Great Ideas Come from Beers and Buddies

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
What is up, Cycling Oklahoma?
Thank you so much for tuning infor another fun and drama-filled
episode.
Um, just uh four dudes drinkingsome beer, sitting around,
talking all the gossip.
But in this one, you are gonnalearn some really awesome things
about one of our main sponsorsand OMBA.
Uh, so you're gonna hear somedetails of how that works and

(00:22):
all the good stuff.
So, really high, you know,you're gonna get some education
here outside of like listeningto some old dudes ramble about
all the things that we rambleabout.
So uh so thankful for OMBA andeverything that they do in our
state.
Um, they they do amazing thingsacross the entire state.
They work so hard on our trailsto keep our trails clear, uh, to

(00:42):
build new trails.
And there are so manyopportunities for us to go out
and help them build new trailsand new features and things like
that.
So check out, follow them on onFacebook or check on omba.org
for updates on that when you cango out and help build.
But also, they're doing kind ofa little one last push for uh
membership drive.
They give some stats on how muchit's grown.

(01:03):
So I think you're gonna enjoythat.
But they need more, they needmore in every single way.
So if you can help, if you canjoin OMBA, it's$50 a year,
please do that.
Uh or go down, dedicate yourtime and uh your muscles to help
build some more amazing trailshere in Oklahoma.
Uh the other one, of course, ismore overhead door.
They're phenomenal.
I love them.
I'm so appreciative of theirsupport and everything that they

(01:25):
do in cycling, as well as thispodcast.
So if you have any kind ofgarage door needs at all, please
get a hold of more overheaddoor.
They take care of us, let's takecare of them.
And again, thank you so much toMore Overhead Door located here
in our local community.
Um, and they'll they'll helptake care of any of your garage
door needs that you have.
So, this is a long episode.
We ramble a lot, we get into alot of good stuff, there's a lot

(01:46):
of laughing.
I hope you enjoy this.
But the conversation continuesabout the drama in Oklahoma
cycling.
We do have some things in theworks that will be helping
resolve some of this drama.
We will have more updates very,very, very soon.
And I think everybody that we'vetalked to has great response to
this, and we are making greatheadway with bringing the

(02:10):
cycling community in Oklahomatogether.
And this is going to happen.
The cycling community, the dirtcycling community is coming
together.
Um, and we are so thankful forall of the promoters and the
race directors and the athleteswho have reached out to us that
are working together.
All of these people spend somuch of their time and so much

(02:31):
of their hard-earned money tomake no money, uh, just to give
an amazing race experience herein Oklahoma.
And we're so thankful for allthese people that are uh working
together and making thesesacrifices together uh to give
the best product possible to theracers, which is the most
important thing.
The racers are the mostimportant thing.
The experiences that racers havewith their families and with

(02:53):
their friends and pushingthemselves is the most important
thing, and nothing else is.
So um thank you so much for allthe people that we've spoken
with and are working together umin all of the disciplines in
cycling um to make Oklahoma asignificantly better place to
ride your bike and to race yourbike.
Um, we're very thankful for you.
Enjoy this episode.

(03:14):
More very, very exciting news tocome very soon.
As soon as I can release it, Iwill release it.
Thanks for tuning in.
Let's talk again soon.
All right, we are officiallyrecording and yeah, just go

(03:35):
ahead and get it.
Um I'm just gonna warn everybodyup front about this episode.
It's gonna be fun.
For well, it's gonna be fun forus.
It's probably gonna exact.
It's probably gonna make somepeople upset, which is not the
point, but collateral damage iswhat it is, and I think it will,

(03:56):
you know, if you're not pissing,you know, when I talk talk to
Joe whenever he was talkingabout his race and the ideas
that he had for Arcadia thisyear.
I told him I was like, Well, ifyou're not pissing anybody off,
you're not pushing progressionand you're not pushing things
forward.
So I think the last episode thatme and Chris did probably upset
people and probably itdefinitely started a
conversation because I've neverhad so many messages after an

(04:16):
episode that we did.
I got a lot of text to me too.
So yeah, you got a lot.
I got a lot.
We got a lot on Instagram.
I think this episode negative.
I did not have one negative, sowe didn't hear from them.
Right, exactly.
If you do hate us and you thinkwe're stupid, I want to hear
those comments.

SPEAKER_03 (04:33):
Yeah, I think a lot of a lot of this is a
conversation, not agree with usor else.
There is not a yeah, because no,we got to start the
conversation.
We're not gonna agree oneverything, but there's some
there's gotta be some middleground that makes and makes it
all better.

SPEAKER_02 (04:47):
Well, this isn't a us against them or right against
left or any of that kind ofstuff.
It's uh yeah, not yet.
So it's but it is a conversationstarter and it's a how can we
move our cycling communityforward in Oklahoma?
And I think this is a greatround table and a great group to
um to start that conversation.
So let's we've never I don'tthink I've ever had four people

(05:07):
at one time on that episode.

SPEAKER_03 (05:09):
Ryan was gonna stay and he's like, uh you don't
think I think you did.
We had one with uh team warm-upa long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 (05:15):
Oh, that's right.
Oh, I was back in my shine.
Yeah, and I think I only hadlike two mics.
Yeah, you'd hear like a distantsomebody would talk and then
tell a whole story and likebreathe people over at the mic.
Yeah, it's a disaster.
We've really upgraded.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you have to put the mic toyour face if you're gonna talk.

SPEAKER_01 (05:33):
Okay, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 (05:34):
Look at the mics we have.
I know, we're writing mics.
So let's uh introduce ourselvesand then we'll kind of jump into
a wide variety of topics.

SPEAKER_03 (05:43):
I'm Chris Drumman, and I don't know.
Uh I mean I do a little bit ofeverything.
Okay.
Uh Joe Miller, I'm the uhArcadia Lake Trail boss and um
board member for OklahomaMountain Bike Association.
And I uh recently handed thebaton over to Ethan Hume for uh

(06:03):
the fat tired team captain.

SPEAKER_02 (06:05):
Oh team captain now.
Yeah, I'm Ethan Hume, teamcaptain.
It's a it's a big deal.
Wait, okay, let me ask you this.
Yeah, Joe, when you were theteam captain, did you guys win?
We did.
Okay.
Ethan when you were the teamcaptain, did you guys win?
Uh it catastrophically lost.

SPEAKER_01 (06:22):
Jones Albert.
Going to whatever.

SPEAKER_02 (06:26):
Uh-huh.
Okay, well, just we had somereally fast guys this year,
though.
Sure, sure.
Ethan, introduce yourself.
Uh Ethan, you um, yeah, teamcaptain Fat Tire here in
Oklahoma City area.
Razor, Racer, uh we did apodcast.
We did a podcast.
I think we've done podcasts witheverybody in here.
So we're gonna think so.

(06:47):
Yeah.
So if you want to know aboutthese guys, then go back and
listen and give us a newdownload.
Yeah, I'm not sure what elsewould be.
Yeah, I think that's one.
Um, I think for jumping in here,we're gonna we're gonna cover a
wide variety of topics, but wedo want to cover um an amazing
well, we want to talk aboutPaladero Burst?
Sure.
Let's do it.
All right, so while we while westill have their attention,

(07:07):
yeah, exactly.
They haven't canceled us yet.
So Paladero, if people thatdon't know, it's uh I don't know
which marathon long distanceendurance race that happens in
West Texas.
It's just south of Amarillo.
Honestly, it's I mean, it mightbe my absolute favorite place
that I ride on a regular basis.
It's my favorite place I ride ona regular basis, and maybe my
top two or three that I've everridden in my life.

(07:29):
Um, and it's four hours away.
It's phenomenal.
I don't know why I haven't beenthere.
I don't know what you think.
Incredible camping, incrediblecamping.
Can't be defused.
You sit out there, you see thewhole Milky Way, you see all the
stars shooting.
We walk sit out there and watchshooting stars all night.
Like it was phenomenal.
It's too close.
That's a problem.
It's too close.
Yeah, maybe I'd like to drive adate.

SPEAKER_03 (07:47):
I think it's I think this event also gets confused
with the 24 hour because they'reboth marathons.
There's a 24-hour race in June,June, and yeah, which is also a
really cool event.

SPEAKER_02 (07:57):
It's only 187 out there in June.
If you do a team, you only gotto go out every so often.
I did not, and it was a badidea.

SPEAKER_03 (08:04):
This marathon is much much more manageable
distance.
It was kind of long thisweekend, but for sure.

SPEAKER_02 (08:10):
It's one lap, two lap, or three lap.
Yeah.
And so massive payout for theopen class, which which makes it
hard to believe more peoplearen't there.
And I think I think what was thewinner got?
The winner got like eighteenhundred dollars.
Yeah, well, and women, and Ithink they paid like 10 D.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this year there was solittle people that there

(08:31):
definitely was not 10 that 10men that finished.
Really?
And there wasn't even 10 womenthat signed up in the open
division.
Yeah.
I thought you went.
I did go.
I did not do the open division.
I also did not do the three lapdivision.
I also did not finish the twolap race.
Yeah.
So I didn't win any money.
Let's say that.

SPEAKER_03 (08:50):
Anyways, something to put on the calendar, think
about for next year.

SPEAKER_02 (08:54):
It's always the second or third weekend in
November.
Yeah.
Always.
If you want to camp, you have toget your spot like two, three
months beforehand because theysell out.
But man, it's gorgeous.
Yeah, it's worth it.
For sure.

SPEAKER_03 (09:05):
Why did they have such a low turnout this year?
I think promotion.
I mean, I would I I I know aboutit.
I know the promoter.
I see your stuff on Facebook.
So I always I know it's comingup, of course, because I know of
the event.
It's been going on for years.
Um, but yeah, I don't I don'tknow why.
Uh I don't I don't think there'senough promotion for that event

(09:28):
in this area.
If you don't know the person orpeople that are going to be
sharing it.

SPEAKER_02 (09:33):
Because I I have gone to I don't know how many
years I've gone to it, so I lookforward to it.
It's like my race that I go to.
And I had to search for it thisyear to see I couldn't find it.
And they usually don't do thesign-up, and which is weird.
They usually don't do sign upand have all the stuff posted to
like I don't know, six weeksout.
So it's not like they promote itlike in June or July, August.

(09:54):
They start promoting it like inOctober, maybe May, and it's
just posted somewhere.
I have to go search for itknowing it exactly.

SPEAKER_03 (10:00):
Because it posted on Facebook.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (10:02):
That's the problem with it.
You got to put that mic close toyour face.
Can't hear it?
Well, there you go.
I get him a hand hand mic andhe's like, well, this is much
better, but then you have to useit.
So Paladero, put it on yourcalendar.
It's has it has an e-bikedivision, a one lap, two lap, a
three lap, it has everything.
So I can't recommend it enough.

SPEAKER_03 (10:23):
Is it on your calendar?

SPEAKER_02 (10:25):
It's always on my calendar.

SPEAKER_03 (10:26):
Not that calendar.

SPEAKER_02 (10:27):
Which calendar?
The uh cycling homicide?
Yes.
Probably not.
You're right.
Might might be an opportunity.
I think it's going to be anopportunity that we can do a lot
of things with going forwardwith this group and this meeting
and this talk and thisprogression that we're trying to
make.
I think that we can definitelymake that happen.

(10:49):
Because I I mean, exactly whatwe talked about.
We had a whole podcast before westarted recording.

SPEAKER_03 (10:53):
But I think the unrated version.

SPEAKER_02 (10:55):
The unrated.
Yeah.
The stuff that truly would getus canceled in every way.
But I think there is somethingto that with race promotion.
And you are a race director withrace promotion.
And I'm talking about how we canpromote across the board in our
not only in our town, but ourstate and our region to grow the

(11:15):
entire sport.

SPEAKER_03 (11:16):
Yeah, it's it's definitely tough because uh I I
generally just use Facebook andword of mouth, and I'll throw up
some flyers at the local bikeshops, you know, mostly fat
tire, because they're um helpingto support and promote my races
at Arcadia.
Uh, but I don't know how you howyou can reach more people.
There's gotta be more than justyou would also go around and and

(11:39):
put them on people'swindshields.
And I think that actually Ididn't do that this year.
You didn't have just as manypeople turn out, so so maybe
that was all wasted effort.

SPEAKER_02 (11:47):
Well, girl marketing is a real thing.
Like, I mean, there's more aboutit, you know, like it works and
exists.
Yeah, but do you as a racepromoter and as some and you
guys are in the tour de dirtlike scene?
Um, and first off, I want to saythanks for coming and sitting
and talking to us because andyou both we reached out and
said, Hey, let's talk.
Um, do you see like a crosspromotion with the within events

(12:09):
of tour de dirt and a crosspromotion within like the
mountain bike scene in Oklahoma,much less with like you know,
you're competing against graveland you're competing against
psycho-cross starting and allthose kinds of things.
Like, how is that as someone onthe board of tour dirt and with
being a race promoter?
Is there any cross pollinationat all?

SPEAKER_03 (12:32):
Not no, probably not enough.

SPEAKER_01 (12:35):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (12:35):
There's not.
The what Ethan had talked aboutis last year, um, prior to the
races I was hosting at Arcadia,I would print out these little
like quarter page flyers and putat the end of the race, and I'm
like sweating in my bibs andchafing and walking around a
hundred cars and putting thingsunder their windshield wipers.

(12:56):
And I feel like that helped kindof get the endurance race going.
And then because of the timingof the tour to dirt races last
year, I didn't do it last year.
I'm doing it this spring.
Uh-huh.
Um, I've had a bunch of peoplelike, Oh, are you doing the
zombie race?
You're doing the zombie race.
Uh so doing it.
Well, well, it yes, we're doingit, but I'm dropping the zombie

(13:18):
theme because the timing doesn'tmake sense to have it.
Yeah, but you said it's gonna becloser to Valentine's Day, so
Valentine's Valentine's.
I like it.
Okay.
Okay.
So I yeah, we'll have to thinkof a new um kind of theme to
embrace.
But yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Um, but yes, I think it helpedto kind of get that off the

(13:40):
ground, but I think once onceyou've established a base, then
it's word of mouth.
Oh, hey, you know, are you gonnado the race with me?
I didn't know there was a race.

SPEAKER_02 (13:47):
And so well, with your promoting uh your event
that you do, do you seebasically the same numbers every
year?

SPEAKER_03 (13:56):
Not this last race.
This last race we had a lot ofnew people.

SPEAKER_02 (14:00):
Oh, so we had higher participation this year, uh or
just different people.

