Is the Legion of LA Era Over? USA Crits/Speedweek/Nats LIVE POD – The American Peloton

Racing is in FULL SWING here in the USA. We’ve got crits. We’ve got stage races. We’ve got nationals. Jonathan and Ben were out at Speedweek and saw some of the most exciting and dynamic races of the 24 season. We’ll talk through the shocks and revelations from all the post NCL collapse racing in America. Is it the end of the Legion of LA era? Did Ribble Rebellion disrupt the global crit scene? Is Reign Storm the best crit team, even though Project Echelon swept the nats podium???? We’re getting into it LIVE on The American Peloton.

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[Music] [Music] [Music] what is up I am Jonathan crane uh and I guess I need a new sign in um I’ve I’m nearing my points for a one I think I I don’t know how much I can say uh mediocre Cat 2 anymore because I’ve had a really good season um yeah so yeah I guess I’m taking submissions for a new sign on but I’m Jonathan I’m Ben head coach at Skyway cycling and team director at Skyway presented by Dom myque coffee speaking of uh you having some good results I guess it’s been kind of crazy I think it’s like been like what six weeks since our last show uh there’s been at least one wedding I can’t remember if you got married before or after the last show we definitely both went on honeymoon since then um I think I’ve raced like eight times since then or something yeah it’s been a little hectic but the reason you can’t say you’re mediocre Cat 2 anymore it’s because you got second in the USA crits race in the Cat 2 in the cat yeah yeah yeah I want to over and then we had a phenomenal speed week as a team yeah um four wins out of seven races that we had guys in uh podium in every race we entered we went two at Union City uh and so you did a lot of work as well helping us get those wins so meder Cat 2 is going to be no longer relevant yeah I guess good good cat 2 question mark at this point um yeah speed week was awesome speed week was like one of the most fun times I’ve had racing a bike for sure this year uh yeah we were all firing on all cylinders and you know doing the Cat 2 races I love to do my race go lay in the grass for a minute and then watch the pro race and we have had a ton of great racing in America um I don’t know Ben I may have sprung this on you but I think I titled the the stream is American Racing better than uh I think I said than the zuro or better than European racing but you said the zuro and I almost texted you because my YouTube algorithm like pushed it out to me and I was like I was like dude reddit’s going to have a field day with this which is I I want Reddit to have a f day with this so that that was based on like we’ve had the conversation it’s been going on in like almost any cycling uh group that I’m in that the jro’s been pretty boring and I you know you like to see a strong Rider win or whatever but uh it has been like not the most compelling thing to watch outside of maybe stage 19 when EF won like a couple little things but the the length of racing broadcast versus like the moments of Interest has been a pretty low ratio as opposed to USA crits and speed week which like I would say that seven out of 10 of those races you know they were that’s not the number but you know what I’m saying 70% of the time you were watching those was pretty like good interesting racing and dynamic uh yeah I I think I texted our like team group chat at like stage five whatever the first time trial was it like stage five and I was like well damn the jiro’s over you did what are we doing and I think I was I’m not a world tour DS I’m a team director for a cat 2 crit team but I was like every stage what are these teams doing like why are they not making UA UAE work this break back why is M Star on the front like what is going on I think they kept thinking because those were like M Star especially is an example of a team that is pretty Spanish pretty traditional cycling and the traditional cycling brain is like if you’re winning GC by that much your GC guy isn’t going to attack for more time so they’re like right in their minds they’re like it doesn’t matter if we get POG to the foot of the climb at the same time as nairo nairo will attack uh POG will see that nairo is not a threat on GC and let him go but that’s just not like it cycling is different this is a new era and and Pog likes to win races like I hate that he’s such a good guy like the nice guy because I want him to be a villain because I think it’d be more fun if he was a villain yeah no it would be for sure speak so talking about like the change in Era gets me to the other thing I thought about titling This and like maybe I’ll go back and change it that’s the new thing if y’all don’t know for YouTube is that you like change the thumbnail and change the name a few times so even if it’s pumping it out to the same people I don’t know if the algorithm chooses