In no way is it controversial to say that Tulsa Tough stands as the greatest among equals when it comes to criterium racing. In its 20-year history riders have determined that it is the most important three consecutive days of the season. The race weekend contains the opening night of the American Criterium Cup, the premier national criterium series, at Blue Dome and the fourth monument of racing at Cry Baby Hill. In between the first day made for sprinters and the third day made for hard men and women, is the Arts District which is an anything goes kind of day. In the past three years we’ve seen back-to-back field sprint wins by Dario Rapps, and an extended breakaway win by Moritz Augenstein, both of whom rode for DCC Alpecin. It genuinely is a weekend that offers opportunities for everyone.
If you go back to the first edition in 2006 you will see the famed broadcaster Daniel Holloway went second, third, and fourth. The intervening years have seen a veritable who’s who of winners. In 20 years only 1 person has raced every edition— Stefan Rothe who at racing age 45 had very respectable results in the 1/2 field. This year’s race brought together gravel pros, UCI teams, national champions, full European squads, and the best the United States can field to the second most populous town in Oklahoma. There has to be a reason for this, so we collected thoughts from the men as to their takeaways from a race so legendary that it advises fans to go so hard that even they need to “take Monday off.”
The first thing is that the race and town have evolved together. The first time I did Tulsa was in 2009. At that point, the Blue Dome race was run the opposite direction and you parked in a gravel lot that was located in the area between corners 6 and 7, i.e., the luxury apartments that now overlook the course. Cry Baby Hill was still a party, but there wasn’t a festival and stage. The city has grown to support the event. Even people at the airport show appreciation when we arrive, and these are the same ones handling our massive bike bags.
A unique element of the event is that all three courses are within walking distance of a central location, and almost everyone seems to end up drinking coffee at DoubleShot. After the racing is over, those same people are lined up at the Soundpony Lounge or The Majestic. The latter location is where I once saw Skylar Schneider take what I think was her first ever tequila shot, right alongside Luke Lamperti who definitely was not taking his first ever shot the way he handled it like a pro. I left at 1 am before things got out of control and Dusan Kalaba started pole dancing.
One person who has thrived at Tulsa is Michael Garrison of SpeedStudio. Garrison has been a one-person-other-team’s-plan-wrecking crew. When Augenstein won at the Arts District in 2024 it was from a breakaway with Garrison and Alec Cowan. Garrison had succeeded in taking Cowan off the back of the threesome but did not try to drag himself back up to the leader. From an outsider’s perspective it almost looked personal. Last year, at Blue Dome, Garrison rode the front for several laps late disrupting all sprint trains leading to a chaotic and extremely entertaining finish. Then there was 2025 at Cry Baby Hill in a breakaway with Robin Carpenter of Legion of LA that gave us not one but two clips of Garrison bunny hopping the curb into the grass at the exit of the turn onto Riverside Drive. Yes, I was entertained. Garrison told us “Tulsa is a real embodiment of my philosophy of what sport should be — serious racing wrapped in a somewhat unserious package.” This echoes a statement made by Caley Fretz in the first episode of 2026 where he pointed out that bike racing is an entertainment product. "Fun is what makes good, and sustainable bike racers,” according to Garrison.
One thing that I have wondered is whether results matter to him because he seems to want to inject chaos, as opposed to well timed attacks. He admits that results matter; but that he is there to tell a story. He labels standing on the podium “while full teams are chasing us down, (as) a huge success.” Tulsa offers that type of stage with three full days of broadcast coverage with dedicated announcers in Holloway and Gabe Lloyd. The commentary and the production quality make telling that story engaging.
Looking at Brody McDonald, who now races on the second division ProRoad Tour Modern Adventure, one has to wonder why he keeps showing up when he could be off racing in Europe. McDonald obviously wanted to defend his win at Cry Baby Hill; however, there has to be more than just that to make the trip. He pointed out that for Modern Adventure Pro Cycling “we believe it’s important to make an appearance at all of America’s biggest races regardless of the discipline.” But why this discipline and this location? “Tulsa embodies what makes American racing special, the intensity, the party, the speed,” according to Brody. It reminds me of the Ole Miss football slogan from my time at law school, “we may not win every game, but we’ve never lost a party.”
The party is fun but the racing still has to rise to a certain level. We had a lot of great parties at the University of Kansas while I was there but if the basketball team lost that day, the party wasn’t the same. So let’s stay focused on the racing. “(Tulsa) is a race where boys become men,” said Tom Scott of UTC ButcherBox. Scott is from Great Britain but attends school in Indiana. He’s been to a lot of random parts of America pursuing this sport so there has to be value in this outsider’s view, so I dug deeper with him on this soundbite. “These races are fast and require skill and precision.” That is obviously true, we also saw Scott dance up to Culmination Corner on day three several times. “You have to be willing to risk it in corners and go elbow-to-elbow with some of the best for a chance of a good result.”
Someone who has had really good results is Dario Rapps, the aforementioned sprinter from DCC Alpecin. Winning two days of Tulsa in any given year is a result that will go top of the resume for almost any rider. Doing it in back-to-back years is next level. The thing about Rapps is that he genuinely seems to love it. He celebrates getting a call up as much as he does winning a race, and it’s infectious joy. Watching him win is fun.
