*That* Spartanburg Night
One of my best racing memories ever.
Hey! I wrote this in conjunction with Rob Kelly of Criterium Nation, and Logan Jones-Wilkins too. A sunny evening in late April, we turn up to Spartanburg, the second night of Speedweek. If I’m honest, I didn’t really want to be there, in hindsight I’m so glad that I was.
I hope this article gives a little insight into it all…
Playbill: We present this drama of cycling at its peak, as all good British drama is presented, in five acts, with a compelling narrator-led intro and a pithy epilogue. Ribble Rebellion may have now been consumed by the dark, though it did not go easy into that proverbial good night. No, it raged, raged against the dying of the light, and in one bright violent moment through fierce tears and mighty deeds it found its measure, and we are better for it.
Cast of Characters:
Joe Laverick: Grimsby, England. Team manager, rider, jack of all trades - master of none.
Jim Brown: Holmfirth, England. The man who is always late, unless it’s to win a bike race.
Al Morison: Portsmouth, England (not Virginia or Massachusetts). The world’s fastest accountant.
Matt Bostock: Isle of Man. A true bike racer. Hardman on the outside, but soft on the inside. Purportedly the best criterium racer in the world.
Cam Fitzmaurice: Vancouver, British Columbia. The smoothest pedaling man on the team.
Cole Davis: Sacramento, California. There are no words to describe the man that is Cole Davis.
I will never forget that night in Spartanburg.
Jim won, Al finished third. We rode it perfectly. It took the commentators a while to catch on to what we were doing and it angered a couple of the team directors. But by hell, what a race.
It was maybe the happiest I’ve been all year. That bear hug that shouts of “we fucking did it boys, we did it” from Jim Brown
Let me take you back through the best team ride I’ve ever been a part of.
It’s late on Thursday night and we’ve just finished the first race of Speedweek. We’ve raced well, getting our two strongest crit guys, Matt Bostock and Jim Brown, in the winning move. I don’t see a situation where we lose.
The peloton obviously starts to slow down. I feel as if I’m dragging my brakes as Legion goes to the front. It gets slower. Then slower again. The breakaway comes up to lap us, I move to the left to get out of the way and expect them to go straight through.
Then, suddenly, we’re back racing. Lead-outs have started, and I’m thoroughly confused. It’s a big mess. We finish up badly and question what just happened. Back in the UK, if the breakaway laps the bunch, the bunch gets out of the way. Not in the US.
Back at our host house, we debrief. Matt Bostock and I get into an argument. He’s pissed that I hadn’t been much of a help - that’s true, I hate crits - I argue back that we (they’d) raced perfectly to the tactics we thought had taken place.
“If that situation happens again, we go to the front and ride. We don’t let them lap.”, Bocky exclaims.
“Yeah, like that situation’ll ever happen again…” I reply back sarcastically.
Spartanburg, a city of 38,000 in South Carolina, and host of a round of USACrits. It has the most American of American circuits – four corners with two tight sets of corners and longer straightaways. Historically it is very boring beyond the crashing and the chaos of the sprint. Nevertheless, it's a short lap too at only 820 meters in length. With lap times hovering around the 64-second mark, if a breakaway gets away, it will lap the field.
We’re less than ten minutes into the race. I somehow blagged (editor’s note: blagged is British slang for getting something in a cheeky, harmless way) a call up so I started on the front row. We all cover moves and something slips away. Jim and Al make it. Bingo.
Coming out of the corner that leads to the finish line, Cam Fitzmaurice and I come up on the outside of the bunch.
“Don’t let them lap. Don’t let them lap,” Matt Bostock shouts.
I nod, and Cam gets on my wheel. We know exactly what to do. A mere eighteen hours ago, we spoke about this situation that would “never happen again.”
You’re not lapping up, I thought to myself. Not tonight. Not on my watch. We’re all in.
*Record scratch*
Hi, my name is Logan Jones-Wilkins and I am a reporter. You might be wondering at this point if Joe is high on his own supply. “Is this really exhilarating,” you might be asking yourself, “or is this a time where hindsight is one of rose coloured glasses.”