again who to send it to or if it’s just like tripling the chance that the same person would click on it but the other title I thought about for this is is this the end of the Legion era and I think we’re actually at like a demarcation point right now in the last couple of weeks where uh Legions won a bunch of stuff but I think that uh on the men’s side you know this season clearly has been a drop off on the women’s side uh kindall and Alexis are still killing it and it took a minute for anyone to crack the code but I think during speed week uh with Karen Lecky and then with Alexis and Kendall not winning at kitap like I think that it’s you know they’ve fallen off not fallen off but the spell has been broken they are no longer the like absolute most dominant team maybe I’m getting ahead of our chronology here we have no chronology we’re just shooting from this but like okay e Easton crit was last night and then okay shout out to the promoter there was a live stream wasn’t perfect but it exist existed and it was on the bicycling mag YouTube if anyone wants to go check it out it was on YouTube so I give them credit for that like this is on YouTube that’s where people want to go to watch stuff and the algorithm will show it to more people who might want to see it so so so no joke like I was in here um working and I was like on YouTube like I just need some background noise algorithm pumped it right out to me so shout out to who got that right whereas if that was on like you know speed week. bike and it’s using the Vimeo player there’s no way that would have gotten to you because you weren’t going to go to you know not that it’s part of speed we but just as an example of like where other race streams tend to live and like I didn’t know that was going to be streamed at all I just happened upon it right and that’s I think where USA crits and speed weat can improve on but like every domestic race I think I there needs to be a home a a YouTube channel or a place you can go where all of those YouTube channels are are uh aggregated yeah but they all need to be on YouTube if your race isn’t going on YouTube honestly and T like we’re going to YouTube and twitch right now just pump it out everywhere but definitely YouTube yeah well I mean even like flow bikes right like full stop you and I did not pay the $200 to watch USA proats don’t don’t have it right pay but 24 to 48 hours later all of the National Championship races were on YouTube yeah um and I will okay totally sidebar from what my original point was but that’s what this episode is going to be too much stuff has happened so we’re but like they put the women’s crit on YouTube immediately after right it took them two or three days or almost a week to put the men’s race on which to me is like kind of like okay they’re saying the women’s race is not as valuable and so they’re putting that out as a teaser to be like hey look how good our coverage is pay for the men’s rates right um which I’m I’m not happy about I think that’s a little bit of a dig to the women’s race I also think if so I guess let’s get into those races we’re talking about them yeah so the Nationals specifically the crits I think the women’s race was much more um compelling of a race than the men’s crit was AG cuz really you had almost uh project on doing kind of like what Legion was doing two years ago in races like this uh it’s a wet race for the men night race and they just got on the front and sat six deep and hammered and no one could really get around them like one ones and twos at a time but when someone would get around they crank the pace back up and reel them back in yep and then it ended with a crash uh third wheel maybe Ethan crane I don’t want to speak out of turn there I’m not sure who it was third wheel it was bickmore oh Kade bmore okay well and you think it was like the Saturn sit up maybe like almost somewhat inal I’m kidding having watched it uh I’m kidding he Kade hits a paint arrow pretty Square on there’s a painted you know like turn arrow and everyone else in the team goes a little bit to one side of it and his front wheel Clips it dead on and you know they’re going full lead out speed which is probably a little bit faster so it’s one of those situations where the line that has been working the whole race you know speed goes up one mile hour and suddenly that line doesn’t work anymore you hit the break point uh right well I think he uh again I maybe speaking out of turn there are like a million races all of the ones that you can watch I have watched and all of the results I’ve boned up on again but I want to say off the top of my head a race that happened yesterday Kade bmore did well at snake Aly maybe even won it someone from Echelon won snake alley I can pull it up real quick speaking of echelon uh Tyler Stites got a top 10 at tour of Norway yesterday or today yeah that was definitely on my long list and the finish the the results list for that