Tough luck

A most-popular destination race, Saint Francis Tulsa Tough has to turn away cyclists

It has grown well beyond anything the original organizers could have imagined.

The 11th Annual Saint Francis Tulsa Tough cycling festival runs from Friday, June 10 through Sunday, June 12 and promises to be the biggest one yet, with over 4,000 participants pedaling in 36 different races over three days.  

From hardcore Gran Fondo races that extend over 100 miles to elite-level 90-minute sprint criterium races to non-competitive “townie” rides for the whole family, the event is expected to inject well over $1.5 million into the local Tulsa economy and attract upwards of 15,000 spectators and revelers on each of the three days.

Yes, it’s gotten to be a pretty big deal.  

“It’s definitely a destination race,” said Tulsa Tough executive director Malcolm McCollam, one of the original founders. “We’ve heard that from people for the last several years now. If you look at our numbers, last year we had 41 states and 14 countries represented, so word is out.”

Count Daniel Holloway of Boulder, Colorado, as one elite-level racer who agrees. Holloway was the overall winner at last year’s event in the Men’s Crit Pro/Cat 1 series.

“The promoters do an amazing job putting on a cycling event,” said Holloway, who also won the overall Crit championship in Tulsa Tough’s first year, 2006. “They treat the riders better than any race in the country, so it makes it really fun to go out there. They also do a really good job for the spectators to have fun during the races.”

Holloway races in many cycling events across the U.S., working to build up his overall pro tour point totals, so when he rates Tulsa Tough among the best, he is drawing from considerable experience. 

“There are two different race series that riders chase points for,” Holloway explained. “One is the PRT or Pro Road Tour, which is like the newly-re-labeled National Racing Calendar race schedule, where they mixed the stage races back with the criteriums for total points, and then the other one is the USA Crits, which is 10 events around the nation that’s crits only. Those are different styles of racing, but most guys pick and choose between those two schedules.”

Holloway’s racing team, Alto Velo-SeaSucker, also won the team competition at last year’s Tulsa Tough, and teammate Marco Aledia, of Columbus, Ohio, indicated that the team committed to returning to Tulsa as soon as the schedule was announced.

“We mark it on our calendar as soon as it comes out when this race is,” said Aledia, who finished third on his team and 33rd overall last year. “Mostly for Cry Baby Hill, it’s just a fun, fun time. But also, the Blue Dome District, Saturday night. We love to win races and compete, but we also love to go to cool places and hang out and there’s always something going on in Tulsa. It’s just a blast all around.”

Luckily for Holloway and Aledia, they registered for their crit race series before it filled up. McCollam said that Tulsa Tough has become so popular, he has had to turn away a lot of interested racers.

“Unfortunately, we do,” McCollam said. “In these races, we have field limits and races are filling up sooner and sooner than they ever did before. So now we have a wait list that we’ve put together, because occasionally, you do get people that drop out or get injured or for whatever reason are not able to make it. For example, in our top elite category right now, the Cat 1/2 category, the field limit on that race is 125, so once we hit 125, we can’t admit anybody else into the race. It’s full. And the race officials do that because it’s a safety factor, really. These closed courses, you can only accommodate so many … it filled up 60 days out from the race and there are over 30 people on the wait list.”

To give an idea of how much the event has grown since 2006, McCollam said of the first professional criterium race that Holloway won, “I think we had what would be considered in most circles a very respectable field of maybe 60 or 70 athletes.”

As the racing fields have grown, the crowds cheering on the action have swelled, too.

“That first year, we were only getting maybe 5,000 people down there, and now we have maybe 15,000 people a night,” McCollam estimated. “So the crowds have gotten bigger, the race has gotten bigger, so we just have to be mindful of security. I think that first year we used maybe 1,000 feet of steel fencing and this year we’ll use over 5,000.”

He also points out how much the volunteer force has had to grow in order to keep up with the increased demand. The current total of 525 volunteers, which includes what McCollam calls “course marshals” stationed at each un-barricaded corner of the race courses, is about three times what it was the first year.

“It’s easily tripled,” McCollam said. “As the fields get bigger and the crowds get bigger, it does get more complicated. Fortunately, we have a very good foundation of people who have helped from year to year to year, so that’s good, and we’ve built upon that. But like most large-scale events like this, you’re always having to recruit new volunteers, and you can’t do it without volunteers. If you thought about, ‘Okay, I’ve got to hire 525 people to do this,’ the economics would never work out … So we rely on them very much.”

As one of the participants, Holloway has noticed and appreciated Tulsa Tough's impressive growth since 2006.

“There’s just more spectators, the show gets better every year,” Holloway said. “They’ve incorporated fireworks and all those kinds of things. I think that the local spectators are as excited or more excited than the racers, just because it’s become an event for them more than a bike race.”

Aledia also participated in the first Tulsa Tough and has been impressed with how it has evolved since. 

“I did the very first one and the prize money was huge,” Aledia said. “That’s kind of what attracted us first, and then once we got there, it was like, ‘Oh my God.’ The races were awesome, the venues were awesome, the fans. The race was really well-run, especially for a first-year event.”

