doing very little running. Most of my riding has been on the road bike doing short cross style intervals and just general cooler rain rides on the commuter bike.

Charles and I mixing it up at one of the Will Rogers park races last year. My cross season last year was kind of weird. I started training pretty hard right after the Tour of Kansas City race in the 2nd week of August. I was already burned out a little from doing a ton of road races, then by the time the cross races started to happen, I had lost a lot of enthusiasm.

I'm pretty stoked to race tomorrow. My fitness overall is higher than it ever has been at the start of the cross season, but I know tomorrow night I'm going to be very sore due to not doing much running preparation. I figure this year since there are so many races scheaduled, I'll train through the first few races and try to get faster as the season goes along, then hopefully, I'll be peaking in late November for the state championship race.

How to build a cheap cyclocross bike

Another Cyclocross season is rapidly approaching. It seems like every year the buzz and excitement keeps growing with the die-hards and with new folks wondering what all the hype is about. The only downfall with trying a different cycling sub group is getting a bike to use. Some guys are fortunate enough to have a bike they can borrow or they use a mountain bike for their first go at racing cross. This is all fine and good, however, there is another way to build a competitive cyclocross bike without the big investment of buying a new or good used bike.

Somewhere around the mid to late 80's, the bike industry came out with the "Hybrid". These bikes were really just beefy road or touring type frames with fatter 700c wheels and tires with a mountain type handlebar. Most mid priced models and up had chrome moly or aluminum frames with a ridged fork. There are literally tons of these bikes in the used bike section of bike shops, garage sales, ebay etc. that can be purchased cheap!

A good example of a solid platform to start with. The older models like this have a shorter headtube and more conventional non-compact frame geometry plus the ridged forks. Most of the current bikes are no good for cross conversion due to super tall head tubes with suspension forks that give the bikes a super upright position and short seat tubes that make it hard to run with the bike on your shoulder if needed.
This is my co-worker Jeff's Bianchi hybrid to cross conversion. I think the only new pieces that he purchased were the quill to clamp on stem adapter, brake cable stops for the canti brakes,and chain rings. He already had used shifters and derailleurs from his old road bike, and traded or purchased used wheels, cranks, and the handle bar set up.


All in all, a sweet ride for less than a $200.00 investment!

This is the bike I started racing cyclocross with a few years ago. It's an old schwinn hybrid frame that I converted. Once I was hooked on cyclocross, I purchased a new Redline and I now use this bike as a rainy day commuter.