SPEAKER_03 (14:05):
I don't know if this is record participation.
I think maybe back in like youknow, a few years ago in the
Kevin Caldwell days when wepromoted.
I think we had a race that hadaround 200 people sign up.
So it was right in par withthat.
We had 185.
What does a race need to likebreak even your because I'm sure

(14:26):
they're all different, but likeyeah, they're all they're all
gonna be different.
I would say probably about ahundred and twenty.

SPEAKER_02 (14:35):
Because I'm gonna put that out there so people
understand like race promotersare uh like this is not this
money-making machine.
150 is a good target.

SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
And and that's where I say it depends.
What are you doing?
You know, like are you buyingthe cheapest trophies or are you
buying expensive trophies togive out, you know, and like how
much did you put intoadvertising?
And I mean, I spent like$150 onsignage for the race and you
know, materials, and it's justlike all those little things add
up.
So how much you have to put intoit is gonna determine your

(15:06):
break-even.
Um, but I'm also lucky to bepartnering with the city of
Edmund.
So I I go through um asponsorship process with them,
and I have to collect a bunch ofmetrics and try to promote uh
some local hotels and you knoweating establishments.
Um but you know, if it wasn'tfor them, there probably is a

(15:28):
higher risk of not even breakingeven.

SPEAKER_02 (15:30):
So I think that's the that's this kind of stuff
that I want people to understandis like the like takes so much
work, time, money, and effort toput an event on that you show up
and you get to pay like whatever60, 70 dollars to race, and
you're like, man, 200 people,man.
This guy's doing the math.

SPEAKER_03 (15:47):
Here's here's a here's a skill and look at how
these sponsors these guys buy anew bike on Monday.
Here's a behind the scenes thingthat I think even the average
even the people that are part ofthe community don't even
realize.
Uh so I have had some reallybusy stuff at my day job, you
know, because we all have dayjobs outside of these other

(16:07):
extracurricular activities wedo.
And I was like, you know, likejust generally talking with
Ethan, still trying to go onbike rides to not lose my
sanity.
And um, and Ethan's like, well,let me know what I can do to
help.
And I'm like, Well, I've gotsome of the race course marked,
you know, if you want to go outand finish marking the rest.
So I'll tell them about markingthe race course.

SPEAKER_02 (16:26):
Yeah, so I go out and I'm like, all right, so I
gotta think like people who'venever ridden here before, where
could they possibly go wrong?
And that this probably take me,I don't know, two hours, right?
A couple hours.
Just every everything I cameacross, I would mark it, right?
Like if there was a if there wasa break in the uh I don't know,
in the trail at all, even if itwas like that's not even a

(16:48):
trail, but it's just an openingof parking because it's like
somebody somebody might justturn right here and end up in a
pond, yeah, you know, likethey're just following their
GPS.
And um, and so I was out there,I thought I was gonna be out
there two hours.
I was out there six almost likealmost the entire roll of tape.

(17:12):
Oh my gosh.
And you when you and then when Iwas racing, you know, I was
racing past it going, it justdoesn't look like I did that.

SPEAKER_03 (17:20):
But it's that one thing you don't mark.
But yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (17:22):
Same goes off course and it's all going at past the
road because you could Icouldn't mark across the road,
but people would come across theroad at the top where the post
light is, and then instead ofgoing into the right, they would
go left.
Luckily, Ben was there.
Luckily, Ben was the wholedirect people.
I I went came out and took acouple pictures, and I saw one

(17:42):
woman significantly more timesthan I shouldn't feature.
So I went out in deep space tostart with.
Like so I want to catcheverybody coming around this
like worm, is like the wholething.
I never saw her there, right?
So then after I take pictures ofthe front guys that come through
there, whatever.
So I jump over to where they'regonna have that drop in.
I don't know what you guys callthat area.
That's like um Super Bowl, yeah.

(18:04):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, dual slow.
I was there after everybody elsewas.
Oh, yeah, you were the one,yeah.
Okay, so I was sitting there andI see her like right up, like
she's still coming up theuphill, and I was like, okay,
cool.
But then I see her come down.
I was like, Huh, well, sheshouldn't be here because no, I
just saw her go up.
She's just five miles likeseeing that same piece.

(18:28):
But the best part is while I wasthere and I was only there a
short amount of time, I saw heragain come down again, and I'm
how and I was like, I didn't seeher go back up, so I don't even
know how she got back up there.
And the only reason I recognizeher is because she was very
distinct.
I'm not gonna say it on herejust in case.
It was a very distinct person,like, there's no way you can
miss her.
So then after that, I just seeher Strava.
Oh, dude, it was it was therewasn't a lot of Strava there.

(18:51):
Yeah, and so then I go over tolike the Tucky part where you
come downhill and it's likerocky, chunky, like they go off
the rock drop.
So I went over there.
I saw her two or three timestoday.
And I was like, and every timeshe came by, I would make a
comment about why she was sodistinct, and I was like, is
she's just happy as gonna behappening.

(19:11):
I'm like, I don't know if she'sridden like 50 miles today, or
if she's only ridden like fourin the same like half mile, but
I saw her a lot, I saw her morethan I saw anyone else.

SPEAKER_03 (19:22):
I think she knew you were taking pictures.
Dude, it was convulsive.

SPEAKER_02 (19:26):
I got a lot of drop and air attack, exhausted like a
loose.
She did.
So it did happen, and ithappened more than once with
her.
And there were some places I putin like two rows of tapes.
It's like, well, I want somebodyto go under the tape, so I'm
gonna make it really obvious.
And it's the stuff of a racedirector and promoter that takes
a ton of time.

SPEAKER_03 (19:44):
Ton of time, it does, yeah, and it's like and
it's huge.
And even though you know, nonobody's getting personally paid
out of any of this, it's youknow, usually going back at the
trails or a break-even, or youknow, like the two porta potties
I got were$380 for two portapotties.
Crazy.
Uh, and everything, you know, iscosting more, and they haven't
raised the price of the races atall.

(20:05):
We've been the same since Istarted racing.

SPEAKER_01 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (20:08):
Um, so you know, probably don't be surprised if
at some point in the futurethey're they go up a little bit
because everything else isgetting more expensive.

SPEAKER_02 (20:17):
But I mean, my day job's at a nonprofit, and we
raise prices like every four orfive years, and people are like,
Well, I can't believe pricesjust keep going up.
I'm like, Oh, have you raisedprices in your business in the
past five years?
Like, things go up.

SPEAKER_03 (20:31):
If we can get more people at the races, the prices
might not have to go up.
Yeah, true.
Good.
Good point.
So that's that's one thing thatI I do for my races is I'll uh
talk with Dave Weaver and I willgive a discount code for Nica
because I'm like, why should wemake these kids pay full price?
They're already doing their ownrace series.
I want them to come to mind, soI love it.

(20:52):
I offer them a small discount.
I like that.

SPEAKER_02 (20:54):
And Nika is a topic that I I have on our list of
things.
Um let's talk Nica.
Okay, let's just roll thatdirection.
I think um I don't know anythingabout Nika.
I don't know, I haven'tfollowed.
So we are the experts, because Ialso don't know.
Well, I know I know a lot.
I know a little bit.
Okay, so I the thing is, I thinkit's it is it's clearly a

(21:15):
phenomenal program.
It's kind of come in and doneits own thing, but on top of
that, with GCXE doing its ownthing, Tour de Dirk doing its
own thing, Nyka doing its ownthing, they've imploded each
other, right?
Kinda.
And so, but I had someone reachout from our last episode.
It was a dad who said, Well, mykid does Nica, and I can't go to
any races.
And I think back with Drummondfamily, like whose kids race,

(21:40):
it's the dads or moms who havethat race.
Now they're kids like want to doit too.
So the parent has to make achoice, right?
And they're always gonna choose,well, they should choose the kid
to do the race.
So I think that's part of theorganization of the thing.
Yeah, we'll talk later.

SPEAKER_03 (21:59):
Leave parenting advice whenever I can get it.

SPEAKER_02 (22:00):
I'm I'm an expert, you should listen to me.
Um Guru's a happy guy.
Um, so but I think that's partof like where we need to get our
race calendar together becausenow Nike's involved, which we've
never had to consider inOklahoma before, and now that's
a hurdle for race promoters andtaking it's taking part of our
participants.

SPEAKER_03 (22:20):
Yeah, right.
Well, and it's it's costing theother race series, but what 45
kids you had, so 45 entries ifNike kids can't be at those
races because they conflict.
So both sides are losing.

SPEAKER_02 (22:34):
Right.
But Kids Cup, I mean Kidscap washuge.
Yeah, I mean it's always beenhad great participation.
Yeah, and now I mean it's free.
But yeah, and so but now kidsmaybe can't race Kids Cup for
free because they have a Nikerace somewhere else, you know,
or whatever, because the if thedates conflict, yeah.
So it's another reason.
Yeah, so I think we need to be,I mean, just a blanket

(22:57):
statement.
I would say we just need to bemore youth-centric.
I mean, we're all middle-aged,40-roll.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 (23:07):
I'd say partnering where we can, where it makes
sense, but one thing that Ilearned hosting a the Nica race
officially now at Arcadia isthey had to come in and um do
some trail work, modify some ofthe trail.
Uh, they can't, you know, theycan't ride over like a bridge.
Oh really, very like ourboardwalk, they can't do that

(23:27):
because there are points of itwhere it's over like two feet
high without railings.
Uh, do a bypass and go around itand put in a little bridge over
a little ditch that we had dugfor water.
Okay.
You know, I mean you have somekids in Nica that just started
riding bikes.
Like there's some kids, there'ssome really fast kids, but the
kids that are are new are likethey can barely get around the

(23:49):
trail, so then then it has to betamed down.

SPEAKER_02 (23:51):
Like Nike Nica trails are really it's a true
grassroots like developmentsystem.
Yeah.
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (23:59):
So like there's stuff that skip like that would
be that they probably added, youknow, like go around.

SPEAKER_02 (24:06):
Do we know anything about how their series went this
year?
Because this was year one inOklahoma.
I don't know.
I don't know much about that.
I don't either.
Do you how many?
I don't so the race that you hadat Arcadia, how do you have any
idea what was out there, likeparticipation and stuff like
that?

SPEAKER_03 (24:18):
I think uh for the Nike kids we had about 20.

SPEAKER_02 (24:21):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (24:21):
Uh, and so you know, you gotta take into account that
they had a race the day before.
Wow.
The day before.
So like so now they're just notraces on top of themselves.
Well, what had happened was itwas originally gonna be their
race was the weekend before inTulsa at Turkey Mountain.

(24:41):
Um I don't know if it wasactually at Turkey Mountain, but
right you know that the littlegroup in the trails there.
And um they got rained out, andDave Weaver called me and he
said, Oh crap, you know, nowI've got to push our race to the
next weekend.
We're gonna do it on Saturday,and yours is on Sunday.
So I'm hoping we can still havea bunch of people still show up.
And they did.

(25:03):
Um, so I always try tocoordinate with with Dave to
make sure that work we canaccommodate and not have
conflict with the with the Nikacrew.
Um, and like you know, I'm I'mthe same as with each.
I mean, I've got I've got a10-year-old and an
eight-year-old, and they aregoing to be uh racing bikes in

(25:23):
Nika at some point in theirlives if I have any say in it.
So I I want to make sure thatI'm in embracing that.
I'm doing what I can to, youknow, resolve any conflicts and
dates and make sure the trailhas things that will accommodate
them, but also will still beinteresting to the rest of us.
Right.
Uh, and and Dave is always uh avery staunch supporter of

(25:45):
Arcadia.
And you know, he's hey, whenwhen are you gonna do your
endurance race?
Because I'll my kids love it.
They want to come down and dothe three-hour team up for the
six hour.
Um, so I've been partnering withthem a lot.
Uh we had, like I said, 20, butI know that they had a couple
people that went to regionalsfrom from the uh the Oklahoma

(26:06):
group.

SPEAKER_02 (26:07):
I think they had in a I'm probably getting the
numbers wrong, but John Fro toldme they had like 30 new kids
joined just in the last likemonth or something.

SPEAKER_03 (26:16):
I mean in North India, like 30 kids show up for
practice twice a week.
Oh wow, yeah, yeah.
That's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 (26:22):
It's typically really cool.
Like it's turns into bignumbers.
Because you guys had a big groupin Arkansas when you were there,
right?
I think Arkansas gets like sixor eight hundred racers.
It's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 (26:32):
That's amazing.
That's cool.
The way that they do their thingtoo is they like they pay for
all the races at once.
It's not like you pick andchoose.
You're like you're Nika, you'reyou're paying and doing the
whole series.
That's it.

SPEAKER_02 (26:43):
Cool idea for a race series to do.
Interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
No, you get a note.
Write that down.
Season pass.
Write that down.
These were okay.
Okay.
So they're not they're notgreat, but they're okay.
Okay, it's okay.
Okay.
We got variety.
It's where we live.
Let's listen.
So um you're gonna hear manyoptions before.

(27:06):
Um okay, cool.
I I didn't know any I don'treally know anything about Nike
as far as you type.

SPEAKER_03 (27:10):
I do think I do think there's uh like us talking
about you know getting acalendar together.
I think that's a major hurdlefor because it's you said that
the the NYCA kids the parentsrace, but actually the majority
probably of what's racing inOklahoma, the parents don't
race.
Do you think they uh I mean Idon't know the numbers, I don't

(27:32):
have any data on that.
Um, but a lot of kids get intoit through their schools.
Oh so it's like, oh, I want totry this.
The and the families knownothing about bike racing.

SPEAKER_02 (27:42):
Um, so but if you were a parent and you had a
young kid, yeah, and you wantedthem to start racing, would you
send would you?
I mean, I mean, what a greatopportunity to get somebody
recently racing three and andand and start racing.

SPEAKER_03 (27:57):
Kind of where I'm setting with that is there's you
have you have families that knownothing, and then the kids like,
well, I want to race more.
Like, how do they where are theygonna look?
They don't know about TortedEarth, they don't know about
GCX.
Yeah, so we're nothing's usethat sanctions.
So there's there's threepossibilities there, but there's

(28:17):
nowhere to find the events,unless the coaches are informing
them, which most probably try,but having a unified place like
Cyclones, Oklahoma or B R A O Kused to exist where you have all
the events on one website.
Right.
Yeah, where these kids becausethere's not a good in my
opinion, there's not a goodtransition from Nica to anything

(28:39):
else.
It's they just don't know whatto do after that.
When is Nike and what age?
Nica is 12.