And I can promise you it was. From the outside of the barriers, the race came to life with this shift in tactical expectation.
Around the pits, while the race began moving and grooving, the change in the room was palpable. It started normally enough, as the breakaway got up the road with all of who seemed to be the important players in a breakaway that could go the distance, but once Joe started pulling on the front with focus and the gap stalled, expectations went out the window.
In criterium racing, there is a containment to the racing that makes it both easy to understand, but also lack a lot of the entertaining inconsistency of road racing. People will argue the contrary, saying things like criterium racing is more intense than road racing or that criterium racing is the rock n’ roll side of cycling. All of that is bullocks (editor’s note: you know what this word means). 90% of the time – and 99.99% of the time at a race like Spartanburg – it's simple, straightforward and decidedly road racing’s little brother. There is beauty in that, beauty in the sport that is simpler, but as a fan of cycling there is always a bit of joie de vivre that is lacking.
But not that night.
With Ribble doing a dance on front of both groups, the emotions and uncertainty of bike racing’s capacity cut through the form. Aggression spilled out onto the streets as the other members of the breakaway tried to use all their craft and manipulation to try and change the minds of the Ribble boys, while confusion only made tempers flare higher. Every lap there was something to see, a gap to check, and fleeting moments of talk and body language to process.
It was all electric in a way criterium racing wishes it was but doesn’t always live up to. In retrospect, it was a gift that I feel special to have enjoyed, even if it was for one night and one night only.
Anyways, back to you Joe.
“We are never one to question tactics, we are here just to call it. It’s fascinating to watch Ribble Rebellion do what they’re doing. They have two riders in the breakaway who I feel they are very confident in, but they’re also on the front trying to control it.” - Commentators
It became a game of cat and mouse.
We knew that if we got lapped, the win was gone. REIGN Storm are simply too good at controlling big bunch sprints, we don’t have the firepower to beat them. That meant our only tactic was to make sure the group didn’t lap.
We were playing with fire. Let it out too much, and the group is back on us. Keep it too close and maybe people try to jump across.
Cam and I are in control of the front. Single lap pulls, swap out on the same corner as if we’re doing an exchange in Team Pursuit. It was hard, I’m riding pulls at time-trial pace and it becomes Cam and I versus the breakaway. Bocky sits in third wheel, sweeping anyone who even attempts to get in our way. Up front, Al and Jim keep things under control, speeding the break up, or slowing it down as appropriate. They’re not making friends, they’re bike racing.
With twenty laps to go, we start to lose control. I pull a double lap pull, but I’m rapidly fading. Bostock swaps in to help us out every now and then and Cole almost blows it all up with too hard of a pull. The swarm comes from both sides, but nobody else has the man power to pull a chase out.
We lose control and the bright colours of Ribble Rebellion fade back into the bunch. It’s in the hands of the cycling Gods…
There are few people who I’ve raced with that I’d rather be in the breakaway than Jim Brown. He’s one of the classiest bike riders I’ve raced for, or against. I’d told him the day before that if he ever gets away with Michael Garrison then he should sit on his wheel.
Michael’s one of my closest friends, I’ve raced with him for years and I know how good he is at positioning and raw power. I also know that if Jim was to sit on him then he’d get the perfect leadout and be able to come around him.
Garrison went long - it was a good move, and his only shot of winning. Jim followed. Jim won. Al Murison finished 3rd - not a bad result for an accountant…
—
The final lap was carnage. Crashes everywhere, it was unhinged. I sat up and rode it chill, there was nothing I could do at this point. The boys quickly caught up to me. I’m a writer, but I think this video explains it all a touch better…
I’m still not a crit boy, but the feeling that night was like no other. A group of mates, all in for each other. There was a feeling of pride in the streets of South Carolina that night. Our motto of: disrupt the global crit scene was always a little tongue in cheek, but that night, that’s exactly what we did.
I’ll miss you, Ribble Rebellion.
Here’s a short video with onboard footage with the tactical breakdown of the night:
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