The three races that make up the crit series consist of Friday night’s McNellie’s Blue Dome Criterium, Saturday night’s George Kaiser Family Foundation Brady Arts District Criterium, and then finishes with Sunday’s River Parks Criterium, which features the infamous weirdo-party subculture of Cry Baby Hill. 

Last year, Holloway won each of the first two stages, and although he “suffered really bad the third day,” he’d compiled enough points to win the overall individual title, while Aledia and crew helped claim the team title.  

Each of those races last 90 minutes, and the riders have to complete as many laps of the circuit as possible in that time frame, so they end up passing the same spectators over and over. 

So yes, the riders really do notice the throng of revelers and feed off of their frenetic energy.

“Absolutely, when the spectators get involved in the race and watch and notice that guys are attacking or suffering, they encourage us,” Holloway said. “We definitely notice and it makes a big difference in our racing.”

The overwhelming enthusiasm with which Tulsa has supported the races, coming back in larger numbers year after year, has been a source of pride for McCollam.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” McCollam admitted. “I moved to Tulsa in 1982 and I’ve been a part of the running and cycling community for, I guess, 34 years now. I’ve been a participant in, and a spectator at, almost every local event we have around here—the big events, the marathon, the Tulsa Run, and other events. And I’ve also traveled all around the country [as a] a participant and a spectator… I’ve just never seen a community grab hold of an event like this and claim ownership of it like Tulsa has done with Saint Francis Tulsa Tough. 

“We always thought we had the capability of producing a really good event and those of us on the inside were comfortable about that, and we always thought we could do something big and cool, but seeing how the community has grabbed a hold of it has been … probably the most gratifying thing to me.”

For more from John, read his article on the Tulsa Athletics' last season in the old Driller Stadium.

Navigating the Gap

A quick guide to Tulsa Tough
 

Friday, June 10

​McNellie's Group Blue Dome Criterium

2nd St. and Elgin Ave.

(Registration & Packet Pick-Up for Races
and Gran Fondos 5 – 9 p.m.)

Men’s Cat III
6:15 p.m.

Men’s Cat I/II
7 p.m.

Women’s Pro I/II
7:55 p.m.

Men’s Pro I
8 p.m.

Imperial Fireworks Display 
beginning at 5 laps to go during men’s race

Women’s Pro I/II Awards Ceremony
at conclusion of men’s race

Men’s Pro I Awards Ceremony
following women’s awards ceremony

Saturday, June 11

Gran Fondos

John Hope Franklin Blvd. and N. Elgin Ave.

(Packet Pick-Up for Gran Fondos 6 – 7 a.m.)

Fondo Rider Staging 
7 a.m.

Start time: Ace/Deuce Peloton
7:30 a.m.

Start time: Fondo Riders (Gran, Medio, Piccolo)
7:40 a.m.

All courses close, route support ends 
5 p.m.

George Kaiser Family Foundation Brady Arts District Criterium

Brady St. and Boston Ave.

Men’s Masters B (Cat III, IV)
10 a.m.

Women’s Masters 40+
10 a.m.

Men’s Cat V 35+
10:50 a.m.

Men’s Cat V under 35
11:30 a.m.

Women’s Cat IV
12:10 p.m.

Women’s Cat III
12:45 p.m.

Men’s Cat IV
1:35 p.m.

Juniors
2:25 p.m.

Kids (ages 9 and under)
3:05 p.m.

Men’s Master A (Cat I, II, III)
3:25 p.m.

Men’s Cat III
4:30 p.m.

Men’s Cat I/II
5:35 p.m.

Women’s Pro I/II Awards Ceremony
at conclusion of men’s race

Men’s Pro I Awards Ceremony
following women’s awards ceremony

Sunday June 12

Gran Fondo

15th St. and Riverside Dr.

(Packet Pick-Up for Gran Fondos 6 – 7 a.m.)

Fondo Rider Staging
7 a.m.

Start time: Deuce Peloton
7:30 a.m.

Start time: Fondo Riders (Gran, Medio, Piccolo)
7:40 a.m.

All courses close, route support ends
5 p.m.

New Medio River Parks Criterium

15th St. and Riverside Dr.

Men’s Masters B (Cat III, IV)
8 a.m.

Women’s Masters 40+
8 a.m. 

Men’s Cat V 35+
8:35 a.m. 

Men’s Cat V under 35
9:10 a.m.

Women’s Cat IV
9:45 a.m.

Women’s Cat III
10:20 a.m.

Men’s Cat IV
11 a.m.

Juniors
11:45 a.m.

Kids (ages 9 and under)
12:20 p.m. 

Men’s Master A (Cat I, II, III)
1 p.m.

Men’s Cat III
1:25 p.m.

Men’s Cat I/II
2:25 p.m.

Women’s Pro I/II Awards Ceremony
at conclusion of men’s race

Men’s Pro I Awards Ceremony
following women’s awards ceremony

Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation Townie Ride

15th St. and Galveston Ave.

Mass start
2:15 p.m.