SPEAKER_02 (28:44):
So it's six through twelve.
So it's all the way through highschool.
Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 (28:48):
But there's uh and and you think about Tour de
Durt, like they have racecategories that start at like
13.
Oh you know, so gotcha.
They can do both and becompetitive and if this is also
a season, it's a spring or afall.
Uh and by at least when I was aNike coach, by Nike rules, you

(29:09):
can't the coaches can't havecontact and cannot ride with the
riders outside of season.
So if you're a spring series,not the NCAA doesn't exist.
Well, I think I think they do itso that kids don't burn out,
don't burn there's kids thatwant to keep doing it, and
they're kind of like they'rejust kind of on their own.
So uh them knowing about theseevents is really important for

(29:31):
them to because otherwise, ifthey don't, they're gonna do
Nika and then they're gonna getout of cycling and move on.
Right.
Where there's this this perfecttransition from Nika to
collegiate cycling if they haveyou know, that they know about
everything that's going on andcontinue to do that.
And and I think for life too,there's not many sports that you
can continue that you know,there's cycling, there's golf.

(29:53):
I I'm still r but guess what I'mnot doing.
Pole vaulting.

SPEAKER_01 (29:57):
That's true.

SPEAKER_02 (29:58):
That's that's so.
Listen to Ethan's episode if youwant to hear that story.

SPEAKER_03 (30:03):
But I mean, it's just that's something you
continue doing, right?

SPEAKER_02 (30:07):
Like you know, pretty much all most school or
collegiate sports, right?
I mean, so maybe you can playbasketball, maybe you can play
soccer, play basketball untilyou blow out your ASL in your
30s, and you're done.

SPEAKER_03 (30:16):
There's a there's a transition piece that you guys
talked about that I kind of wasuninformed before, but Dave
helped me out with with the lastraces.
He mentioned um, you know, uh,what's the CAD three course?
You know, I want to see itspecifically, and and I showed
it to him, and he's like, Oh,that's great.
You know, it's only nine miles.
He's like, That's that's great,you know, that's like the top

(30:38):
end of what they want to see.
And and that so, like Chris wassaying, it these parents who
really don't know a whole lotabout mountain biking, and you
know, nine miles at skip is alot different than nine miles at
Keystone.
Oh so you know, when that'swhere their head is at, they're
like, Oh, they're thinking aboutit in like distance and and time
and not necessarily howtechnical the course is or

(31:00):
whatever, right?
Uh, so that's a transitionpiece.
If we want to make itaccommodating to have them cross
over into tour to dirt or GCX,it needs to be something that is
palatable for their parents.
The parents are the ones who aremaking the decision ultimately,
right?

SPEAKER_02 (31:16):
And that's how it grows.
I mean, when you think about, Imean, we didn't raise kids in
this, and you did, but Iremember going to all these
races and tour to dirt kids,like you see them, and even the
kids that are like good, and yousee like all the races that are
like in their early teens-ishkind of thing, and you're like,
Oh, that kid's pretty good, hewins everything, or that kid has
skills, you see them at theirall day long because their
parents race or whatever, veryfew of them end up ever racing

(31:39):
with us, like which I get thingschange, they get their own
hobbies and they grow up and allthis stuff.

SPEAKER_03 (31:45):
But like out of the group with Rai Rai and Aubrey,
like Aubrey was doing kids' cup,like how many of them are left
that were racers within?
There's not a single female thatI can think of that you know
kind of started in that time andcontinue to race bikes.

SPEAKER_02 (32:04):
Um but I think that's like a can really help
grow our sport for sure longterm.
Yeah, and then we start gettinglike like you start getting kids
like yours who have pro careersand have like really high-end
ability because they startedyoung.
And you Oklahoma can startdeveloping and growing like real
racers and not just a bunch of40-somethings who like paddle

(32:25):
around in the trees.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's fabulous, but we're notgonna be good.
So it's nice to see like it'snice to see like a level come
out of Oklahoma, and Nike isgoing to be that ability for us
to grow the sport, not only innumbers, but in ability as well.
So great idea.
But that has to work with ourother Zerus.

(32:46):
Yeah, it can't work againstthem.
You know what you should do?

SPEAKER_03 (32:50):
You should.
What do you what do you is thisa leveling you're I've had I've
had laser eyes on you for likethe last 30 seconds because it
just clicked.
I'm like, why the heck do younot invite Dave Weaver to come
down and have a podcast?

SPEAKER_02 (33:03):
I don't know Dave Weaver, but Dave Weaver, I will
go to Dave Weaver.

SPEAKER_03 (33:07):
Well, he's in Tulsa.
Let's do it.
All right, it gives me a reasonto go ride the new draft.
So he he is the the um catalystthat got Nica here in Oklahoma
City, and he will answer allthese questions and probably
correct a lot of my badstatements around Nica.

SPEAKER_02 (33:24):
Dave Weaver, you're on the clock.
Yep scenario.
Let's do it.
I will I will drive the call sothat gives me a reason to write
into the new turkey stuff and ummake it happen.
So all right, let's get off aNike.
Let's get to some other funstuff, and then we'll start
really pissing people off.
Um let's talk about other goodthings first.
OMBA, since they are a sponsorof the podcast, and yeah, we

(33:46):
mentioned them.
This is their sponsor club.

SPEAKER_03 (33:47):
Well, uh so a little pitch for OMBA here at Oklahoma
Mountain Bike Association.
Uh since we originally sponsoredand you know had a membership
drive last year, the numbers gotup, you know, around 150, 160.
I don't know exactly whatthey're at right now.
What did you start at?
We start at like 90.

SPEAKER_02 (34:06):
My goal was 10, 20 game, we got it.

SPEAKER_03 (34:09):
We we we met the goal, but it's it's been very
stagnant for a long time.
And that's what's kind offrustrating is um, and I'll I'll
do a transition here in aminute.
I'm not not there yet, but um inthe amount of increased activity
that we've had at Arcadia andputting up you know signs like

(34:30):
these are built by OMBA, youknow, if you like it, we
encourage you to join, visit thewebsite, whatever, and it's just
not generating anything, andit's really frustrating.
Uh, because as you all know, inthe state of Oklahoma, we have
thousands of mountain bikeriders.
I mean, thousands.
And you know, when we thinkabout how many people race, you
know, a random race here orthere, that's still thousands of

(34:51):
people, you know, or at least athousand between all the
different races that we have.
We have 150 members in OMBA, andit's like, you know, it's 50
bucks.
Doesn't make sense.
50 bucks.
And the fit the$50 that goes toOMBA is not going to a specific
trail, it's covering theinsurance, which you know, I'll
talk a little bit about Arcadiaand why it's important to have

(35:11):
insurance.
Um, but the uh yeah, the themembership drive that we have
going on right now.
Again, we've got a bike donatedby L's bike shop.
It's a truck pro caliber, it'suh actually a decent bike.
Yeah, it's a decent bike, and umanybody who signs up will
automatically be entered intothat raffle.
Cool.
And uh I don't know exactly umwhen the raffle ends, but I know

(35:35):
it's this year.
Okay.
I think it's in December.
Okay.
And uh Catherine Sharp is ourboard member, the vice president
that's gonna be handling that.
So uh in other news, Trosper iscontinuing to make progress.
Uh Sean Coleman's the trail bossout there, and he's um they've
had some hurdles they've had towork with Oklahoma City Parks,

(35:56):
but they're getting past all ofthat now, it sounds like.
Uh, there was a request to havea professional um plan put
together, and you know, thoseare like 50 grand.
And so we don't, you know,Oklahoma Mountain Bike
Association, like 150 membersain't a few more members.
So I think I I think you know,they they uh 10,000 members,

(36:20):
yeah, putting some of theirmoney where their mouth is, and
they're coming together andmeeting, and so Trosper's
starting to make some forwardmotion, but it's that how much
trail do they have out there atthis point, do you know that's
cost uh so they're still workingon the three mile outer loop
that's been really kind of slowmoving.
Um I know that there's anopportunity to do a cycle cross
track out there too, which Ithink would be really cool.

(36:42):
Yeah, we went and looked at it.
The amount of work it was gonnatake to make it doable, and then
the amount of upkeep.
It's just we probably aren'tgonna do that.
Um, unless we can get out thereand get it cut, like in the
winter.
I waited until everything kindof bloomed and went and looked
at it.
Yeah, I'm just like, oh my god.

(37:04):
Do you think once it'sestablished and is incorporated
as part of like the trail systemthat it might get enough traffic
to be sustainable if we were onthe calendar worked out and get
people racing cyclocross, yeah,potentially.
I think that'd be and the reasonwhy I even bring that up during
this OMBA piece is that we don'thave a a cyclocross track and

(37:26):
any of our OMBA courses.
Yeah, none of them they don'texist, and I think is a big one
of the big reasons cyclocrossisn't popular because you can't
go do it on your own.
You can only do it if there's anevent, really.
Right.
Or if you're gonna go imagine acourse at a park, which I've
done.
That would lead to everyone.
So I would love to have apermanent cyclocross um course

(37:48):
somewhere.
I just looked at that and andjust kind of what that area was
like, and I'm like, man, Iwouldn't spend all my time
keeping this writable and notime riding it.
I think the people I looked atit with just I didn't I could
see us getting it established,but then I'm like, man, what's
the point of establishing it ifwe can't keep it maintained?

(38:11):
Uh but I would be, yeah, I meanit'd be super cool.
I think I think more peoplewould do it.
I even think mountain bikerswould just enjoy riding a short
track course.
Like a short track race.

SPEAKER_02 (38:22):
Oh, short track, yeah.
Put a pen in the pen.
Uh let me like that idea.

SPEAKER_03 (38:28):
Yeah, let me close out uh one last piece on the
OMBA thing.
So uh I had originally createdsome shirts and hats that were
Arcadia focused, and the tinylittle bit of profit that would
come from those, we go back tothe trails.
Um and uh they've they've nowexpanded that.
They have a OMBA version that onthe back of the shirt, it's

(38:50):
lists all the trails out.
So those are for sale at uh afew of the fat tire shops.
Uh, but also if you go on thewebsite, they're gonna be um
starting up a drop ship option.
That'll be that'll be nice.
People just need to spend 50bucks and support a trail
system.
Like or or you know, if youdon't want to, if you don't want
to do the membership thing,whatever your reason is, I don't

(39:11):
know what it would be, but youcan also just go on the website
and donate directly to thetrail.
Just donate 20 bucks.

SPEAKER_02 (39:17):
Like that's the thing, is we sell all of these
things.
Like you have your expense inyour equipment, right?
Yeah, and eat but even if youget like the cheapest, what's
the cheapest brand new, likeeven if the hardtail cheap
mountain bike six hundred sevenhundred dollars is like the
cheapest.
So even if you have the cheapestmountain bike you can buy, you
can spend fifty bucks to join tosupport to support the ride for

(39:40):
free.

SPEAKER_03 (39:41):
And I don't have an answer a solution for this, but
like we talked about withPaladuro, I think uh the the
marketing, like people notknowing it's there is the
biggest problem.
And I don't know there's socialmedia channels for OMBA.
I just don't think they'reutilized well enough to get the
word out because there's I mean,you're right, there's there's

(40:01):
thousands and thousands ofmountain bikers people using
these trails, and I bet likefive percent probably actually
know what OMBA is.
I mean, way back like way backwhen it was OEF, I felt like
everybody at a tour to dirt raceknew the OEF and was probably a
member of the OEF.
They knew they knew it exists,there was signage for it at the

(40:21):
races.
And I mean, I feel like that'ssomething that should be like
cross-promotion.
The the the series should bepromoting that, the events,
every event should be promotingthat.
And I just think people don'tknow about it.
I think there's a lot of peoplethat don't mind paying the 50
bucks, but they just don't knowabout it.

SPEAKER_02 (40:39):
Every race that's on an OMBA trail should either pay
something into OMBA as a fee forthat race, or really promote
that, or like it's built intotheir race entry of two bucks
per entry, five bucks per entry,and that goes to the OMBA the

(41:00):
trail, something like that, andit's just a generator for who
takes care of the trails.
I think at every bike shop itshould be on there, like you
know how you give a tip, itshould be like ten percent.
That's yeah, ten percent goes toMB OMBA or ten percent on what
you would sell your bike for.
That's a cool idea.
Uh, there you go.
Just that there's your there'syour mentorship, ideas and good

(41:23):
ideas that we can do.
But but that this is where we'regetting ready to get into and
pissing everybody off.
We have to come together tosupport each other instead of
grandpa gotta go gotta go peep.
Yeah, yeah, just that uh butwhat happened to his foot?
Let's talk in detail about that.
I don't know what we should askhow happened to him.

SPEAKER_03 (41:43):
Two on the Instagram foot.
Why'd your foot?

SPEAKER_02 (41:48):
The best thing is we were at Paladuro, and my
brother's like, he listened tothe episode first happened like
four times this weekend, but hedidn't.
But first I can Brandon comeBrandon Morris comes up.
He's like, Oh man, what happenedto your foot?
He didn't know he wasn't one ofthat.
He's like, Oh my god, that'sawesome.
But I think there are waysagain, this is a true example of

(42:11):
how the community that we havecan work together and it just
doesn't.
And but we can start thatconversation and start pushing
these ideas of like, man, canyou imagine if fat tires stood
up or cat on put them on blast?
I mean, not everybody, like Ihave no whatever, but if
everybody and just said, hey,we're gonna start doing this in

(42:31):
our shop, not just sell gear,but it's it's it's all promoting
the community, and then soanything that promotes community
benefits.

SPEAKER_03 (42:41):
There's more people racing, there's more people
building trails, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (42:46):
And if you do it, if you volunteer to a trail day, I
mean it's fun to then go out thenext day and ride it and go like
symbiotic relationship.
It is.
I still haven't done that yet.
And at least my membership justwent up.
I mean such a loser.
Um, I think my membership justcame up, so I need to renew
that.

SPEAKER_03 (43:02):
So one of the things that uh I'm trying to do, uh not
trying to do, I am doing, is wejust designed this really new,
super sweet, uh, I think it'slike six foot by three and a
half foot uh trailhead sciencefor Arcadia.
And they have you know nice mapson them and QR codes that'll
take you to Trail Forks and uhthe website for OMBA, but it has

(43:26):
this little verb about you knowOMBA and how we take care of the
trails.
Uh so I mean as a segue, could Italk a little bit about some of
the cool stuff going on inArcadia?

SPEAKER_02 (43:35):
It's all about whatever.

SPEAKER_03 (43:37):
Yeah, go ahead.
Do you have a QR code directlyto buy a membership?
Because that would be a goodaddition.
There, uh so we we were advisedto be leery of QR codes because
somebody can print on a stickerand put it over and create a
fake website.
So we we have the let's do that.