stage were crazy and this goes back to the thing we always people are always telling us that you know American Racing sucks and these guys would get destroyed in Europe the top 10 for that stage of tour of Norway is like uh Alexander Kristoff won Magnus Court was like 10th uh W vanart was third I believe and so an ealon Rider being in there like that’s that’s top top level uh company you know no one is there’s no one missing from that list absolutely so I the results are not published online yet and I missed the instagam stories yeah and I missed the Instagram stories but I found them somewhere earlier but they were not easy to get to um like I’m Googling them using all the keywords I did go find results for every single um USA crits and speed week race and like take a screenshot and clip those all into a folder partially just to like remind myself of how all those races went down but it is still a pain in the ass to find results like some of them are on road results not under the name you’d think or let’s see oh that’s from 2023 I was on the Quickstar the Quad City’s citarum website yeah it’s again results are too hard to find which is something we harp on forever it’s out there somewhere yeah but yeah it’s it’s tough to to find everything anyway I think snake alley would be a fun Race To Be Live streamed because it actually has a feature worth highlighting but here it’s kind of fun that that that’s a race that is so wacky like it has such an iconic like uh unique Road and then it’s also like in a weird place it’s not in a major Metro it’s got a little bit of a a like um underground punk rock thing to it that it’s like you kind of got to be in the know to no snake alley for sure but okay back to Easton about Legion the end of an era you go back to Easton and then I’ll come back to Nationals all right so Easton Corey Williams was there Ty Magner Robin Carpenter Alec Cowen Legion not on the podium so your Podium was Lucas Borgo from Austin Outlaws we’ve talked about yeah Alec Briggs from techers went get second coming over from England yeah and then uh Miami Blazers was third I’m drawn blank was it Johnny Clark uh Clark was definitely there and definitely like animating I don’t think he was third but Miami Blazers was third with it and I know that for a fact I’m drawn a blank on the name and I apologize because someone’s gonna be like how the hell did you forget it is what it is the race just happened and the results are hard to find yeah so with that Legion not being there I will say I thought it was really interesting it’s so Easton is part of the Somerville weekend so you have Easton planfield was today which I have no news on yeah it seems like that like Somerville and Easton are streamed and planville is not yeah or if there’s a stream drop it in the comments we’re live right now so somebody show us right and then Somerville is tomorrow and with that so you have techers CC which is a English team coming out you have DCC yep British English yeah yeah I I’m not from there so then you have um DCC from Germany that was there mq from New Zealand as well um and so you had three of our national teams coming out to this race yeah and a non-series race a race that’s not USA crits not ACC not speed week uh not even part of a like intelligencia something like that n just to stand alone yeah and they’re kind of looping this in with Armed Forces classic which is next weekend as as this is being recorded right so they’re kind of looping those in um I feel like the the Somerville thing has kind of been retconed a little bit I don’t know if it’s because you know they really upped the the director support if Legion was there and so I know Corey was really helping techers or not Justin was really helping techers figure out whether they needed to be here so I don’t know if it’s somville and that weekend of races upping their game or if because Legion was there and they kind of have that techer uh connection because they were part of crit I think it’s some of both I think here’s my guess of what happened behind the scenes my guess is that the race director said we want to go up a level for next year what are the things we got to do have a live stream maybe this was the one where the whole thing was live stream sced off Daniel Hall’s head last year I know someone tried that out it may have been this one regardless it was an ACC race there there was um there is more of a live stream this year than there was last year Y and then they also said we got to get the top teams and I think even though that the thing we’re talking about of like Legion has been the absolute top dog for several years and they’re maybe not now especially on the men’s side if you’re planning a race last year you know last year they were maybe on the way out the door but you still unless you’re really on top of it kind of don’t see the writing on the wall there so you say we absolutely got to get Legion what do we have to do