The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

It's that time again:

-Friday night: Fast criterium racing in the Blue Dome

-Saturday: Well-supported rides of 27, 40, 68, 109, or 127 miles on Saturday and crit racing in the Brady District. Finish and ride after-party is at Guthrie Green for the first time

-Sunday: World-famous Cry-Baby Hill is the epicenter of the cycling world during the Riverview Criterium on Sunday afternoon. Also road rides and the "Townie" ride for families.  Road rides are: 35, 63, & 104 miles through Tulsa, Washington & Osage Counties. Finish for the road rides is on Riverside Drive north of the 21st St. bridge.

Still time to register:

http://www.tulsatough.com

You and the Mrs going to be in the regular area Friday night?

Indeed, and our usual place on Sunday afternoon.

The wife and I are registered.  I had to step down my planned ride to get her to participate and will slow my pace to ride WITH her.  But it will be awesome!

See you Friday (and Saturday, and damn well Sunday).

Still planning my "outfit" for Sunday.  To go all in, or not. . .

Top three weekend of the year in Tulsa.  What would you rank ahead of it?

Toss up with Oktoberfest and BDAF/Mayfest weekend, RDJ.

I would put Tulsa Tough as the top weekend because of its sheer awesomeness.

This weekend is going to be crazy busy downtown.  Tulsa Tough, Lion King started its one month run this week at the PAC, the Drillers are in town, the Friday night Brady Art Crawl, and all the usual activities at the Guthrie Green.  If you're not regularly visiting downtown, you are not really experiencing Tulsa.

  I got excited too thinking we might have a good weekend at the shop.  Then looked at the maps and saw that none of the routes came down Boston or nearby, was like "drats!".  If an event is within a block or two we get people stopping in, but if it is further away it actually seems to drain down our numbers.  The Pride parade and festival last week was like that.  Saw more people out, but you could tell they were quickly, determinedly, walking past on their way towards something else.  This last week was really odd regardless.  Slower than usual but I chalk it up to the weather, or threat of bad weather.  Even thought downtown was ok much of the time, I think just hearing about the chance of storms kept people away.  Odd thing was, yesterday, a Tuesday which is usually reeeeally slow, we got a lot of people in and sold about as much as we did all last week combined.  Go figure!?  Will be interesting to see how this weekend does for us.

Where is Crybaby Hill?

http://www.tulsatough.com/races/riverview-criterium

Basically the corner of Lawton and 13th.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=corner+of+Lawton+and+13th,+tulsa,+OK&hl=en&ll=36.145083,-96.001453&spn=0.009409,0.018647&sll=36.148514,-95.992656&sspn=0.018817,0.037293&hnear=W+13th+St+%26+S+Lawton+Ave,+Tulsa,+Oklahoma+74127&t=m&z=16&iwloc=A

I raced it last year, and even early in the day it was already getting rowdy.  Unfortunately, I'll be in Wichita this weekend at my son's basketball tourney, so won't be able to take in any of Tulsa Tough, and I am bummed.  It's a great time.  Drink a beer for me and cheer the riders on.

More Cowbell!

Just go downtown and be real quiet..  You will hear it.

I'm planning to take race photos again this Sunday.  I'm planning to dress conservatively - by Crybaby Hill standards, anyway - with the loudest Hawaiian shirt in the closet, plaid shorts, a white Panama, and the de riguer Converse All Stars.

It's always a good time.  This is from two years ago:

(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7096/7164917611_a88e51e9c6.jpg)

That would be Josh Gifford of Sound Pony on the right in the photo, one of the people who is credited with the term: "Crybaby Hill", and quite responsible as a source of the revelry which originally started there.

MC and I are doing the grand fondos both days, no idea what sort of condition I will be in after a cumulative 213 miles from Saturday & Sunday, but we will be there.  I'm not trying for the Deuce Challenge so hoping to do 5:30'ish each day which would get me back to Riverview by 1pm.

Going tonight!