(43:57):
That sells brought to you byOMBA so so it just it takes you
to the website.
Like I mean, it doesn't the QRcode doesn't take you there's no
QR code uh for OMBA, there is awebsite, a web address.
Gotcha.
Um I was just thinking less likewhatever makes it easier, right?
Yeah, yeah.
That's that that's for sure.

(44:18):
And I I've toyed around with theidea of like how could I offer a
discount for people's race ifthey're a member or not?
But I mean, as a promoter,anything that complicates it is
like not worth it.
Yeah, it's not worth it.
If this was my full-time job andI was getting a payer check for
it, then I'm like, let's figurethis out, right?
It's just it's not worth it.
You can offer those fake QRcodes if you can make full-time

(44:41):
jobs.

SPEAKER_02 (44:42):
It is mine now.
I think that's one thing that wetalked about was making Twitter
anyways, making it moreaffordable for people.
And I think you you can offerit, and but like you said, you
don't have to make it where it'san automatic thing.

SPEAKER_03 (44:56):
Yeah, like something that way offered.
If you could get it to where youknow you did a a one prize for
the whole series and you get adiscount for OMBA, that would be
simpler for the promoters.

SPEAKER_02 (45:08):
But in all honesty, sitting now that we're talking
about this and thinking throughsome of these ideas, I don't
think it's a bad idea for anyrace that's held on OMBA trail
that they have to pay like twodollars per racer.
Yeah, that's fair.
Yeah, and it's not that muchmoney.
No, no, it could add up a littlebit of the race, right?

(45:28):
Yeah, it would add up any tonover the course of like in the
next five, 10 years.
Like that's a lot of free extramoney that goes into maintaining
our trail system.
And I think or five dollars orwhatever the number is, but like
it's such a built-in thing thatno one would ever notice, no one
would ever see, but it wouldmake a significant difference.
Yep.
So yeah, there's an idea donecame from tonight.

(45:51):
Man, beer is good for ideas.
Um, all right.
So I guess just this again, it'sabout you.
So we want to talk about Arcadiaand race, it's cradles.
This is a Joe podcast.
This is not why the rest of uscame.
I should have just given you amodel later.

SPEAKER_03 (46:06):
Yeah.
Well, it's it's actually theArcadia podcast, it's not the
Joe.
It's also Arcadia.

SPEAKER_02 (46:12):
Uh so it's good for people to understand what really
exists in race and the series.

SPEAKER_03 (46:19):
Well, right, and and all the you know, the effort
that goes into trying to maketrails that people are
interested in coming to.
My wife just texts me it waseight hours, not six hours.

SPEAKER_02 (46:30):
Oh, it's got an eight hour.
Got it.

SPEAKER_03 (46:32):
Um so yeah, and uh Arcadia uh you know, originally
it started out with uh trailsthat had existed for a lot of
years, and they were just youknow, I would say probably 50-50
hiking and biking trails.
And then we started to developthe dam trails, which is
everything east of the dam.
And that's kind of when I tookover um the trail boss from Tony

(46:55):
Sykes.
And we've you know added a tonof mileage, but now the I
wouldn't say the mileage ismaxed out.
There's still opportunity to addmore, but it's kind of like why?
Because now uh we're focusing onwhere do we add in like some
man-made you know trailfeatures?
That's what Oklahoma is missing.

SPEAKER_02 (47:12):
That's what's so fun when you go to Benville isn't
that when you have you can liketest your skill as you're
getting better or do fun stuffif you are a good rider, or you
just bypass it and like stay onthe ground and not kill
yourself.

SPEAKER_03 (47:25):
And so that's that's where and I've done a lot of
races and uh sponsorship drivesuh and raise money to do things.
I mean, we got this little youknow, tiny mini excavator, and
we got our OMBA um insurance tocover that.
Uh and you know, all that stuffcosts extra money, and that's

(47:45):
why it's you know it'simportant.
But now people are starting tosee the fruits of our labor.
So, like now we have this.
We have I I think it might bethe may is there another one in
the state, a dual slalom?
I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 (47:57):
May uh still water used to have one.
Still water had one, but I don'tknow.
I don't know it.
Maybe I was there a year ago,and it was pretty, it was pretty
rough.
Yeah, that's the only one Iremember.

SPEAKER_03 (48:08):
Maybe Punk City.
I don't know if that trail isstill.
But I'll tell you the question.
So it is an absolute blast.
And I included in in the race,and I was kind of like, I don't
know if I should because there'sthere's like a two and a half
foot drop.
Uh, you know, it's it's equal onthe dual.
Uh before the race, buthonestly, none during or after

(48:31):
the race.
Weird.
Yeah.
Uh huh.
Okay.
All of all of the morning, guys.
They were at the hospital.
They can't talk at any time.
Yeah.
But uh, I mean, it's it's areally it's a really fun
experience if you're doing itwith somebody dual slaloming,

(48:51):
because in the race I was behinda couple of people.
It's funny, I was behind twoguys, and I'm like, ooh, here
comes a dual slalom.
So, like, you know, I'mcompletely cooked at this point,
anyways.
But uh, I'm like, all right, I'mgonna give it everything I've
got.
And I passed both of them, and Iwas like, Yes, this is so cool,
you know, to like use this thingfor what it's worth.
And I was actually on the slowerline of the two.

(49:13):
There's one that you come outlike three or four bike likes
ahead, just by the nature of theway the trail's set up.
Uh, and I I came out ahead andthen you know, I got into the
grass and they both passed methen.
But it was so cool at the time.

SPEAKER_02 (49:25):
Don't touch me wish lines faster, but I want you to
tell me so whenever somebody goout and I'll just have me.

SPEAKER_03 (49:30):
We will always wish line to but uh yeah, so we added
this dual slalom line that'sgetting a lot of great buzz, and
we've got some more, I guess,features that we're gonna add to
it in the future.
But it has a 30-foot rockgarden, it's got drops, it's got
party pal party.
It's kind of easy.
I think you dropped that when Isaid drops.

SPEAKER_02 (49:50):
Yeah, I think so.
Cut off.
Just at least when we did it, itwasn't our fault.
This one is just rookie mistake.
Don't use clocks on the floor.
Just hey, go get shot.

SPEAKER_03 (50:00):
Go get your shamia from much door over there, and
yeah, that'll absorb it.

SPEAKER_02 (50:05):
I got a boot over here that you can use.
Didn't should I skip New Jersey?
There's uh paper towels.
He then dropped his beer.
He's I does everyone elseremember when the first time
they had a beer?
Is that his third or fourth?
I think that could be theproblem.
Who who's driving?
Clearly, just run my bike.
So stop your film, and it'sfine.

SPEAKER_03 (50:26):
And then okay, so then we built this dual slalom
line, and then um I'd beenworking with the Army Corps of
Engineers, and I got additionalpermission to build more trail
uh south of the damn road, andthat is the most amazing trail.
The hour space, yeah, all thisstuff.
Yeah, it's funny you have, butuh you can kill yourself over
there.

(50:46):
There's yeah, there's somethere's some big um I mean
they're not probably allBentonville type berms, uh, but
they're they're big as far asberms that we have in our area.

SPEAKER_02 (50:59):
It's fun over there, but there's a couple of things.
Where whatever, I don't know theterminology for the downhill
guys where it's like where youpre-ride a trail and then you do
it again and then you send it.
Yeah.
Outer space, you need to ride ittwo or three times before you
like full send.
Yeah, because yeah, you'llyou'll shoot yourself into a
bind.

SPEAKER_03 (51:17):
Yeah, yeah.
And it's not, I mean, it's notlike if you were scary.
No, it's just things come in.
And it's not true downhill.
It's not like if you go to Tulsaand ride the downhills there
with the gap jumps and stuffthat down stuff.
It's just technical single drag.

SPEAKER_02 (51:30):
Yeah, and it's just like some narrow spots and some
like ups and downs that you justand and totally appropriate for
dirty.
I agree.
Some others may not, butoff-cambered stuff.

SPEAKER_03 (51:43):
Yeah, it's fun.
Yeah, I've got uh you know thisthis the outer loop of it I call
deep space, and it's actuallynamed deep space now.
Do you name the trails?
I do.
Well, not all of them.
Oh, okay.
So we have like we have a trailcrew, believe it or not.
It's not just me that maintainsall the trails out there.
I have a trail crew and all umit and honestly, like when you

(52:04):
get all the cooks in thekitchen, it can be frustrating.

SPEAKER_02 (52:06):
Yeah, because what what what does it take for us to
get to name a trail?

SPEAKER_03 (52:09):
Let's let's do a trail and name it.

SPEAKER_02 (52:12):
Yeah, I'm excited about this.
I don't know what the name'sgonna be, but I like it.

SPEAKER_03 (52:16):
Yeah, uh yeah, and I uh when I when we did the post
trails, we were just calling thepost trails, and then we're
like, oh let's stick with thepost theme.
So yeah, post mortem and okay,yeah, postmastered.
So that's where it like Paul,you know, poster child, they all
have a theme.
And so I'm like, I want outerspace.
And the reason why I want outerspace is the trail hasn't even

(52:38):
been built yet, and I knowexactly where the trail goes.
It's right on the lake shore.
There's giant boulders, it'sgonna be like the sticks and
stones feature where it has thewood going up to the giant
sandstone boulders.
The trail's name is Uranus.

SPEAKER_02 (52:52):
Oh, I get a lot of stories about that.
What?

SPEAKER_03 (52:59):
Where'd you break your arm?
That's all right.

SPEAKER_02 (53:02):
That'd be rough.

SPEAKER_03 (53:03):
So um so anyway, it's and it's gonna be a
technical trail, but that'swhere that's why I uh adopted
the outer space theme.
But anyways, deep space is thisouter loop out there, which I
think uh there's nothing like itin the OKC area, it's kind of
like backcountry almost.
There's a lot of trials, period.
Yeah, it's just it's reallyneat.

SPEAKER_02 (53:23):
So um it's really taken over what Thunderbird used
to be.

SPEAKER_03 (53:28):
So but a little bit more rugged in a good way.
And I have to button have to beable to ride your bike to ride
around it.
It's not I mean talked aboutbuilding things, but I think so
many, so many trail systems noware trying to mimic what what
Northwest Arkansas is doing, andit's like I don't I don't want
every trail to have burrs andthat's machine.

(53:50):
I want to have to I want to haveto be able to ride my bike to
ride this trail.
I agree.
And uh I mean there's a good mixof it.
Yeah, I mean there's a great mixof it.
You if you know how to you knowcarry momentum and and flow
through things and find linesthat aren't totally obvious,
like that when they're supersuper chunk, like rock and drops
and bumps and all the thingslike off-camera stuff, like you

(54:11):
talked about.

SPEAKER_02 (54:11):
That's phenomenal.
That's what makes it fun, Ithink, is you have to think
about it.
You can't just blast it.
Paladuro is so amazing.
Yeah, so yeah, I don't I don't Idon't want everything to be
predictable.

SPEAKER_03 (54:21):
No, and that's sometimes what you get on the
machine of you're just expectingit, you're just expecting it to
be smooth or if you can it'sfine because there's no
obstacles and I mean veryworried that that's what
Thunderbird might turn out tobe.

SPEAKER_02 (54:35):
Oh, yeah, for sure that's what it's gonna be.
Yeah, which is fine.

SPEAKER_03 (54:38):
It's cool to have that, it'll be fun because we
have Arcadia, we have options toride other things.
100% every trail is you knowfive feet wide with worms in
every corner.
It's like, yeah, it's kind offun to ride, but you also like
nobody's gonna have any bikeskill because you don't have to
really develop it to ride it.

SPEAKER_02 (54:56):
I agree.
I think you have to have all thethings, and the only way to
become a better rider is doingall the things.
Yeah.
Like, so I think Oklahoma Cityat this point kind of has like
all the things.
Where I used to, it didn't, youknow.
Between, I mean, bluff hasgotten significantly, they've
tamed down a lot of the stuffthat I went out there on when I

(55:16):
was started riding.
I was like, oh my god, this isthe crit.
How does anyone ride this?
That race course made bluff funfor me.

SPEAKER_03 (55:22):
I I used to free.
Yeah, I used to hate bluff.
Uh huh.
I'm like, I've just been likenauseated by the amount of these
like switchback turns for noreason.
And then that, and then thatrace, and I'm like, that was
good.

SPEAKER_02 (55:34):
The race was good.
That was really fun.
But it cut out a lot of a lot ofthe stuff you're talking about.
And I saw Chris for a good threeminutes.
You were there that long?
Yeah.
I mean, it switched back beforeand after the race.
I saw you.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (55:55):
But the one thing I will mention, you know, it kind
of closes out the arcadia piece,is um with the new trails that
we have there.
And uh, you know, Ethan and Iwent on a bike ride last we went
on street bike rides lastweekend.
The last one that we were at,the parking lot was like full.
And I was I told him I was likethat I'm gonna be mad someday

(56:15):
when I show up and there's noplace for me to park.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
And we also have code to getpast the gate, and I don't know.
But but I it's getting so busy.
Um, we've had EMS out theremultiple times, and that's uh
from a trail boss perspective,that's kind of scary.
And I'm not, you know, and likepeople need to know their

(56:39):
limits, and you know, stupidpeople are gonna be stupid, and
there's nothing you can do aboutthat, but it honestly has me
concerned.
But the thing is insurance, aliability standpoint, and
mountain biking is inherentlydangerous.

SPEAKER_02 (56:51):
It's a dangerous sport, yeah.
And even on the tamest, simplesttrail in Oklahoma City is skip.
Oh, and bad things can happen,you know.
And so skip is the scariest butit's place to me because you're
going so fast.

SPEAKER_03 (57:06):
It doesn't matter what's so fast in front of you.
Like you're gonna you're gonnaget hurt.
Everyone's everyone's gonnacrash a mountain bike at some
point.
So I think like, yeah, the moreusers you're getting, the more
people are gonna get hurt justright by numbers.
So I mean, there's you can takeit down, yeah, people are still
gonna get hurt.
People are gonna hit a tree,like you can you can't take all
the trees out.
So I mean, I think it's I mean,you can't control if people ride

(57:30):
within their limits or not.

SPEAKER_02 (57:31):
Like there's not a lot you can do about that.
Then if you have a dangeroussection, you just mark it, you
give uh a bailout, you sign it,and you just move on.
I mean, the signage is about asgood as it gets.
So, what more can you do?
I think Arcadia's phenomenal,it's the best trail.
I mean, there's stuff innorthwest Arkansas that you
could kill yourself on, andthere's no signs.
No, true.
Launch off the left.