to get them and Y you know maybe that’s just reaching out to them and saying like hey we got housing for you and compt entries and whatever or maybe it’s more more than that maybe they’re giving them more than that but I think you get Legion and then just naturally techers reaches out to Justin and says hey when should we be here and my guess is that his answer to them was like well you want to be here for Tulsa and work backwards for from that yeah so like you should go to Somerville because that’s where we’re going to tune up for Tulsa right and so I think that makes sense um absolutely and I’m actually going to pull up an updated Tulsa R to see if any of these International Teams ended up I want to say I heard techers was I don’t Maybe that was speculation based on the fact that they’re here now that’s my guess though I mean if you were going to make the trip to America starting now the natural Endo would be Tulsa um right talking about the timing though techers did make a post about because they got Alec got second Alec Briggs got second um they they posted they were going to be here for the Somerville weekend and then for armed forces classic and I’m looking now so okay DCC is here for Tulsa registered um let’s see kite Legion Mador Miami GCA Parks Law Firm so it looks like techers is not on the rge for Tulsa that is a weird okay maybe the complicating Factor here and I think the announcers mentioned it during East yesterday is um British kitn Nats I do not know when British kitn Nats are maybe they’re maybe they just wanted to get some racing in before British kitn Nats so like Tulsa would conflict with that maybe or they would have to fly back at the same time um yeah they want to get back they don’t want to go transatlantic flight and then ride immediately I can say from recent experience that’s not a great feeling uh the other right the other thing is that mq is here and they’re not R for Tulsa either H um so a little little interesting there um maybe it just sold out too fast I mean Tulsa SS out crazy fast right as somebody who uh registered 10 guys for Tulsa yeah it sold out in 20 minutes you had your finger on the button like I was L like typing in the regge forms for everybody and like sending the waivers and it was like oh there’s like five spots left in the one two and I’m like you’re seeing them go yeah oh shoot I can’t yeah right I do want to talk about the timing of this weekend so this weekend we just talked about like Easton Somerville Somerville hasn’t happened yet as we are live doing this episode um at the same time yesterday was Winston Salem which was the USA crits finale kind of a shame that those are on top of each other um y especially since summer has stepped up a level and then uh Winston Salem is still a USA crits race and it was the USA crits finale um it was a pretty good race I think partially because the field was uh there there were people racing with different objectives so rainstorm is trying to kind of consolidate their lead on the women’s side both of the points leaders um oh no I do think on the women’s side Alexis was there and she was the points leader so you have her kind of racing a little bit defensively but DNA was at DNA had second on the individual points and they were so it a weird dynamic on the women’s side um and a break with two riders that were not in the overall gets up the road which is kind of what you see in these races that are kind of late in the series like that’s the Last Chance Saloon opportunity for some Riders I believe it was Kingdom Elite um and one other and that’s another race that uh it’s so hot off the presses that results are hard to find so I just watch the live stream um yeah but on the men side it was a good interesting race uh friend of the podcast William young will sits who I rode with on Tuesday made the break that looked like it was going to be the break like Five Guys um had rainstorm in it like had good representation also gab Mendes from work hard be humble another friend of show yeah guest of the show uh yeah I thought that move was going to go and then that came back with like 10 to go reshuffled win again um good interesting Dynamic racing rainstorm ended up clinching it like as I think most sane people would would assume they would uh that gets me to a couple of like overarching things from speed week speed week or USA crit so one thing I found really surprising was going into Winston Salem Foundation was third in the team points which I hadn’t seen or heard anybody mention them at all all of speed week so I thought it was interesting that they were third in the like you know getting guys in consistently 10th 11th 12th yeah right got them there um and then work hard be humble was not in the top three at all it was them Ribble foundation work hard be humble raced really aggressively all race Caleb landree was in just about every single move of the entire race then exactly what I wanted to