If you’ve ever stood in the bathroom at Soundpony Lounge, then you know pretty much everything you need to know about Cry Baby Hill. We say this with love. Nowhere else in Tulsa can you find the same alchemy of grime, enthusiasm, glorious disaster, uninhibited love, community hotness, joy, and absolute mess than at this now-legendary event. Born from the beloved chaotic-good haunt where cycling and drinking first intermingled here, Team Soundpony’s watch party on Cry Baby Hill marks the incredible final day of Tulsa Tough, where cyclists race up and down the killer hills south of downtown, being cheered on, hollered at, and entertained by . . . well, by you. In themed costume. In flagrante. In the most public display of expressive, exhilarated fervor most of you let fly with all year.
Andy Wheeler is a multivalent bike advocate: co-director of Cry Baby Hill, public interest writer for Bike Club, and Minister of Information/Board of Directors member for Team Soundpony, a cycling team whose riders seem to have more fun than most. ("Bicycles are a rolling celebration," says the CBH Facebook page, "and we are just an extension of that.") His favorite place to ride is in the “insanely gorgeous” hills of Osage County. He talked with us about the genesis of CBH, the cultural anthropology of what the hell happens up there and the instant theme kismet that was Tiger King.
AC: Is there something about the culture of cycling that brings this kind of spirit out? Because this kind of thing doesn't happen at the end of, like, a baseball game.
AW: Before Tulsa Tough got here in 2006, we [Team Soundpony and CBH originators Wheeler, Mike Wozniak and Josh Gifford] were amateur bike racers in our 20s and 30s who had a lot more energy for this kind of thing, but we didn't have anything local. We grew up watching the Tour de France on these random networks, or in old antiquated movies. The most dramatic parts of the races were always these mountain climbs where the race would be decided. We always knew hills decided races, but we also appreciated the fans along the side of the road. I think the Italians call them the tifosi—the really rabid cycling fans. Those were the stages we would get up at five o'clock in the morning to watch. So we literally learned on television how to lose our minds. Like, hey, we've got it: we’ve gotta be drinking since Tuesday, and then go up on a mountainside and scream at everybody that goes by. Yeah!
AC: So when Tulsa Tough arrived, you were ready.
AW: What happened was, the Saturday race went on from maybe 10:00am till 8:00 or 9:00pm, maybe 9:30. And then all the pro racers went up to Soundpony [which two founders of Team Soundpony had just opened the month before, and which sat right in front of the course] and hung out. And everybody met up there and partied a little bit, and the people who weren’t racing on Sunday just … kept going. That was the genesis of Cry Baby Hill. Everybody went up there the next morning to watch the Sunday races, super tired, groggy, maybe a little drunk still. I think the costumes also grew out of the fact that all our clothes were so dirty and so disheveled and we thought, we gotta do something to hide, like, the train wreck that is the darkness behind my eyes. And costumes certainly helped with that. I don’t want to make it sound like a complete catastrophe, but that's exactly what it is. It's a complete catastrophe.
AC: What makes it so cathartic?
AW: There's very defined borders on CBH: the condos and houses on one side and the bike race on the other. There's very defined rules: no dogs, no kids, no whining, no glass, and this year, no coolers. Within those borders and rules, between that gap, people feel a sense of comfort with their friends to lose their minds. It's a container for the madness. It's almost an accomplishment in and of itself to make it up there. But the real accomplishment is to be able to endure that all day. I mean, the racers are going by like 70 times in a row, doing 20 miles an hour. It's crazy. And then the people that have been up there since like 8:00am, partying really hard, they're part of the spectacle too. Everybody's just been screaming for the entire day. I always took pride in the fact of how shot my voice was the next day. Like, is there anything left? No, there is not? Then I had a really good time.