SPEAKER_03 (57:51):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's an outdoor, like kind of a
rugged outdoor activity.

SPEAKER_02 (57:56):
That's here's that also going on that like you're
an adult.
If you if you can't like make adecision in what you're doing,
like it can, it's notparticipation sport, you know,
like in that situation wherelike America like puts up signs
and rails everywhere, like youknow what, like you're an adult,
don't be stupid.
And if you do are stupid and youhurt yourself, well, you know

(58:16):
what, you won't do it again.
So I understand as a trail bossand like building trails, and
you don't want to see anyone gethurt.
You feel responsible kind ofbecause you built it, but
they're an adult.
Don't be done.
Um, so okay, I think where do wejump in with we have tour to
dirt updates?
Is there anything since Ethan uhis the spokesperson for tour to

(58:37):
dirt and um the maybe I don'tknow.
I might get trouble.
I don't know.
I'm just saying, is thereanything you want to add that
you want to say before we startpissing anybody off because
we're a long time to this rampinto it?
We haven't pissed anyone offyet, I don't think, but I want
to start doing that.
No, I mean I think I'll maybeI'll start with some gratitude,
right?

(58:57):
Like I, you know, I'm not fromOklahoma.
I came in here, it's been agreat community, grateful for
the race scene and to kind ofgive some uh I don't know,
something for me to to to do asa as an adult.
Thank you.
Oh, closer.
All right, there we are.
Yeah.
But I think uh has wheels on ittoo.

(59:19):
Don't roll the scary's got a wetcarpet.
Um I think you know, for thegoals for true to dirt, um like
would just be continue toincrease numbers.
Um I think making it easier andmore approachable for any
racers.
I think that it can beintimidating.
I think sometimes people thinklike I know for me, it was like

(59:41):
I don't know if I if I can race,right?
And I I think it'd be great ifwe can think of ideas on how to
and Joe's got some ideas on thison the citizens.

SPEAKER_03 (59:50):
Yeah, citizens idea.
I went to a race a year ago inWisconsin and they had kind of
the same setup that Tour deDurant does.
They called it like, you know,competitive or sport competitive
and like elite or something likethat, you know, like cat three,
cat two, and cat one.
But then they also had thiscitizens.

(01:00:12):
And and it was basically like,you know, you can come out and
race, and it's not like you'renot with the people who are like
taking this series seriously.
Just go ride your bike.
There was 200 people.
Oh my god.
Just the citizens class alone.
Jeez.
They were just like go ride thetrail.
No, they were race.
It was a race and they still gota podium and everything.
But it's like that level.

(01:00:36):
Their race course was easier.
Joe won.
I wanted to say that one.
So let me that's that's a truestatement.
So let me explain.
Yeah, no, I don't think there'sany insane.

(01:00:57):
It was tram all over.
We're there in vacation.
I was on last day there, and thetiming of the citizen race was
at nine o'clock.
And the race I would have done,which would have been the cat
too, was too late in the day.
So me and my brother and signedup for the citizens, and we both
won our category.
I still have the con for thatcourse.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:20):
What do you think about it?
Hey, we have a we have aconversation that we need to get
into that goes along with thiscitizen thing.
Save that.
No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:28):
This isn't about okay.
Let's my background's motocross,and and the motocross races
would have like a first timersrace.
But you only get to do it once.
Okay.
So you show up, no one no one inthis class has ever raced.
You get to try it out.
But then that's it.
I mean, because I don't I don'tsee like the citizens citizens
class like someone doing thewhole series.

(01:01:50):
Right.
It's like, all right, race.
If you're into it, then you're acat through.
Yeah.
And that that would let peoplebe like, all right, we're all
here for the first time.
And so you people like Joesandbagging it.
And we can almost I don't wantto do this.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:01):
There'll be like 10 minutes.
But you could almost do a firsttimers race with a like ten
dollar entry.
Yeah.
It's just free.
It could just be free.
It could even be the day before.
You know, these are justthoughts.
Yeah, I agree.
I think that would be awesome.
Because I think it's it'sintimidating for me.
I agree.
When I had scared qualifyingbecause when I started riding

(01:02:23):
with Joe, and then I startedriding with some other people,
and they were like fat wayfaster than me.
And it turns out Rob Bell'spretty fast.
Ethan will let you race it onetime.
One time once you're trying toget to yeah, rumor is Rob knows
how to run a bike.
Yeah, as I've heard.
All the mics all all the bikes.
Um, so I think that's one of thegoals.
Um, and then I think making aplace for everyone to have a

(01:02:46):
competitive experience.
I think that's still Chris and Ican get in a fist fight.
Oh, I'm gonna write that downbecause I have thoughts on that.
Because I think they're you knowthat that that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:58):
You're not gonna again make everybody happy, but
I think this is why Ethan and Ihad to come so we were we
weren't outnumbered.
I wasn't outnumbered, he wasn'toutnumbered.
Yeah, it's like I like it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:10):
And then I think I think the main thing would be
becoming more youth focused, youknow, with with Nica coming in,
and again, not knowing a wholelot about it, but just looking
around and like, geez, we weneed to we need to bring the
youth, we need some youthleadership in our space.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:26):
I think that should be the focus regardless of Nica.
Nike is good with those numbers.
Um but I but also I think Nicain ways doesn't give you
realistic expectations of if youif you do night to races only
and then you go somewhere andrace a cross-country race, it's
so different.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:45):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:46):
So I mean, yeah, education on the on the youth
side should should be the mainfocus.
I feel like for everybody, nomatter what we're doing, I mean,
there's get the kids into it,get more people into it.
There's no downside to tofocusing on like how can we make
it a better experience for forkids.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:06):
Well, and I think going into what Chris said with
so many kids better and I couldI didn't realize they did it in
school programs, because Iremember going or doing a
podcast with Alyssa on uh withthe bike club.
And she said so many of thekids, you know, they're inner
city schools and stuff likethat, but the kids get their
bike, and then the parents endup being like, Well, I want to

(01:04:27):
go around my kids.
I don't own a bicycle, and sonow the whole family ends up
getting bicycles, and now theyall end up going outside, and
now that becomes a familyactivity because this kid got a
bike through bike club, but itcould be the same through Nica
and through our GCXE and Tour toDirt and stuff like that, and
growing the sport internally,but also you get a kid in there
that is doing the sport, and nowmom and dad are like, Well, a

(01:04:49):
kid does a sport, and you I'mout here sitting and watching
Nica while they're riding theirbike, I might as well go do
something too, even if they'relike walking the trails or
playing in the fields that arearound the trails or something,
or maybe they get a bike and goride with their kid on the
trails.
Like it's a way to for familiesto come together in the trees,
which is yeah, well, we there'snot many things that check this

(01:05:10):
many boxes, right?
Where you guilty agree.
You you can exercise, which isgood for you, you know, you're
you're outdoors, which is goodfor you.
There's community, which isgood, you know, is is there's
nothing for you.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:22):
Yeah, spend a bunch of money, spend spoiled classes,
yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:29):
Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:30):
Exactly.
Um and and it's just it's such agreat sport.
Nothing, there's no bad.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:37):
Yeah.
Well, to your point, too, youcould turn essentially turn one
racer into three or four and noteven sat into it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:44):
So quadrupling your numbers for the community race
and yeah, set the other thedownside parking lot too,
though.
Yeah, the full time.
Yeah.
Sounds like Travossi has put inmore.
Uh so I think spectator friendlyand then community party feel.
Uh I only had one of those.
So I think one of the things I,you know, coming through pretty

(01:06:06):
he has cat three and then cattwo, and then now uh I'm not
sure what I'm technically I lineup with Chris, but that doesn't
really you're not the same.
Not the same.
I mean, I don't want to breakinto you.
You don't have to break and say,hey, right now you might be the
same.
Right right now we are.
Yeah.
He's got one foot.
Yeah, so yeah, one good foot.
I like your odds.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:26):
What happened to your foot?

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:28):
I'll tell you later.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:30):
In in detail.
Can you use can you use medicalprice?
Right.
I'm sitting in I'm sitting inthe tech season this weekend for
Paladoro for Ryan.
And the only other guy overthere at the time was the one
guy I really, really didn't wantto talk to.
He was like, he was way too intoit.
And I was like, I don't want toget conversation.

(01:06:50):
And you come through and Ryan'slike, what happened to your on
the way three?

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:55):
Like, if this fucking guy he looked over, but
he didn't think no ahead.

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:10):
Sorry.
Yeah, that that that's it.
I think I mean we can all agreeTudor has been amazing for all
of us.
It's been amazing for ourcycling community, all the
stuff.
And I think every race series, Imean, GCXE is brand new, and I'm
sure they have they're aftertheir first year, I'm sure they
have ideas of things like man,that did not go the way that we

(01:07:31):
wanted it to.
We need to make changes, we needto make tweaks, this was great,
whatever.
And every race series has that.
Um, and we're not picking ontour to dirt, we're not picking
on GCXE.
This is just the series that wehave available.
I think every series can getbetter.
And here's the thing I don't puton a race.
Joe, you do, Chris, you don't,you know, Ethan, you don't.

(01:07:51):
So, like, it's just words forus.
And you know, any feedback thatI got from anybody after our
last episode, I was like, okay,you say, Oh, yeah, this is still
the same shit show it was 20years ago when I raced back
then, or yeah, things need tochange.
I'm like, okay, give me atangible thing.
Don't just say I don't like it.
Like, what is a suggestion thatyou want to see?

(01:08:15):
Like, you can't just say I don'tlike it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:17):
There's some there are some things though that I I
would say are kind of 50-50.
If you were to take 100 people,50 of them would say, you know,
what and a great example is Iknow GCXE is doing the mass
starts.
I am, I know you're a fan of thepast starts.
I am not.
That's why I broke my shoulderlast year.

(01:08:38):
Well, you're on.
So so if you don't, you know, ifyou depending on how it's set
up, um the one that we did atBales, great.
I had no problem.
It was like a 20-foot wide, yes,or not 20 foot wide, 20
rider-wide mass start.
It was great.
Uh, Turkey last year, coldturkey, it was terrible.

(01:08:58):
I didn't know it was like eightpeople wide, 60 people deep.
I'm somewhere towards the backhalf.
I'm you know, I'm not, I'm notby any means Ethan or Chris, but
I'm a faster rider for the groupthat I'm riding.
Thank you for saying our name inthe same sentence.
And and we start different.
We move up like 20 feet.
Uh Daryl gets pushed into me bysome guy.
We both put our foot down, andlike I'm now in the back, and

(01:09:21):
I've got to make up all thisground.
And I have like an opportunityto podium in this race from you
know, I was I was frustrated,and so I did some stupid stuff
trying to pass, broke myshoulder.
Oh shit.
It was all my all my fault, likemy stupid move.
But that and just some otherexperiences with the mass start,
I don't like it.

(01:09:42):
Okay.
So I think that's what's greatabout the conversation.
Yeah, but I I don't care if it'smass start or not.
I just want to raise people, butI think the mass start came
about because the numbers wereso low.
It makes sense to start twopeople, and then you get a race
that has a big turnout, and thenit it could be a problem.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:58):
I think I think it should be I think it should be
category and size field sizedependent because I look at the
first I did the hell's bells andit was a lined up, and I'm like,
oh my god, this is going to bechaos.
But there was enough room, therewas plenty of room.
It all worked out, it wasperfectly fine.
But then I also see it, I don'trace cat one, but I also see it

(01:10:19):
whenever you have the 39 andunder and two or to der and
there's four people, and thenyou have the next group, you
know, there's like seven people,and they're two different waves.
We started all cat together.
Yeah, most of the cat onesstarted all together.
That that helps, but it needs tobe race dependent, you know, cat
field dependent.
And so, because exactly of youryour story and your your issue,

(01:10:40):
but I think that is somethingthat races need to take into
consideration.
I'd say I think some max andminimums would be helpful, you
know, where it's like here's theminimum, like we're just gonna
here's the groups that we'regonna all you're all gonna go at
the same time, and then if it'sover this amount, we're gonna
start separating.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:55):
Like it'd be great if we had flexible.
I mean, it's gonna alpha yourstart time by like 30 seconds,
right?

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:00):
Yeah, it's not like you have to plan differently,
and each course be differentbecause of what the trail
allows.
Yeah, and that's fair, andthat's fine.
Because it was fun this yearbecause like I was able to race
other people this I mean, Chrisand I we were so close at the
start, right?
Right.
I was really close to it.
And um, and then you pedal, butthen I raced some other people

(01:11:21):
and that was fun.
Uh-huh.
Well, yeah, like Hell's Bells.
Like the that was so I was soworried about that and scared
about it.
But then it was great becauseyou always had somebody to
chase, and you always weretrying to stay away from
somebody.
It was great.
So you you were just alwaysracing.
You start start with four orfive people, it might just be
over from the start.
Yeah, like separates and uhthat's the usually the way it

(01:11:44):
is.
Yeah, yeah.
Usually you're riding byyourself, yeah, or kind of, you
know.
So yeah, I think that I thinkthat would be a great tweak for
every race series.
Yeah, I think if they could, youknow, even if we can't come to
agreement on what the categoriesare, if we could somehow make it
where it's they're they'resquished together based on the
numbers that day, so that peoplehad people to race except

(01:12:07):
because then is because it ishard when when you don't have
because you're going to a race,and if you show up and there's
two of you, that's not really arace, that's just a ride.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh yeah.
So I I think we we need tosomehow solve that, whatever
that looks like.
Go ahead, Joe.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:24):
Yeah, you mentioned the keyword categories.
Oh there seems to be a lot ofthose.
Um so as a race, as a racepromoter, you can even just race
as a citizen.
As a as a race promoter, yeah.
I have for a for a regular tourto dirt race, I have to put
together 26 sets of trophies.

(01:12:44):
Sets of trophies.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:46):
No.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:46):
And and then this last tour to dirt race, we had
probably the best turnout.
Holy crap, who is driving youhome?
You're on the bike.
Uh um but at the last tour todirt race, I think we had the

(01:13:07):
best turnout that we've hadacross broad categories.
There were still some zeroparticipation categories.
And they were like, you know, itwas it was some women categories
and it was some like youthcategories, like you know, 13 to
15 or something like that.
And there was nobody that signedup, but even if there was, it'd
have been one or two, like, whynot just create like an under

(01:13:27):
23?

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:28):
Yes.

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:28):
And why not have like a 23 to 45 and a 45 to 60
and a 60 to 99, and just likelet's make this simpler.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:37):
I think GCXE has nailed it with the categories.
I think I think theircategories, I was a little at
and I understand it's uh there'ssuch big categories at some
point.
You're gonna be the old guy inthe category or old woman in the
category that can't compete withthe young people.
Like, I get it, but it's onlygonna be a handful of years, and
then you're the young person forthe next like seven years
because I see it.