talk about yeah then gay Mendes and they ended up getting second in the USA crits overall pretty much solely based off Winston Salem and how aggressively they rode they rode uh you know that’s a team that they had some success last year with Caesar Marte which we we were I don’t want to say surprised but it was like it’s a first year program sort of started the season slow and then they had results we didn’t expect and I feel like they really have like widened so they picked up all of the Atlanta they had no women’s program and they picked up the NCL Atlanta team and basically that’s their women’s team now so huge pickups there but on the men’s side they kind of widen into their talent pool I think they have a couple of younger Riders Preston I and Caleb langree both guys I’ve raced with a decent bit as they’re coming up but y they’re 19 and they’re still getting better and I’m 35 and actually I’m 35 and I’m do in numbers I’ve never seen before but you’re still you’re still getting better yeah so as a coach the rates are different well it’s like this right it’s like you’re supposed to hit like your maximum genetic potential at 28 but if you never hit that you can still improve after 28 yeah I’m also doing more volume than I’ve ever done so there’s a correlation there for sure but yeah those like Preston I and Caleb langree big pickups for them uh Andy Scarano has raced really well like they went from maybe having like one or two guys that could hang at that level to having like five or six guys that can on any day top 10 any of these races like uh none of them have really cracked the Cod they’re not like dominating but I feel like whenever a big move goes that’s like three or more guys work hard be humble has one or two in there and Y later into uh speed week in like college park I believe was the one where it rained and there’s a hill and it got real crazy like they they were racing super aggressively there um Caleb got a second on one of the days later in the week like in the 5 to8 race things start getting kind of ragged toward the end of that series it’s like eight races in 12 days or something and work hard be humble uh kind of got better throughout rather than dropping off yep 100% definitely a team to watch moving forward into the ACC season which starts in two weeks at Tulsa yeah we’re at this tipping point where like USA crits is done speed week done spin the district those are all like the same overlapping Vin diagrams those are all done and we’re beginning ACC with Tulsa yep so wipe the Slate clean start fresh um you know in the past Legion has not done much before Tulsa so I don’t want to totally count out that it’s possible that they come into Tulsa and put it to start to put it together I don’t think they’re going to be riding the front from five laps in like they were two years ago but yeah I wouldn’t totally count them out until the end of Tulsa if it gets through uh I’m going to say the second day of Tulsa and Legion hasn’t done anything I think that’s the final nail in the coffin for the uh the legion dominance era so yeah absolutely I’m looking at Tulsa who’s going to be there so ribble’s coming back to America and hitting Tulsa which I didn’t I didn’t think they were going to um we’ll talk about how they were going to disrupt crits in a minute but they didn’t really they they did compete with rainstorm so at uh andison Sunny King rainstorm was the team we were like oh well it’s going to be you know going be tough to beat these guys yeahor to be the control of that and of Nan um it it definitely took a team like Ribble coming in for Speed week to to challenge them yeah and they did and so I’m excited to see them back at Tulsa um rainstorms coming with the full Squad then you have Ribble Austin and Miami also coming with full full squads and then you have Legion still a full Squad but I’m looking at the who were on there so for Legion you got Danny Estes Richard holik Robin Carpenter Kyle Murphy Alec Cowan and Ty Magner no Justin um who like if you’re looking at Legion at you know at Tulsa who is going to be the guy who wins The Bike Race on their squad yeah yeah that that feels like a lot of um a lot of workor fores and no finisher you know yeah um then you look at Miami Blazers Eder FR Gavin Hoover Cory Williams Cory Lockwood Brandon Fury Noah granigan Tyler Williams I can name three guys on that on that list that could win one of those races it’s interesting to me though that like out Austin Outlaws has had a little bit better results wise season than Blazers has so far Blazers hasn’t come together yet until last night I they’ve they’ve had some people at some races but so has Outlaws it seems to me like they put kind of the more upand cominging the younger guys who are less proven for the most part on Outlaws and I don’t know if it’s just that they’re hungrier or that like these early season races are uh more possible to freelance at or whatever but yeah guys