Breakdown of the Women's ACC Opener at Tulsa Tough
The night the criterium world was (almost) turned upside down.
The women’s race at Tulsa Tough begins and ends in the golden hour, making it a picture-perfect setting to showcase the best in women’s criterium racing. The 2025 edition is also the opening weekend of the American Criterium Cup. It comes hot off the heels of two incredible weekends of racing on the East Coast with Easton/Somerville and Armed Forces. As usual, brought the American racing season to a fever pitch. The teams and fans were primed and ready to see something special, and the women did not disappoint.
American cycling has a growing level of pageantry and pomp, and despite Tulsa’s exceptionally down-to-earth demeanor, the city revels in the opportunity to get behind this race weekend. With 20,000 fans lining the course, and the walkway in the middle of the figure-eight jammed to capacity, the riders were greeted by unexpectedly pleasant temperatures and the very much expected wall of crowd noise at each turn as they started their 70-minute race around the 8-corner, 1-kilometer course.
Since the end of the pandemic, Blue Dome has been owned by the Legion of Los Angeles. Skylar Schneider won the race twice, in 2021 and 2022, and Kendall Ryan won it in 2024. The only year they didn’t was the infamous 2023 finish when Ryan was relegated following a deviation in her line going into corner eight. With Ryan on an absolute tear and her main competition, Marlies Mejias Garcia of Twenty28, absent, the California native was a heavy favorite to win.
Ryan's challenge in Tulsa was the same one she faced at Nationals last month. She started the race with only two teammates, Holly Breck and Laurel Rathbun, rather than a full team. The question would be whether those two were enough. The answer was an emphatic “yes” at Nationals, but the bright lights and thundering crowd in Tulsa adds an almost supernatural level of tension and expectation. Coming into the race, Ryan’s top competition was her sister Alexis Magner of Cynisca Cycling, who had an able lieutenant in Chloe Patrick at her side. In addition, there was Cassie Hickey of CCB/Levine Law Group, whose squad has seriously turned up the pressure on the front of the peloton in the last two weeks. Not far behind those squads was the Aussie-heavy squad of Fearless Femmes Racing and their exceptionally talented phenom Odette Lynch.
However, none of those women were the center of attention for most of the race. Rather, it was the tandem of Bryony Botha of Fearless Femmes and Grace Arlandson of Automatic/ABUS, who would steal the show and almost take the win. The two would roll off the front and establish a modest early gap of around 5 seconds. Their lead would quickly bloom to 15 seconds and eventually all the way out to 35 seconds as the contenders carefully weighed and controlled the race situation. With the women turning laps at just under 2 minutes, a 35-second lead meant about 1/4 of the course, and more importantly, out of sight even on the longest straightaway. Making Arlandson and Botha out of sight and potentially out of mind.
As the lap counter began to wane, Arlandson demonstrated that she was clearly the fresher rider, probably due to the fact that Botha had burned a few more matches early on in her effort to form the break of the day. With 10 laps of racing, the gap was still at 25 seconds, and the breakaway riders were still taking relatively equal pulls. The status quo would continue with the field slowly chipping into the lead of the breakaway through five laps to go. However, that was when the lights slowly started flickering out for Botha, and her posture changed from fluid to fighting. Half a lap later, Botha would give the universal sign for "I’m cracking” when she refused to pull through on Arlandson. At that moment, Arlandson should perhaps have opted to drop her breakaway partner and take on the few remaining miles solo, but she chose to keep her pace steady, likely buoyed by the pair’s gap increasing back to 35 seconds.
CCB/Levine Law Group responded to the threat and sent two riders to the front, rolling into four laps, stretching the field out into a very long, thin line. Lauren Stephens, the savvy veteran and decorated time trialist with Aegis Cycling, came around the CCB/Levine Law Group riders a lap later and dramatically lifted the pace. Rathbun followed her to the front with similar force, and the pack finally brought the breakaway force back within their sights. With two to go, Patrick attempted to anticipate the action and took a flyer with relative newcomer Josephine Peloquin of LA Sweat. The two attackers flew across the remaining gap and bridged to the breakaway pair within three corners.
With one to go, there was still a concerning gap between the now four-rider breakaway, but Legion’s Holly Breck had an effort in reserve, and she drove the peloton right onto the back of the leaders. With four corners remaining, the catch was made, and the entire race had reset. CCB’s Patrick stormed around the breakaway riders with Alexis Magner and Kendall Ryan clinging to her wheel. Ryan rode confidently in her sister’s slipstream. Magner hit the wind and burned through the final set of corners with Ryan still in position A, followed by Josephine Peloquin of LA Sweat and a resurgent Cassie Hickey.
Magner deftly pinned her chasers to the outside barriers on corner exit, but Ryan found the inside line and exploded towards the finish. Her jump appeared to decimate Peloquin, casting her out of the draft and creating a bike-length gap back to Hickey with less than 150 meters to the line. The damage was insurmountable, and Ryan had time to celebrate her own coronation as 2025’s Criterium Queen.
It was a race that rewarded Ryan’s patience as much as her power, along with her teammates’ selfless drive. It was a well-deserved win.
Photos by Kai Caddy. Edited by Jordan Cheyne. Logan Jones Wilkins contributed to this story.
Definitely a valiant effort from that breakaway