(01:13:57):
We talked about triokcbeforehand.
I see some of our stuff goingthat direction, and you go to
Triok C race, and basically it'sa participation situation.
Like, like clearly, everybody ina multi-sport race gets a
finisher medal, and that's thewhole thing, and it like
promotes the sport.
Like, I get all that, but thenyou wait for awards, they have
so many categories.

(01:14:18):
Basically, everyone gets on apodium, almost always, because
there's such low participationin so many categories, and now
they're running into that in inour mountain bike series.
But I think GCXE nails it whenit comes to the categories
because it's very broadcategories, but I never thought
about it from the promoter side,where like, oh man, now my costs

(01:14:38):
go way down.

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:39):
I mean, I've heard the same thing from Ray telling
me how how many trophies orawards he has to have or have
made, yeah, and then half ofthem just sit in his I learned
after my first two years, ittook me two years to learn this
to stop putting dates on them.
Oh, and just do the same thing.
But like I don't even repurposethem all the time.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:58):
Yeah, but yeah, I mean, there's just so many like
tiny things that can be adjustedthat make a huge difference in
the revenue that the racegenerates and in the raceability
of the event, you know.
And I think another thing thatjust goes into that, I mean it's
like totally off topic, but likehaving a quick turnaround for

(01:15:18):
podiums.
Like nobody wants to get inracing and sit there for an hour
waiting for and earlier starttimes.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:24):
We talked about that a little before.
Just get the get the whole eventover earlier in the day so you
can kind of you want to hang outand talk to people.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:32):
Let's jump into that because I think this all goes
along with how you stir the potwith your changes in yeah, your
and I should we talk about thechanges?
Yeah, well, I yeah, because Iwant to see these two fight.
All right.
Well, what if I needed to go inthe bathroom like Kristen?
Well, you need to go now.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:50):
All right, so I'll go now and then we'll be ready
for five.
Traditionally, um the and it'sit's I would say it's it's just
the way that it always ended up.
I don't know if it was alwaysintentional or not, but like
your cat three would do one lap,cat two would do two, and cat
three or cat one might do threelaps, or you know, however many

(01:16:14):
laps it took, it was always likedouble double double.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:16:17):
And I'm like, you know, the the feedback that I've
gotten from a lot of racers thatare excelling in cat two that
want to cat up, and they say, Idon't want to train that much to
cat up, like it's borderlineendurance.
And in a lot of cases, uh Ithink two years, three years

(01:16:40):
ago, we did it, it was threeyears ago.
The Arcadia Cat One race waslike probably two hours and 20
minutes.
Oh my gosh.
The the one that they just didat Turkey, the fastest time,
like it was two hours and oneminute.
Three miles.
Yeah, two hours and one minutefor cat one race.
That's that's perfect.
That's a long that's long.

(01:17:00):
That's a long time.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:02):
The winner, that means the that means somebody
who finished like seventh oreighth.

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:06):
Was like way close to three hours.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:08):
Yeah, yeah, should have rode harder.

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:10):
That's what it sounds like to me.
So, anyways, I'm like, hey, youknow what?
You know what?
Like, I'm just gonna like go tothe other, like, you know what I
you if you're gonna make achange, you may as well piss
some people off, right?
Right.
So uh so what I said is I'mlike, why don't we just do cat
two and cat one the same, andthen the people who are faster,

(01:17:31):
more skilled riders will just bein the cat one category, and
maybe we'll promote some morepeople to cat up and and see
what happens.
Um so it was the exact samecourse, exact same number of
laps, same distance.
It was 20 miles, it was a tough20 miles, it was not easy.
Um but people were finishing inan hour and a half, right?

(01:17:55):
You know, cat two and cat onewere were finishing in an hour
and a half, and I didn't haveany real negative feedback from
that perspective.
Do I think there could be anopportunity to do something to
differentiate cat two and catone course-wise?
Sure.
If you've got something to betechnical, or if you want to do
like a prologue or something toadd a little bit of distance,

(01:18:18):
sure, why not?
But I think traditionally thecat one stuff was just
borderline endurance, and that'sI'll throw that off.
Let's now fight.
Let's let these fight and thenI'll ask my opinion.
I won't fight about it.
I mean, it's like said about alot of this stuff.
I mean, I've got my opinions,and that doesn't mean they're

(01:18:40):
everyone's opinions, but sowhat's your opinion on that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:43):
I mean, I think the winning cat one time should be
around two hours.
But why do you think that?

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:48):
Just I mean, what then what's what's the
difference?

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:53):
But what is an XC race distance supposed to be?
Under three hours.
That's like turn words.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:00):
UCI World Cup is we're not doing UCI.
We're talking about no country.
The best riders in the world areonly to ride an hour and a half
to two hours.
But UCI is a complete UCI wentto that hour and a half format
for to make it spectatorfriendly.
What do you think is gonna TVpackage?
What do you think is gonnagenerate more participation?
Three hours or two hours?

(01:19:20):
Well, I don't like I won't argueabout this.
But I'm just saying by USACrules, like what what is
categorized as cross country issub three hour.
Okay, okay, and then marathon isover three hour.

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:34):
Okay.

unknown (01:19:35):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:35):
So US So Paladuro this weekend, my two laps.
Yeah.
Someone was in shape and couldfinish the race, um, it would
have been sub-three hours.
So that would be an XC race.
I mean, yeah, because the fullmare the full marathon was what?
It was over three hours.
But you would consider a two-laprace at Paladuro an XC race.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:58):
I would consider if the fastest rider is doing
around two hours, it could be itcould be hour 45, could be two
ten.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:08):
Do you base it off the winner, or do you base it
off the average, or do you baseit off like the podium?
I mean, if you're basing off theslowest cat one.
Well, that's different.
Like you don't you have somepeople in cat one out there for
days, days, right?
So but but that's what I'msaying.

(01:20:29):
Like, do you base it off thefastest person that shows up?
Do you base it off the podium?
Do you base it off like the theaverage finisher in that group?
Like, but that's because that'swhere that that's where it gets
hard when you don't know youdon't know who's showing up.

SPEAKER_03 (01:20:41):
But I would say this but it sure is easy if cat two
and cat one go the same distanceto figure out what that fastest
time is.
As a promoter setting up racecourses, it's like if I just do
these the same, I so what I wasable to do at Arcadia is I
started cat one, sent off thee-bikes, and immediately with no
delay, started all of my cat twofolks.

(01:21:03):
And it was it worked outperfect.
If it was a shorter course, itcould have been a conflict, it
could have been a challenge, butit I don't think we had a single
like complaint about peoplebeing on top of each other, you
know, in different categories.
I can see where well, actually,I take that back.
There was still, I think maybein the future, just starting

(01:21:24):
e-bike first, just go and you'llpass a few slow e-bikes, but
you'll never see them again.

SPEAKER_01 (01:21:29):
Podcast but I can see the e-bikes.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:34):
Uh but but I can see where I mean, and they can go
back to Paladuro where usuallythe course is the same, and then
when they go out for their thirdlap, it's like a half lap with
different features or adifferent, but that's trail
dependent, right?
And so, like yours, they go outfor two laps, and then the third
lap, maybe it's just the up andback, they don't go to outer
space and do all that stuff, butit adds a little like a

(01:21:54):
five-mile loop or something.
So I could see something likethat, but I also think that
creates a lot of confusion.

SPEAKER_03 (01:22:02):
I feel like if that happens, no one like Thunderbird
was like that before the start,everyone's like, What's the
first lap?
What's this our loop?
Okay, yeah, absolutely.
I think if you have multipleoptions for what your lap is and
expect people to process thatwhile racing, it's just usually
a look for an issue.

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:20):
I I push back on that because as a race happens,
you should know the coursethat's set up for you.
That's your responsibility.
But if it's just one lap, youdon't have to know anything, you
just follow it.

SPEAKER_03 (01:22:31):
Like you could have a cat three, and then you could
have a cat one, two.
That makes sense to me.
Because you just maybe move sometape, courses are set up.
So we but when it's like, allright, this lap you go this way,
but you have to turn here, nextlap you don't turn there, and
next lap you're you got raisedbrain, and it's like where do I
turn again?
And you don't know, and you gothe wrong way, and then you're
pissed at the proposal.

(01:22:51):
I think so.

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:52):
I think getting back to I I think the issue is in at
least in Twitter Dirt andprobably GCX that they're trying
to figure out is there's a lotof people who are in cat two who
don't want to go up to cat one,and there's two reasons.
One is they don't want to raceagainst the really fast people
and lose.
And so that's one reason.

(01:23:13):
The other the other reason is itdoes take a lot, it does take
more training to go that extralap.
That's why I would narrow downbecause I disagree.
I think it takes the righttraining, it doesn't take more.
Okay, it takes a lot more, ittakes the right training.

SPEAKER_03 (01:23:29):
I've done both a lot, and I just know no, I know
it takes the right training.

SPEAKER_02 (01:23:38):
So I have the most experience here.
That's right.
From top to bottom.
You have the most uh naturalability, but and no, and and
training and skill.

SPEAKER_03 (01:23:48):
I agree.
And I don't think I think a cattwo racer can race a cat one
distance if they did the righttraining.
If they go out and do the rolltraining and lose, right and
finish it.
That's fine.
If if you shorten the race, thefast guys are still gonna be
faster.
Exactly.
So I think I think that that isthe point.
So I think if there's so theydon't know because they don't

(01:24:10):
want to get beat by the fastguys, they're still gonna get
beat by the fast guys, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (01:24:13):
But that's what I'm saying.
I think if we eliminate one ofthe two, I'd rather still have
it be if people are not cattingup, it's because they don't want
to race against people, andthat's just a that's a that's a
mame excuse.
I don't agree with that.
I so I sold cat out.
Let me hold on.
So so when I won cat too, when Iwon cat tour to dirt, I don't
call it state championship, it'sa tour d'air series that I won.

(01:24:34):
And out of respect for a realstate championship.
So but I did not cat up and Ihad no interest in cutting up.
And if I would have been amandatory cat out, I would have
set out that next year becauseit had nothing to do with like
getting beaten, because I don'thave that ego situation.
Some do, some don't.
Like that I just did not want togo out and because I knew I

(01:24:57):
would be riding by myself forthe for the cat one race because
I just couldn't keep up withanybody.
Okay, so me paying the samemoney and going to do the same
courses, I did not want to goride by myself for three hours
instead of two hours.
Nothing about that sounds fun.
If I'm gonna do that, I'll justgo ride that trail for three
hours by myself.

(01:25:18):
Right, it's a challenge in andof itself, but it's not anything
to raise, it's not a race, it'snot a race.
If there's nobody around you,it's not really a race.

SPEAKER_03 (01:25:25):
So let me get my gas can real quick and for some so
if whatever the series is, ifthey are actually truly
enforcing podium, you know,placements and forcing cat ups,
that would be amazing.
And the the well not for doingit, but it'd be amazing.
But if the if the change is isno different, you're just racing

(01:25:48):
with faster people, or if it'svery minor in like the technical
nature of the course, or just alittle bit of extra distance,
then now you've you've you'restarting to have a feeder pool
come into the cat one, and itthere have been many uh cat one
races where there's one personstanding, you know, holding

(01:26:11):
their trophy up at the end ofthe race, and it's like, hey, I
won.
And it's like you won againstyourself, but there is going
with that topic.

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:22):
If it was mandatory cat up, I wouldn't have been by
myself.

SPEAKER_03 (01:26:25):
Exactly.
You'd have been on the thirdplace in the podium.

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:29):
No, I would have been third from last, but I'd
the other two bums that finishedsecond or third and the cat two
that year would have been withme, and now we would have had
our race, right?
But that's part of the problemand part of the standards and
all the stuff that we've talkedabout.

SPEAKER_03 (01:26:42):
That if I don't know if there are standards, I've
seen people bouncing around fromcat two to cat one back to cat
two, like we've got that comingup later.

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:53):
Yeah, we've been talking for an hour and 20
minutes, and now's the time.
So Ethan has almost drank all ofour beer.
Yeah, I didn't know that Joe'sbeers are but he spilled he
spilled one.
But that's but that goes intothe whole topic.
If everybody was a mandatorycat, I wouldn't be by myself.
But if the winner, if I waslike, Oh, I wanted to share,

(01:27:14):
well, you're uh you're not byyourself, but you're a perfect
example.
You're like, hey, I was goodenough in cat too.
I need to let someone else whodeserves cat too have a chance
of winning.
Because the year before, Iremember me and you having a
conversation.
Well, it was me saying somethingto you, you were too nice.
And I was like, Man, you shouldbe winning cat too.
It's the guys that are ahead ofyou should not be in cat too.

(01:27:37):
And then whenever you got tothat spot, you're like, Yeah,
it's time for me to move on sosomeone else can have a cat a
chance to race their bike, notride in an event.

SPEAKER_03 (01:27:45):
Ethan has two different things enough morals
to say, Hey, you know what?
This is where I need to be.
So I'm here, even though I knowI'm not going to be the series
winner.

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:54):
There's a difference riding your bike event and
racing.
I have brought this up to otherindividuals who have authority
in certain series, and they'relike, Well, then you just need
to figure out how and why youwant to do things.
And I'm like, And I'm like,Well, I want to go race my bike.

(01:28:15):
I'm not paying money to go ridemy bike.
You're if you do the rightthing, like I need to move up,
and no one else does.
Then you're screwed, and thenyou're by yourself again.
And then if you cat up, and thenthe next year you're like, Well,
I'm gonna cat back down, theneverybody's like, Oh, look at
this guy, you know, then you'rethe asshole.
So what are these standards?

SPEAKER_03 (01:28:34):
One thing that you brought up, Chris, in the last
series or the last podcast wasthat creating opportunities for
people to go and you know dosomething more, right?
So if we're not if we're notaligned with uh USA cycling,
then you don't create thatopportunity.
Um, I don't disagree with that,but I also think that 99% of the

(01:28:57):
people who are racing are justcompetitive by nature and having
fun, like gonna go and doanything regional or anything
beyond and and so to be able tokind of promote the and foster
the environment to have peoplethat are still willing to you
know take it up to the nextlevel without doing anything

(01:29:18):
significantly more than theywere doing before.
And my my my example for thisand why I I started to kind of
really dial into it more wasClay Hasty.
So Clay rode cat too, absolutelydestroyed it if you and is on
your team, so I mean you'vegonna he's not anymore.
No, but he was, so it's not likeyou're speaking sideways.