like Lucas Borg Jo they’re having a little bit more um success I do I think uh Johnny Clark from um who was on an NCL team Australian guy this runs totally counter to what I was just saying but you know he’s uh sort of Road Captain uh Twilight of his career uh he he got put on there and he’s been racing super aggressively yes I think he’s been able to kind of help Shephard and direct that team on the road a little bit but like Lucas Boro is used to that freelance mode he was racing in Europe last year and would come over like do some of the driveway series pronets he’s used to freelancing um Luke Fetzer was on hot tubes last year and so hot tubes if anyone’s uninitiated they’re like the premier junior dvo team in the US the question where was Speedweek live streamed speed week. bike and uh the USA crits website it was kind of across both of them we were getting yeah it’s we mentioned this you might have mentioned it you might have missed it earlier in the show but it’s not on YouTube all those are on Vimeo which Vimeo you know YouTube is going to get to you Vimeo not necessarily um thinking about all of those things reminded me that uh there were a couple of specific I’m not going to obviously go through the 12 races that have happened in depth but I think there are a couple that are really worth getting into and the first one is Greenville which is a new race a brand new race and talking about um Johnny Clark reminded me as I was watching it the storyline that kind of like was in my head cuz I watched the women’s and the men’s was like the NCL Riders are Out For Blood Cuz in the women’s race uh Andrea seir who was uh an NCL Rider she was racing under the Texas Roadhouse Banner for that speed week she went solo and there was a dynamic in the women’s race because Karen Lecky from EF who has now two-time um champion and that’s another thing I didn’t get to talking on the women’s side is that uh talking about women’s Nationals lucki won the women’s uh National Championship in dramatic fashion by just barely nipping a rider from F cycling guild at the line um but yeah Lecky was here and it was a dynamic where like I think the Legion Riders were kind of looking to lecki lecki was trying to get off the front and they were covering her and when seir went she didn’t have a team you know leck’s watching Legion legion’s watching lecki but seir committed and got a gigantic Gap rolled solo for a long time and then a couple Riders bridged her and then it was almost exactly the same thing in the men’s race where a former uh NCL Rider in Johnny Clark went up the road solo very early riters bridge to him and then that was the the ball game I think that’s a course there’s a hill and at least one fairly technical turn um former guest of the show will harden has a good video from that where you can see there’s a pretty like narrow downhill alley that sort of forces a single single file maybe two across and I think a course like that um favors a smaller group a little bit more so good interesting new course um and and really interesting racing to watch but yeah the takeaway I had is like the NCL Riders are like you know I I would expect that to be a blow to my mentality but I feel like they really Came Out Swinging with something to prove I think there were some of them that had been training and were uh ready to rip when the rug got pulled out from under him absolutely and you know shout out to all these teams and USA cycling for I’m never going to shout out USA cycling ever again so let’s be clear on that unless they unless they keep doing things to rock I mean so they they went ahead and issued a release like hey due to like basically 30 people losing their jobs you know we’re gonna you know let folks add and subtract to their team as needed whatever it takes without the fines and Associated difficulties let these people get to prats and add to these rosters yeah they basically fast-tracked uh if if people could find someone to pick them up USA cycling cut some of the red tape that would uh prevent them from getting on those teams easily uh the other like talking about Clark talking about Ribble the other and I guess let’s get into into the Ribble like disrupting uh the global crit scene here I want to talk about Spartanburg because Spartanburg on the men’s side was an insane race uh so a break gets up the road it has I want to say two from Ribble two from um rainstorm and the dynamic this was like fluming the announcers in in real time so both of those teams have people in the break and in the field and basically Ribble doesn’t want to lap up they want that break to stay not get caught by the field from behind but also not catch the back of the field and reintegrate whereas rainstorm wants that break to catch the field lap up because then they can do their lead out as normal um yeah because they’ve got a really strong lead out so I I think it was Greenville one of the earlier races in speed