The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Sunday, August 21st, downtown Owasso will have it's first ever bicycle criterium, a short-course bike race that offers ample opportunity for spectators to see the racing.  This is much like the criteriums at the Tulsa Tough that were held around the downtown area.

The course will be a figure 8 looping around the south part of Main Street, part of 76th, and north as far as the library.

Start times:
Women's Cat 4 at 8AM
Juniors at 8:40
Men's Cat 5 at 9:20
Men's Cat 4 at 10:10
Kid's race....free to enter
Men's 50+ at 11:05
Men's 40-49 at Noon
Womens 1/2/3 at 1PM
Mens Cat 3 at 2PM
Mens P/1/2 at 3PM

I'm planning to take some photos, probably in the morning and again in the afternoon.
 

I'll probably run down there for a while in the morning before it gets to hot. 

I'll look for the guy with a camera.   

Look for a guy with a camera and a LOUD Hawaiian shirt!

I've seen figure 8 demolition derbys.  Any similarities?

The race course doesn't cross itself, which is a good thing when you consider that when competing in criteriums, it's not a matter of whether you'll fall.  It's just a matter of when. This course is relatively short with lots of corners.  That limits passing to the long straights. Since this course is relatively short, lapped riders will be pulled.

Tulsa Cyclist should be competing in the Cat 4 race.  I'm in OKC for the weekend, besides all my training has been for ultra endurance the last few months, not sprinting.

I banged out a lot of photos today.  They'll be in a Flickr album titled "Owasso Criterium 21AUG2011" in the next day or two. 

(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/6067282992_cf275e3a59_m.jpg)

I discovered that the new camera can be easily gorfed by big, stupid fingers.  I managed to change the exposure compensation to more than two stops under on several occasions.  I'm going to have to remember to use the exposure lock.

That's some neat resolution, Ed.  Just dawned on me, one of my Leadville mates, Garrett Grow would have been there racing Cat 2 for Soundpony.

The photos always look better when they shrink!  That's from my new Olympus E-PL2 with a 18-42mm kit lens.

I have some photos of the P-1-2 race, but not many.  There are more of the Cat 3 than any others.  I had somewhere over 400 shots today, and with a couple of other projects to complete, the photos are on the back burner.  They'll probably be winnowed down to 20 or so when I post them on Flickr.  I just coughed up the cash for a 'pro' account over there.

I saw shots from the Jenks crit which looked like yours.  They almost look like animations.  Is it the lens or the digital manipulation or original format?  Whatever it is, it really smokes when it comes to action photography.  Now, if they just would have had that 20 years ago when I was racing cars ;)

My cameras aren't anything special. The Kodak Z1285 has a 12 megapixel sensor and a Schneider lens.  The Olympus E-PL2 is a 12 meg sensor also, with their kit lens.  I generally shoot wide angle and crop as necessary in post processing.  Usually, I play with the levels a bit, setting the white point to lighten the shot, then boost the color saturation and contrast a little bit. After cropping or resizing, I'll sharpen it a little too.  There may be better ways to do this, but I'm still on the steep end of the learning curve.

BTW, Zoner Photo Studio allows you to do all this for free!  I liked it enough to buy the upgrade.

Here's the link to the Flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188326@N02/sets/72157627362856817/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188326@N02/sets/72157627362856817/)

And another photo, this one from the start of the kid's race:

(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6202/6070989092_5702aa2cbb.jpg)

Cool stuff, Ed. I shot you a Flickr message last night regarding your shots.

Conan is right, I raced the Cat 4 race. We had a good time. The course was fun and 'technical'. Several crashes in our race. I picked up a $25 prime and 5th place. Our team went into it with a plan that worked out pretty well, but obviously not 100% since our guy did not get 1st place, but he at least podium'd at 3rd. We did have two to three guys get caught up in crashes, unfortunately. We'll be back next year if they do it again!

Thank you.

I talked with one of the organizers yesterday.  He wanted to divert traffic on 76th because one crash ended with a rider laying in the westbound traffic lane, but the police wouldn't allow it.  Chances are that this course won't be used again, especially in light of the first two corners.  They were bumpy.  The first had a manhole cover right in the line, and the other had some cracks big enough to cut a tire.

I sent you a message on Flickr.  I've posted photos under Toms Team Photos and Sound Pony Team Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188326@N02/sets/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8188326@N02/sets/)

Since I was tinkering with the new camera yesterday, I made a bunch of mistakes.  The photos were originally very underexposed, so I massaged the levels, etc.  The quality could be much better, though.  Feel free to take them for your own use, but please don't use them commercially or on a team webpage.

Sounds good, Ed. I had heard from a few of the guys on the 360 race team that the city was really behind the event and heard some mentionings of possibly repaving the entire area for next year? Not sure how true or likely that is, but that's what I heard. I really did enjoy it. The two corners you mention did suck, but as long as you kept yourself in a good enough position to where you got to choose your own line they were manageable. I hope they do it again next year.