(01:29:39):
He absolutely like destroyed cattoo, and he was getting up at
four in the morning and andputting in the hours and like
you know, posting pictures witha bike light uh on in the
trails.
And I'm like, how do you gotrain that fast in four in the
morning on the trails, clearingspider webs?
Like crazy.
So a lot of respect.

(01:30:00):
For him, and then he came outthe next year and and dominated
e-bike.
And I'm like, why wouldn't youcat up?
And he's like, I don't have thetime to put in the extra
training to do the extradistance to be competitive in
cat one.
And I'm like, Well, that kind ofmakes sense.
So that's when I started tothink about it more.
And then I'm like, well, ifwe're only having like a total

(01:30:21):
of maybe 10 people out of 150,100 and you know, whatever show
up at a race, and they're that'sthe cat one crowd, then
something's not right.

SPEAKER_02 (01:30:31):
You know, I gotta figure out I don't have the
physical gifts in my body to bea competitive cat one person,
and that's totally fine.
I cram, I don't care how much Itrain, I probably cramp up right
and then that's okay.
I I'm not like me and Drummondare never gonna go head to head
in a race, like it's never goingto happen for the first 30
seconds, right?
And that's in total, not even 30seconds, not even 30 seconds.

(01:30:53):
No, we go play on that list andwe can figure that out, but not
in I want to see I want to seeyou guys do the dual slalom and
like let's just see what thatlooks like.
And we do like we just yeah, andso maybe that'll be a video,
maybe that'll be a YouTube or uhuh Instagram post.
But the thing is, I don't havethe things that to make that
happen, and I'm okay with that.
There is no problem with that.

(01:31:13):
But I also don't want to gofinish last and ride by myself
for three hours, right?
But if I can race in the middlewith people, that's cool, that's
fine.
I don't have to be on thepodium, and I think there's a
lot of people that feel thatway.
There's a lot of people thatdon't feel that way.
They're like, Well, I can't win,I'm not doing it, you know.
Yeah, I'm gonna stay back hereand win by like five minutes in
an hour race, and because I getto win, that's a bitch move too.

(01:31:34):
So I think there's a happymedium, but the the race series
needs to the people that want asandbag, the race series has an
obligation to the other peoplethat are spending money to show
up to that race to say we'regoing to make this a fair
competitive field.
And if it's if you don't, if youdon't like that, then maybe you
sit out and don't cut.

(01:31:55):
Yeah, because if I had a set,like if I had to go up and I was
like, man, I'm not training, Idon't want to go ride for three
hours by myself.
Well, you know what?
You're a big boy, don't show up.
Or you can race and just not,you don't, you don't get to
count your points.

SPEAKER_03 (01:32:09):
I mean, that's it.
Which would still change thedynamic of the race.
It does change the dynamic.
So I know there should be like,I mean, I don't know if it's top
three, top five that youfinished last year, which is
kind of tough too, because youhave people that don't do every
race, but I guess that doesn'tmatter if they're not at every
race.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:25):
But yeah, if you're not at a podium, you should have
to go up a certain amount oftimes.
No, if you're in the podium forthe series.
Oh, for the series, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 (01:32:32):
I was thinking like out of six races, if you
finished three, that's not apodium either.
Because you can't have someonereally fast that only does one
race.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:41):
Perfect example.
Yeah, I love this guy.
He is great, he's so nice.
Michael, Michael Gathers, he's acat too.
He crushes me no matter whatshape I am.
That dude, and he is the nicestman, and he always races cat
too.
I will I mean I'll put him outthere, but he is a very, very
fast cat too.
He shows up for like two orthree races a year, he wins

(01:33:02):
every single one of them.
At some point, you gotta moveup.
Yeah.
So, but so but that comes backto it's not on him, it's on the
race series.
So they're like, hey, we have apattern here, let's have a
conversation with him.
And so, man, like you need tomove up.
And if he doesn't want to dothat, like, okay, well, you just

(01:33:24):
if you sign up, we're puttingyou in the cat ones.
Or we're gonna get an angrytext.
That's fine.
So you can send it to me.
But also, I think there's gonnabe people in the cat threes that
are the same way because like wehave such massive fields and
tour to dirt in the cat threes,and then they don't show up in
the cat twos, and then the cattwos don't show up in the cat
ones.
So why are we not growing thesport?
And I talked to people in thecat threes, and they're like,

(01:33:44):
Well, I mean, I finished likefifth and sixth in the cat
threes, but the top three beatme by like 10 minutes, it
shouldn't be in mind.
Well, I I think that's I mean,it's it's every series, it's
every it is, but I love the ideaof like the like Premier League.
If you watch the Premier League,like you know, or the way that's
the English soccer league works,absolutely not.
I don't watch that crappy score,but yeah, I've heard of it.

(01:34:05):
Well, it's it's so you play withyour people anyways.
We could explain explain later.
Um but but I love the idea of ifyou you know you're in the top
percentage and however that'sfigured, like you've got to move
up.
Yes, and then and then you youget to compete with that group.
And then if you're in thebottom, you get to move down.
You have the option of movingdown.

(01:34:25):
So I don't think it because Ithink sometimes it feels like a
permanent thing where it's likeyou if you move up, you can't
move back down, which I think itused to be that way, where it
was like you had to like write aletter.
And here's the thing to nottalking like a thousand people
we have to keep track of.
There's like twelve that theseries needs to keep track of.
This is not a like a processthat can't be done, like to

(01:34:48):
nine.

SPEAKER_03 (01:34:49):
Especially if you it could we could figure it out.
It could be done before theseasons if you minimize the
categories too, yeah, sure.
Agree, and that creates morecompetitiveness as well.

SPEAKER_02 (01:34:58):
Yeah, so Chris, do you want to add to any of this?
Oh you do want to add to this.
You do want to add this.

SPEAKER_03 (01:35:05):
It does, but it's outnumbered.

SPEAKER_02 (01:35:06):
No, not with the not with the other person, because
it kind of goes into this wherepeople are bitching about people
showing up and saying heshouldn't be in this race
because there's two sides to thecoin.

SPEAKER_03 (01:35:17):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 (01:35:18):
Because I've kind of been on that side because I
remember when I was trying tolike chase points and stuff, and
somebody was like, um, becausethere was, I mean, he used to be
a cat one, he's be uber uberfast.
And I was like, man, this guyjust is crushing me.
Well, he was like technicallybetter.
So we had like a wide open trailhere.
He was from Tulsa.
We had a wide open trail here.

(01:35:39):
I could be him andor competewith him, even if I couldn't be
him.
We go race like Keystone, hewould crush my soul, and then
I'm like talking to people like,oh yeah, he was like legit cat
one.
Last time I saw him, I'm like,that asshole.
But it was a skill set that hehad, not his fitness at the
time, because that was likeyears before I get that being a

(01:36:00):
cat two person, but I also ifsomebody's a if somebody's a cat
one on the road, cat two on theroad, and then they jump into I
don't I don't want to throw outa name, but if if they're a cat
one or two on the road and theyshow up to a mountain bike
series, what series whatcategory should they join?
I'm asking this.

(01:36:21):
What Ethan, I ask you first.
If you're a cat one, two on theroad and you ride mountain
bikes, maybe here or there a fewtimes a year, and you show up to
a race, what category shouldthey?
I think your first race, youshould do cat three.
I honestly do your cat one, twoon the road, but yeah, because
there's so I I think it'sdifferent.
I mean, I see a lot of peoplecrashing in on bike races

(01:36:43):
because it's just princesschicken.
What would you say, Joe?

SPEAKER_03 (01:36:49):
I well, well, um, I was gonna say cat two.
Okay.
That's what I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 (01:36:54):
And then go from there.
Yeah.
If so, if they are a cat one,two on the road, then they come
in, they do cat two, they winthe race, or finish on the
podium.
What should they do?

SPEAKER_03 (01:37:04):
So this is interesting because uh Ethan and
I have had conversations on thebike while we're like riding
about this.
And I have over the years cometo the realization that I'm
like, oh, you know, I'm a decenttechnical rider.
I'm by no means like great, butI'm a decent technical rider,
and I'm like, that's myadvantage.
But on our courses, there's notenough tech, and the cat to

(01:37:29):
rider or the uh the road ridersare going to dominate people in
cat too.
Because there's just I mean,they could literally get off the
bike and then just crush me on ahill.
Like hills are my nemesis, andit seems like hills are like
nothing.
It's just like, I don't know,you should just create into the
wind.

SPEAKER_02 (01:37:48):
So yeah, no, I agree.
Well, what do you say, Drummond?
I think cat two is fair.
Yeah.
I mean, and if they win thatrace or in the podium, you think
they should stay there or indoorcat up?

SPEAKER_03 (01:37:58):
I mean, depends on if there's any rules in place.
They can do whatever they want.
If there's no rules, I think ifthey if they win by a small
margin, yeah, then it's likewhat trail is it on?
What's their skill set?
Because they could go to thenext race and lose by a large
margin.

SPEAKER_02 (01:38:15):
Uh so there's a lot of variable there, but a cat
too.
Who should have thatconversation with?

SPEAKER_03 (01:38:20):
I mean, I I don't know.
Like in that scenario, it'stough because, like you said,
someone could go race skin, win.
They could go to Turkey and getyou know last.
Right.
So, but but there needs to be Imean, I feel like that's where
we're at.
The individual takes more pridein winning, whether it's you

(01:38:42):
know, they should be in thatcategory or not, then competing.
Shit.
And I don't think shit.
I and when I said cat three, Ijust think it should be an
option for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 (01:38:49):
If it's your first mountain bike race, then you
should have the option.
You should have the option tostart in cat three because there
is a techno like cool, like youcan.
I think for some of the cat twoand cat one courses, if you're
going all out and you'reredlining, the it can never
work.
And you've never really and andyou're used to racing on a road
bike, it's varied.

SPEAKER_03 (01:39:10):
It's very not being an option.
Yeah.
There is a there's a real worldexample that happened.
Um I'm not gonna name names,you're probably going just
figure this out and just doingyou know, some some reasoning
and um some research.
But at the um at the bluff race,there was a cat three individual

(01:39:31):
who won and did great.
You might as well say the nameat this point, and did great.
And then, and then you know,they they raced other races and
they did great in cat three,right?
And they're traditionally a roadrider.
And then they came to Arcadiaand they're like, I'm going to
cat up.
Was it cat three or cat two?
But anyways, he was outpre-riding on the cat three
course, fell, had severeinjuries, broken, broken body

(01:39:55):
parts, and didn't get to race atall.
So, I mean, that's kind of anexample of what we're talking
about as somebody who is a Idon't know about a cat one or
two road rider, but it's aseriously super strong road
rider.

SPEAKER_02 (01:40:08):
And I think I agree with all of you on this.
I think this is where the seriesdirector, whatever that person
is, needs to have the balls andor the ability to go up to that
person and be like, look, youcame into this, I'm not stupid.

(01:40:28):
I can I know you're a cat too.
You just race skip and you wonby like five minutes.
Next race that you signed upfor, you have yeah, and because
that was because on that was onour series, it's too simple.

SPEAKER_03 (01:40:41):
Like several years ago in cat three, they're like
winning by five and ten minutes.
He's like, Oh, Ben beat me bythree minutes, but I beat the
next guy by two, and like guysprobably shouldn't be in cat
three anymore, and you didn't,you cat it up.

SPEAKER_02 (01:40:54):
Oh, that's how you guys fat tire one.
That's another conversation.

SPEAKER_03 (01:40:58):
But well, it's all a great strategy of a uh cat.
Right.
Well, it's a strategy becauseit's allowed.

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:04):
It's more safe, yeah.
It's allowed, it's allowed, butthat's where most encouraged.
100% encouraged, but that'swhere the race series needs to
take ownership in growing thesport, and the race series needs
to take ownership in like thelike I don't know what the word
is, like in the sanctity of thesport and the like integrity,

(01:41:27):
integrity is the word, integrityof the other racers to say
you're you're doing everythingby the rules that's legal.
Maybe it's not ethically on theline and you should move up.
And if you want to sign up forthe next the next race is super
technical, so we're gonna letyou still do the cat too race
next one because it's supertechnical, and let's just see

(01:41:47):
what happens.
You won that race, you have to.
If you're gonna race anymore,you have to.
But the race direct the raceseries needs to take ownership
and say, Agreed, we are going tonavigate where people can race
the conversation, at least havea conversation.
Teams can help that too.

SPEAKER_03 (01:42:03):
So fat fat tire teams are never gonna do that.
Well, no, they do they do.
Fat tire only allows cat threeriders to ride one year of cat
three, and then you lose anybenefits, but you can continue
to ride cat three with a fattire kit on, but you don't lose
but you allow it for the fullyear, which should never happen.

SPEAKER_02 (01:42:20):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That should never happen.

SPEAKER_03 (01:42:22):
I mean, I think with team I agree with that.
Team count that if you see yourcat three win by five minutes,
you should be like, All right,we want the points.
But I mean it's a catch.
Yeah, I mean the team teamchallenge.
I don't know if it's still a bigdeal, but it what it seems to be
a big deal, and then wasencouraged and almost forced by

(01:42:43):
teams.
Yes, I mean riders that wantedto upgrade, and they're like,
Well, my team won't let me.
And I'm like, come on.
But that's where the race seriesAnd that's the race are wanting
to better themselves.
You know what's kind of funny?
So I was at the beginning ofthis year, I was still the team
captain, and uh there's athere's a guy on our team who

(01:43:05):
raced cat three and did thefive-minute wins, right?
And he's like, I want to cat up.
And I'm like, you know, like,well, I mean, it's up to you,
but you know, if you cat up,there's a chance that you might
jeopardize your placement in theseries.
I wasn't thinking about theteam, I was thinking about like,
hey, if you want to win theseries, well, he catted off and
he completely dominated cat too,and then he even like did great

(01:43:27):
in cat one races.
So, yeah, so he, I mean, he'sgonna be the person to beat next
year.
Um, we have a couple of them onour team, yeah.
Just like I yeah, Jason Canaryis one.

SPEAKER_02 (01:43:38):
He's should move up throughout the season.