week some of the Ribble guys were in a group that lapped the field and they were confused apparently in British crits when you lap the field uh everyone is pulled if you’re lapped you’re pulled whereas in America we do it like track racing where uh on the track when you lap up you’re just scored lap up and you can reintegrate and uh you know you’re you’re back in the pelaton the whole pelon’s not pulled whereas here we uh basically if the group catching is not the larger group the larger group stays um so once they learned that they felt better about their chances from the small group and the interesting thing there was like you would have uh those teams swapping off like one of them would be pulling the field ribble’s pulling the field and rainstorm is pulling the Breakaway because rainstorm is trying to catch the tail of the snake so Ribble would send their guys in the field to the front to make the field fast which seems like the cardinal sin of chasing your teammates cuz they have teammates in the break but the break was so far around that it was close to lapping up and they didn’t want to lap up because they knew that rainstorm is really drilled on that lead out and to their credit in that battle both teams were trying to do both things so uh you know it would switch where uh Ribble would come off the front of the uh because rainstorm was also happy for that to come back and do their lead out as normal so Ribble comes off the front of the group then rainstorms trying to slow it up and get it to come back together then Ribble in the Breakaway starts pulling the Breakaway again it required a lot of being on the radio and constantly communicating I’m sure as to like which direction the Gap was go going but huge kudos to Ribble because they were able to feather it perfectly and keep that smaller group away and win from that smaller group which which was right very exciting if you haven’t seen that one to the question of where to go watch those races go find Spartanburg watch spart andberg men’s race and and that spart andberg race better than the Jiro better than any jro stage 100% And that spart andberg stage was so not stage race was so crazy we were talking to like division one team directors and they’re like we don’t understand what was happening yeah and we were like birds eye view from the stream like we think this is what’s happening they were like okay that makes sense and then Ribble Ribble did make a post confirming that later but yeah it was what we thought that they didn’t want to lap up Ribble did I will like to the disruption thing they’re they’re kind of disrupting the global crit scene Mantra or whatever uh they they I don’t know if this is disruptive or if this is just good bike racing but they were tactically extremely astute throughout the whole week um yeah and you know rainstorm especially in a flat four corner crit I think rainstorm has them absolutely pegged but Ribble is more versatile and you see that on the courses like peach street corners if anyone here hasn’t seen Peach Tree Corners it’s like it’s not a crit it’s a weird circuit race like cres thing it’s like a Suburban Office Park downhill into a 180 corner and then you go through a parking lot it’s up and down the whole time it’s never straight and none of the corners are 90° it’s very much not a traditional crit and uh I don’t think rainstorm even put anyone in the top five there but Ribble was able to really adapt make the small group of like eight that eventually went away and then attack from that group um yeah and it was pretty awesome that that was fantastic but yeah if you look at like rainstorms ringer or finishers per se Alfredo Rodriguez Brian Gomez and Danny Summerhill those are flat Sprint type of guys and so it makes sense that you have the the Ripple Squad which seems to be a little bit uh more unique especially with Cole Davis coming in they’re able to take some of those more unique courses that aren’t so four corner or flat and make those races count for them yeah um and then you saw Cole Davis like being the sole Ribble Rider at wson Salem last night he’s from the US right he’s like the one guy that’s from here correct based here yes and so he was there to kind of wrap up and he got second overall in the USA crit Series so you know good work to him yeah so going like taking that what what we know about what happened at speed week and applying it to Tulsa I still think for the flat ones for Blue Dome and for Arts District I’m going to say rainstorm is the odds on favorite yep with the except like so maybe Ribble probably puts someone on the podium at both of those would also be my guess yeah and then wins crybaby so then it’s a question of does rainstorm do it with the same person both of those first two nights I think the overall still anyone’s game in terms of like who wins the whole weekend at Tulsa now yeah or is there an overall is this is this one of those ones where there’s