We will be around 2nd & Elgin all night.  Look for me, I'll be wearing some sort of cycling related shirt ;)

Here are a couple of photos from today's event.  
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OsF5S5aWP3s/UbT6WNSvhfI/AAAAAAAAMNE/VBGjwwDeZyA/w499-h375-no/tmpC4A0.jpg)

Somewhere around the midpoint of the Men's Cat 3. It all came together for a sprint finish.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y4YcJDCcg3E/UbT7l8zFVEI/AAAAAAAAMTg/uR3Dsl1IY4I/w499-h375-no/tmpA28D.jpg)

A couple of random guys....who hang around here. Conan, my apologies for not recognizing you.  It took me a while to mentally switch gears, a sure sign that I was getting dehydrated.  Should have brought a water bottle today.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MjPALHeuMBU/UbT7miVIazI/AAAAAAAAMYI/nrSPXWYIX0s/w499-h375-no/tmpAECE.jpg)

I almost feel bad about that last one, Conan, but I did focus on the more important of the two of you!  (Shameless sucking up is always a good idea.) Actually, I forgot there's serious parallax error when using the old Yashica viewfinder atop the Olympus Pen. Duh!

(Later) I forgot to include the URL for the rest of the photos:

(https://plus.google.com/photos/114874700548780474647/albums/5887605851564659953?banner=pwa)

Each event was bigger than ever this year, there were so many people  in the Blue Dome Friday, in the Brady on Saturday and on Cry Baby Hill Sunday.

Friday was amazing downtown with people going to the PAC for the Lion King, the Driller's game (with fireworks both nights), first Friday Art Crawl, concert at Guthrie Green and the Moore benefit at Cameron and Brady. We actually had a traffic jam in downtown...that's right: in downtown.

I look a lot more svelte than I did on Crybaby Hill last year, there's a pic somewhere on here of Carlton and I from last year and it's pretty obvious.  Dumping 30 pounds will do that for you.  I went on virtual hiatus from riding after the Leadville 100 and HHH 100 (hottest on record) in 2011, both from training burn-out and getting to to where MC could finally move up here from OKC. 

Carlton, I would have headed back up the hill but the heat had bothered me riding back in from the 63 miler yesterday so I spent as much of CBH in the shade downhill as possible.  I also marveled at the traffic downtown as we were leaving Friday night, really neat to see how vibrant downtown has become again.

Got hooked on Friday and made it to all three events. We did paddle board yoga on Sunday at Beaver Lake and hauled tail back to see the last 15 laps on Sunday. One of the best weekends I can remember.

They say if you can remember Tulsa Tough, especially Crybaby Hill you probably weren't there ;)

Good times for sure.  Look for the chrome dome next year with the eagle on top and come introduce yourself.

Sunday is a bit of a blur for me. After my race I went straight to beer and not a lot of food calories. I miiiiiiight be recovered by the time I race Wednesday night. Maybe.

Awesome weekend for sure and I made $200. Wife already stole it.

Were you in the 10:45AM race?

Yep, he's a Cat 4

Yes-ish. My [Cat 4] race started at 10:30AM. Were you there? I tried to help a teammate win. He got 2nd which is almost winning, but not quite. Still a good day.

Yep, was watching from Houston Ave and cheering for McElravy.

Awesome! He is good people and fun to race with. We had a good time. :)

Helpful accessory for beer loving cyclists..

http://coolmaterial.com/rides/bike/growler-cage/

Which, Marshall should do growlers.  I love the bombers, but a growler has a different feel to it.

I don't think you can do growlers in Oklahoma...

Of course not! You might get drunk and hurt someone!  The ABLE Commission and legislature protecting us from ourselves once again. 

Never mind that you can walk in any liquor store and purchase a 1.75 liter bottle of whisky.

You can't bottle them or you can't sell them?  I've bought growlers of out of state beer at Collins...

I have a growler that originally had Rouge "Dead Guy Ale" in it.   When I bought it, it was really nothing more than a 64 oz bottle of beer.  It has a silk screened label and all the other info usually on a bottle of beer.  It did have a paper tax tag across the cap to the bottle.  I am pretty sure that no bar (in OK) is allowed to fill it from a tap.  I read somewhere that in states where growlers are allowed to be filled that some of those states require the proper brand label on the growler.  It might have been CA.

The toughest cyclist. yeah, it's a big event around "T" Towne. I don't know much about cycling and have not rode a bike in ages, some people really seem to get into the sport of cycling. Tulsa has some duel and triathalion events put on by Tatur racing. The only thing I can do in such a event is the running part, my swimming ability is poor and my cycling ability is even worse. I would not mind doing a tri-event as a team, one guy does the cycling part another guy does the swimming and I'll do the running part. I seen part of the "Tulsa Tuff" race last year and it looked like everyone was having a good time and I guess that's what really counts. :-X

Tatur Racing puts on some tuff obstacle courses where your climbing over house frames and things like that. I'm pretty old fashioned I like doing a regular race with no tricks and no frills. I did do the "Polar Bear Plunge" back in January but that's it for me as far as racing  frills go.