SPEAKER_03 (01:43:41):
Yeah, I don't know if Torre has a rule, but like
you can carry some points withyou.
You can't carry some points.
Yes, okay, yeah, but you canalso game the system too, which
isn't cool.
So you can there's always gottabe a loophole, yeah.
Right.
Like you know, you could ride umthe majority of your race is cat
two and then cat up into catone, and you've got no

(01:44:02):
competition, and now you won catone.
Oh yeah, same distance, itdoesn't matter.
No matter it's not right now,dud.
But in the future it will be,hopefully.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 (01:44:12):
At my races it will be.
I I I think for for most people,I mean, for my my goal has
always been just to show up tothe races.
Like that's that's the maingoal.
Show up, race, keep riding.
And I think for most people thatI don't know, that should be the
goal, maybe I mean should be,but I mean it's all fun.
We're all a bunch of old dudesin spandex wearing helmets

(01:44:33):
playing in the trees.
Like, let's get real with it,right?
Like, but the competitive natureoutfits with your with your
buddies.
Like if you if you really breakit down, no, don't break it
down.
But okay, so we're drinking beerafter.
Uh-huh.
So um sure.

(01:44:58):
Um so like with this, like, andwe kind of wrap it up because we
are getting long at this pointbecause we probably will have
another session with this group.
So what would you what in anideal world, Drummond, in the
next 12 months, what would be achange that could happen in not
the overall series, but in likein the and not in the cycling
scene, but in the mountain bikescene, what's something that you

(01:45:20):
would love to see be tweaked andor like a big change, like one
or the other?

SPEAKER_03 (01:45:26):
Definitely a short track.
I think I think getting I meanone series, so people are
picking and choosing.
So we're getting that backtogether, a schedule that's
manageable.
And I mean, if we're if we'rekeeping it out of mountain
biking, then that would be aboutit.
But if we're keeping it toracing as a whole, a schedule
for schedule seasons fordisciplines like we talked about

(01:45:47):
in the last one.
I mean, it's not that hard todo.
Yeah, it does keep people fromdid you say it's not that hard
to do?
It's not hard to do.
This is not hard to do.
It's not hard to do.
You know why?
Because it used to exist and nowit doesn't.
So I know it's not hard.
It's hard to get everyone tohave the conversation and agree.
That's what's hard.
Yeah.

(01:46:07):
Having seasons and a schedule, Ican't see how that's difficult
in any way.
The process is easy, the theexecution is hard.
Huh?
Why?
It shouldn't be hard.
Well, it's just well, okay.
So the timing of it, I think, isone thing.
I've already said, hey, um, tourde dirt, I need to get my races

(01:46:31):
uh on the books now.
So I've got in late February, II don't know the date off the
top of my head without lookingat my calendar, I've got my
endurance race.
And then um I've got short trackraces, which is a new addition
that we're gonna be adding toTour de Dirt, and they're gonna
be in the in between the springand the fall in the summer

(01:46:53):
months when it's the hottest,because that's when you want to
do 20 to 30 minute hall worldraces, right?
Um, so we're gonna have two ofthose short track races, and
then we're gonna also be thelast race, you know, the
exclamation point on the end ofthe series again next year.
Okay, so why is that hard?

SPEAKER_02 (01:47:09):
Why can't every series follow that?
Endurance races in the winter.

SPEAKER_03 (01:47:13):
No, no, no.
I I agree with that, but nowlike I've got a I've got a date
for my endurance race in lateFebruary, and now um somebody
else is could step on that.
I coordinated with Nica becauseme and Dave or how was talking
about these things, but I haveno idea what G60 is gonna do.
Okay, but that's that's why it'snot hard if if we talk with

(01:47:36):
them, if we talked with G3, ifwe talked with Tanner with
Cyclopes, this wouldn't be hard.
We needed a chairman of thecalendar, and I think that could
be Ryan.
I think he could be like youprobably wouldn't have these
scheduling issues already ifeveryone would have come to this
meeting that we tried to gettogether.
I'm not blaming you, but lastyear, about this time, we tried

(01:47:57):
to get all these promoters sothat so that 2025 would be the
year that we worked through it,and it's like, all right,
everyone's got their dick.
Yeah, 26, it's dialed.
But now you already have 26dates.
I do, and other people are well,so what?
So we we we're almostpotentially in 27 years.

SPEAKER_02 (01:48:13):
Well, it's 27.
And Twitter dirt, I think I meanjust yeah, not I think they're
going to at least at this timewill be three in the spring,
three in the fall.
It's it's kind of the schedule.
So doing fewer races because wetwo less.
Two less.
Yeah, yeah, too less.

SPEAKER_03 (01:48:28):
Um, so that will free up some, but it still is
probably gonna summer and thefall has been short tracks, but
like okay, but to the next day,yeah.
It's gonna be on Friday.

SPEAKER_02 (01:48:39):
So Friday, I think.
I'm just throwing this out.
Why can't endurance races beNovember December through
February?
I'm just this is totally random.
I I mean we haven't.

SPEAKER_03 (01:48:51):
And why can't we have an endurance series, Chris?
Why can't we?
Why can't we?
Yeah, we can add if we have somemore season for promoters.
I could I'll do all three ofthem at Arcadia.

SPEAKER_02 (01:49:01):
Okay if we want to let's do them.
Yeah, I mean that I don't that'sthe thing, is like there's other
air most other states have acalendar, yeah, for I I was
actually talking to Carrie atPalladuro during registration.

SPEAKER_03 (01:49:19):
I was like, what's what's the distance?
Because it's a little differentthan the flyer.
She's like, Well, I ran it bythe timber board, and they said
it was okay.
So she had to ask, is it okayfor me to go this little bit
extra distance that's awesome toa board that runs all the
mountain biking in the state?

SPEAKER_02 (01:49:34):
We just decided that to do okay, asking you guys this
one who's on a board at Tour toDirt and one who's a race
promoter.
If we just said, Hey, we'regonna get together seven people,
I'm just making up a number.
If we got these seven peopletogether that have an interest
in the GCX, the Tour de Dirtseries, yeah, and outsiders,
right?
We have seven to ten people, andwe have this board, and that

(01:49:57):
would be amazing.
Yeah, that would honestly beamazing.
But as a race promoter, if thisboard came and said your race
isn't gonna work, you gotta doit in the fall or a spring.
Honestly, I don't know, likescrew up.
No, I well, I I tour enduredwould be okay with that.
I don't know if GCX would beokay.

SPEAKER_03 (01:50:12):
So I would I would always prefer to have my Arcadia
race in the fall because thechances of it getting rained out
are less.

SPEAKER_02 (01:50:19):
But if they're like you need to do in the spring,
I'm like, all right, give me arain or but that fall fall
number or date could be becauseif we had it like endurance
races, true winter, right?
Endurance races, and then youhad um like XC races spring up
to early summer.

SPEAKER_03 (01:50:38):
If you want to do a short track season in the
summer, and then the fall, youstart rolling into gravel and
cross, like yeah, that's a fullyear calendar, and everybody has
their season, have as many racesin that and because they don't
overlap back to what we veryfirst talked about, you're gonna
promote the gravel race, thecross race, the cross race is

(01:51:01):
gonna promote the mountain bikebecause no one, oh yeah, no one
is like, Well, I don't want topromote that because I guarantee
this happens.
First, I don't want to promotethat because my race is the next
weekend.
So people do that, they won'tcome to mind.
So you have pretty much everyevent in the state competing
with every other event in thestate because we don't have
seasons and a calendar.

SPEAKER_02 (01:51:21):
I had somebody on our team, she did the she did
all the GCX and all the TortedDirt.
Oh my god.
She did seven races on a row.
Yeah, and we're gonna we'regonna we're gonna reimburse her.
And then if you throw in a lotof hook for it, yeah, yeah,
exactly.
But then if you throw in likebecause in the fall, or in this
yeah, in the fall, you startrunning into you have random

(01:51:43):
gravel races and g3 races andall that stuff happening on like
a Saturday, and then you have anXC race.
Or did you on NYCA?
NYCA.
I didn't need the Oklahomaboard, but I think you also have
to factor into some of thethings in Bentonville, like rule
of three is it's it's such ahuge surrounding space.

SPEAKER_03 (01:52:00):
I think if there's the calendars, you know, you
know what those dates are.
Right.
I mean, roughly you know whenthey're gonna fall.
I would it would be very smartto schedule around events over
there, right?
People are going to be able todo that.
If you have if you have seasons,then you eliminate some of the
like conflicts that are gonnahappen between the and some
things they're just gonnahappen.
Yeah, but there's only so manydates.
That's what you said.

(01:52:21):
Like somebody's gonna have togive up a date they don't want
to give up, and that's where thethat's where the friction comes,
but that's where the board comesin.
And it's like you try toaccommodate everybody, but
someone's gonna have to, youknow, people are gonna have to
give a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 (01:52:34):
If someone came to you and said you can't have your
race left all, it has to be inthe spring, what would you say?

SPEAKER_03 (01:52:40):
In all honesty, would you be like, uh no?
I mean, we we would do it.
We used to we we did them in thespring.
It was supposed to be in thespring, and it got rained on
this year, right?

SPEAKER_02 (01:52:49):
We then like if the train all is like three feet
underwater.
Okay, right.
I don't like Twitter's opposedto that.
I mean, just as a I'm not sureif I'm speaking as the board or
just me, but speaking out ofterm, but I'll yeah, but I'll
just say I don't think that'sthe fourth beer talking.
The fourth or the third is it isnot the yeah, but I mean, what

(01:53:11):
but do you think this issomething that uh because we
would have to speak with GCXE.
Do you think this is somethingthat chore to dirt?
The group could be like we canhave a conversation and and we
can have this conversation, andmaybe in because 26 is not gonna
happen, but maybe in 27.

(01:53:31):
Yeah, I think 27 would be agreat it needs to start
happening now.
Yeah, it needs to start end up.
I mean 26 could happen, itcould, it could, it'd be a rush.
I mean, some some people mightnot be happy, but it would be
tough, it could happen, itcould, but it'd be difficult.

SPEAKER_03 (01:53:44):
I mean 27's really like you've got a couple days,
but is anything so set in stoneright now that you can't change?
And no, it's just are peoplewilling to change?

SPEAKER_02 (01:53:55):
No, they're not, and that's why we are where we are,
right?
Okay, so what okay, we'll talkabout this offline, but yes, I I
would love to see that happen.
Yeah, I would love to see thatas a as a person in very like so
what if we made it a podcastlike we do this planning live on
I don't know about that.
I would love that.
I'm gonna tell you a lot ofpeople would not love that until

(01:54:17):
you're right now, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:54:19):
It might keep it might keep people honest, you
know.
I mean, for you temperature, yeslived here forever, but there
was an organization.
This this used to be a thing,B-R-A-O-K.
And I don't I wasn't a part ofit as well, but I don't know how
the meetings went, they probablyweren't always fun, but there
was uh there was a website forit, which now could just be

(01:54:41):
social media, but and there wasa calendar, and it kind of
provided information, it showedyou know, if riders got
upgrades, it showed upgrades onthere, just kind of showed info
about racing in Oklahoma.
And it's it was kind of theboard that you know directed all
the racing in the state.
So it's not a it's not a newthing, it's just something that
needs to come back.
It does.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:00):
And I'm willing to do some of the hard work for
that.

SPEAKER_03 (01:55:03):
Well, so Vanessa and I both agree you'd be good
president.
You're you're neutral enough oneverything, like you see all
angles, but you're not you don'tlean one way or the other hard
enough that I think that youwould be good.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:15):
That's a comment of like you piss everyone off
equally, and so you should justcontinue to do that.

SPEAKER_03 (01:55:20):
No, I mean, like you disagree with me, you disagree
with him, but you agree withstuff.
I think that's so good.
So honestly, like 10% of thepeople that are stakeholders in
this conversation are in thisroom right now.
I would agree with this.
So we're we're already 10%there.
Let's just, you know, let's go.
I don't know.
Dave, Dave would be all about,you know, this for Nika's sake,

(01:55:42):
because he's always trying tomake sure that we're not having
conflicts.
Okay.
I think it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:47):
So we'll scrap up with this because we I think we
could well, we can't drink beeranymore because Ethan only has
one left.

SPEAKER_03 (01:55:53):
Oh my god.
You just piled them up in frontof me again.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:59):
Um we'll take pictures.
But I think um, I think this isthe start of the conversation,
and I think this is something wecan like just say we are going
to make happen.
And if you don't want to beinvolved, we're just gonna call
you out and say you're notinvolved, and this is why you're
not involved.
I have no problem with pissingpeople off, and I have no
problem with like giving praiseto the people who are trying to
do things to grow our community.

(01:56:21):
I mean, if you don't want to beinvolved, then what do you want
to do and in them races?

SPEAKER_03 (01:56:24):
That's function.
Just go to your own thing.
Yeah, I mean if you if you wantquality, like everybody's gonna
benefit from this.
It's not because quantity.
Yeah, I mean, if you're gonnaget all the racers are gonna be
going to the same place insteadof several different ways.

SPEAKER_02 (01:56:39):
Because we had a lot of racers agree uh agree with
the topics that we've all talkedabout.

SPEAKER_03 (01:56:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Arcadia is the qualityover place.

SPEAKER_02 (01:56:47):
Uh-huh.
I think I think go back on that,go back and read your Facebook
post about that.
But I think I think it's qualityover quantity.
And I think right now we havequantity over quality for sure.
In every in every discipline,not mountain biking, but in
every discipline in Oklahoma.
And I think we see the resultsof that.
Every race struggles to getnumbers and to hold on to

(01:57:12):
people.
So anything that you would liketo wrap up with.

SPEAKER_03 (01:57:16):
No, we we got too far in for my rant.
So I I don't add don't forget touh sign up for Oklahoma Long
Bike Association.
Yeah, 50 bucks.
That's it.
I like it.
Ethan.

SPEAKER_02 (01:57:32):
I'm being glad to say anything anymore.
No, no, that's not.
No, no, I think I I would justsay that uh I think that it's
it's just what Oklahoma has tooffer to those who are
outdoor-minded.
So I think we really should begood stewards of it and just be
open to how do we make it betterfor everybody.
I think we're gonna hold on touh Drummond's rant because I
don't think that uh that rant islike timeless.

(01:57:53):
And then there there will be aperfect time to let that one
out.
Um that when it happens, you'llknow.
Because I think we all agree.
It's really good.
So uh thanks for listening.
And uh please chime in and tellus why you hate us for doing
this episode and why you agreewith us.
Or if you want to be on theboard.
Oh, yeah, this is a call forboard members.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Wow.

(01:58:14):
And then I think these four cancalendar managers.
Yeah, these four can determinewho's going to be on that hook.

SPEAKER_03 (01:58:19):
I mean, yeah, there's all kinds of stuff we
would need.
If you want to be a part of it,let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:58:23):
Step up.
I agree.
And if you hate us, step up andtell us why you hate us.

SPEAKER_03 (01:58:26):
None of us are getting paid for this.
We're not only losing money.
Yeah.

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