“Tulsa Tough represents everything that makes criterium racing special,” says the German. “You have some of the best riders in the world battling on iconic courses, but what keeps me coming back is the incredible atmosphere.” Let’s not overlook the fact that in 20 years of history these courses, i.e., just ordinary roads in a town of 400,000 people, have become genuinely iconic. You have to imagine local residents of the Koppenberg just look at all of us salivating over a 600 meter long stretch of cobblestones that rises 64 meters, and asking what gives? Even the name Koppenberg isn’t romantic . . . it’s the Dutch shortening for cobblestones which in slang is kinderkoppen or “children’s heads,” a reference for how they must look to the locals after too many Leffe blondes.
The figure eight at Blue Dome, the stretch of road up to the Soundpony at the Arts District, and basically all of Cry Baby Hill are stretches of pavement that people not from Tulsa come to, to visualize themselves winning a race. Just typing that phrase seems weird to me; but at the same time makes perfect sense. As Rapps said “the fans, hospitality, and local community create an energy that’s impossible to find anywhere else. Tulsa is a tough race, but an even tougher party.” Clearly, the Berlin nightclub scene has a challenger.
Diving into the race weekend, and the takeaways that can be had from what Holloway called “the best three days of racing in (Tulsa’s) history.” Daniel encapsulates it succinctly saying “when the light is bright the real diamonds shine.” On the men’s side the best sprinter of the weekend was clearly Rapps, whereas the best bike racer was Bryan Gomez. Rapps was simply unmatchable in the first two days of racing. The explosiveness from the final corner to the finishing line on day one by the German separated him from everyone else. When Gomez turned the table on night two and lead into the final turn, Rapps had more fuel in the afterburners and just outlasted the Foundation NYC rider. I would love to do a side-by-side of their power numbers.
What separated Gomez and pushed him to the top was his versatility on day three where he finished third, winning the field sprint. It is so hard to translate the vast difference in rider profiles from those that see success on day one versus those that excel at Cry Baby Hill. It’s part of what makes the race weekend so dynamic that so many riders have a chance to perform. Look at Riley Wrightsman from Chaney Windows and Doors. He’s a rider who knows that the first two days of racing are likely not going to see a standout result for him. This is a bit of a misnomer as he finished 20th and 21st on Friday and Saturday, both of which would count in my books as impressive.
Wrightsman knew he had an opportunity at Cry Baby Hill and took it. An argument can be made that his was the ride of the weekend. Getting dropped by Matthew Wilson of Scott Sports USA with three to go, and virtually imploding for a few seconds, one could be forgiven for bagging it and folding back into the field. However, with a 40 second lead, he soldiered on. And for that we were the benefactors. When Wrightsman turned onto the final stretch Gomez and company were right on his heels; yet he still brought home a second place. “Seeing my dad, girlfriend, and DS all crying was a bit emotional and I still can’t really believe that I pulled it off,” he said. “I felt like Per Strand Hagenes after his E3 second place saying ‘I’m finally not shit anymore.’”
We cannot overlook the gravel and MTB XC rider Wilson’s performance on that final day. The New Zealander did exactly what was expected of a good bike racer . . . he rode well at a hard bike race. The “unprecedented” nature of his win is not that unprecedented given how Colin Strickland performed at that very race several years back after finishing Unbound Gravel. We also have seen a rider like Joe Laverick out perform expectations with his entire Ribble Rebellion squad at other races which only proves a point made here numerous times— good bike racers are good bike racers despite the discipline.
As far as the teams involved DCC Alpecin stood tall upon exiting Tulsa. “Domestic racing needs their energy, race panache and authenticity at more races,” said Holloway. In the weekends that they have lined up in the US, they have been players in each race. We just need to see them more often to really evaluate their potential. The same can be said of teams like TEKKERZ, Whoosh New Zealand Cycling Project, and 54x11, which were absent from this weekend, but whom we would absolutely love to see at this race weekend. Another team that the race would benefit from having is Project Echelon. I would love to see the Wisconsin-based squad line up in Tulsa so that their US-based veteran supporters can see their men in action at the highest stage of American racing. However, I know that Eric Hill will not send his team to Tulsa without some systemic changes; however, if those four squads joined the fray we would have a legitimate claim that Tulsa is simply criterium Worlds (I personally would prefer trade teams over national teams at Worlds).
Two other teams showed up at Tulsa this year— Foundation NYC and Legion of LA. Gomez’s overall win is a testament to Foundation’s total team concept that has been on clear display all season long. “They set out to win everyday and ended up with the overall in a story no one could have written beforehand,” per Holloway. As for Legion, they “played the cards they had.” Holloway believes that if only a few dominoes had fallen differently the Legion squad would have landed on the podium. That is quite an achievement and comeback from Justin Williams, Noah Granigan, and company. There is a day that we will need to discuss Justin Williams’s legacy in the past tense, but with races like these that looks like it is still some place in the future.
That obviously leaves one team on the outside looking in. “(Team) Cadence leaves Tulsa with a tucked tail yet again,” according to multi-time Tulsa winner and podium finisher Holloway. Acknowledging that the squad has faced injuries this year, most notably broken collarbones for Cade Bickmore and Danny Summerhill, “even with the leanest squad of the major players they should still have no issues landing podiums all three days.” The best Cadence mustered was a third for Lucas Bourgoyne at Blue Dome.
Bourgoyne obviously is not one to take that time of criticism without a retort. However, Lucas’s response is humble (at first) where he acknowledged that it wasn’t what they were aiming for when they rolled into town. He referred to Tulsa as his “white whale . . . for now.” Then he continued that he will not only win a race at Tulsa but that he will be the first person to win all three days in one year. He pointed out that the last time that Holloway brought a similar criticism of his performance, that Bourgoyne and company went on a stellar winning spree.
Tulsa comes to a close for this year, but the legend lives on.
Photos by Kai Caddy.