I didn't write a recap much of Tulsa as I should have. The fields were super strong, very top heavy. I'd have to fight for my life to finish any where near the top half in the open race. By sunday, my 6th race, I was basically walking the course. I got 4th, 3rd, 3rd in the single speed races. Ended up 3rd for the omnium behind Brian West, and a super guy from the Elbowz Road Racing Team. I beat some fast guys which felt good.
Saturday I flatted my front wheel. I raced my other front wheel from my geared bike in the ss race on sunday and busted a bearing...so I was left with Melissa's wheel for the elite race.
I was going ok, around 10th after 1.5 laps....then going down this hill I hit a rock halfway through the turn and just road off the course into a dirt mound and endowed. I was going way to fast with no one in front of me...it ended my race pretty quick. video of the hill during the ss race.
Melissa raced saturday and friday. She got paid for omnium points which is good. Here she is at the start Saturday night.
The races on friday and sunday had this super flyover. Definitely the tallest one I've ridden. It didn't seem too dangerous riding it, but when you stepped back and looked at it, it kind of freaked me out. Melissa didn't race on sunday after the mens cat 4/5 race, a cat 5 crashed at the bottom of the flyover, really bad, he looked dead, face first in the ground not moving. Melissa basically had to run the show from there for everyone, the paid officials didn't do anything, the promoters didn't really have a clue what to do, it was pretty obvious that they needed to call 911, since there wasn't any medical people there, and neutralize the race to keep someone from riding down the flyover and crashing into the guy on the ground...I'll stop there.
She decided not to race, then during the womens race there was another crash, same deal, bottom of the flyover, Melissa was glad she didn't race.
The promoters changed the course to avoid the flyover for the rest of the race. SS flyover video.
Saturdays race was flat. I would have been fine in the top 10, but there was this mile long straight section through this parking lot, I just didn't have the fitness for it, and after 2 laps I was blown off the back and slowly started going backwards everytime I hit that pavement.
It hadn't rained in Tulsa for a while, but the course was set up to go through this drainage area, where there was just a ton of mud. It was a small section 80 meters probably, but it was deep and wet, pretty fun to ride through. Here's Melissa riding through.
Saturdays race was at night too. Here's the start of the open race saturday.
I went to wichita on sunday. I wanted to race at least once last weekend. My brother and I both went down and both got 3rd for the day. We are both in 3rd for kbar and we also wanted team points since we are just a few points behind 1st for best cx team in kansas. The course was really short, with very long straight sections. It was also super windy. The park was super huge, but they only used maybe 2% of it. I felt great battling for 2nd for a few laps, then the course tape that was everywhere got into my cassette and I had to stop to fix it. It looked like they only had maybe 100 stakes to make the course. All the stakes were spaced out too far, and the tape wasn't very tight. Here's a video of the cat 3 race, during the first lap.
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