not a points omnium for the whole weekend no Ripple uh Ripple Tulsa has a points overall okay because there’s there’s a leader Jersey if I remember and so I think you’re right I’m looking at who rainstorm has for Tulsa Gomez Alfredo Rodriguez Jordan perah Jamie cetta Michael Hernandez and Danny Summer Hill to to me if I’m looking at who on that rainstorm Squad was involved in the crybaby stage last year it would be Fergus Arthur yeah who’s in that final break with Sam bman and he’s probably not the guy who’s yeah even if he was there he probably wouldn’t be the guy they would be leading out on those first two stages either right and so to me it seems like Ribble not Ribble rainstorm there’s too many r uh team names but brainstorm may not be they went all in on USA crits it seems won that maybe they’re gonna pick and choose a little bit I do find it interesting that um only Blue Dome counts towards the ACC points so maybe that’s where their heads at like Hey we’re GNA send the squad best for Blue Dome to get these points yeah that makes yeah maybe their game is you know we won USA now let’s win ACC like they’re they’re going for series overalls where other teams are not as much their focuses more on individual wins than uh series overalls jerseys uh right because like in the past even when legion’s been at full Full Steam full power a lot of times they don’t send people to every race of each series they’ll kind of like drop in and out and then I think other teams with smaller budgets do that but not as a matter of choice it’s more of just like who of our who of the people on our Squad can we get to each thing and then you know there end up being some losers where it’s not in the budget to do X Y or Z race and they lose some points based on that um exactly another race we absolutely have to talk about you know we said we would maybe try and keep it under an hour I see the time ticking up and I I got to talk about it is a um y so Athens was on your wedding day and we were sitting there in the the chairs watching four of the guys from our team are huddled around a phone watching Athens before Ben walks down the aisle so so you know what’s crazy is I’m in the groomsman suite and no joke I’m I’m watching from the groomsman suite and there’s like two laps to go and they go all right Ben like you got to go down downstairs and I’m like oh [ __ ] man like just I’m like I was about to be like hey let’s fake an emergency like say hey the groom has to poop anything and sure enough you know like no joke I’m standing up on the under the thing and our my Grooms been start walking down and so my groomsman like it’s half the it’s like couple guys on the team my co-director Rob Le out and he just like as he’s walking down the aisle with a bridesmaid he just does this and I’m like all right let’s go like we got second in the amateur finals or whatever but yeah it was the amateur finals which we had uh like Five Guys in um yeah and yeah we we got second in that that that was going on at the exact same time uh so we watched the pro races on replay but man what this is another go watch this men’s race if you uh are looking for if I’m trying to sell you on this string of American Racing being better than the jro this year go watch Athens uh very unlikely this is not the Athens course with the big hill we’re back to like a more traditional Athens course it’s like not hilly not flat it’s kind of uh like the Sunny King course in that way where it’s a good balance where someone who’s not a full-on sprinter can win it someone who’s a little bit more of a rouer can win it um basically Thomas Gibbons someone who I’m not going to lie I had kind of counted out to some degree at this point after a couple of not terrible years but like waning maybe um Gibbons broke away with like some insane amount of laps to go like 60 or something like uh just a ridiculous amount of laps to go breaks away solo and committed to it in a way that you don’t normally see someone do to a solo move often times if someone gets up the road solo like that they you know after some amount of time and looking back they just let off the gas because what they really want is people to bridge up to them um I Al I’ll plug here Gibbons went on the um yayu ride podcast which is uh bod friend of the show Michael Bodenheimer I saw him out at speed week as well uh his podcast last week and did an interview fully just about this race and he talks about how he just put his head down and ignored everything and just kind of did what he knew he could do you know locked into his effort and just ripped it eventually a few guys including Robin Carpenter so I guess like three guys Four Guys Bridge up to him and then as Robin Carpenter and Danny Summerhill are in the they’re about to make the connection there’s a crash race gets neutralized it got very messy for a second but I think the consensus among the group at least hearing Tom talk about it and maybe it’s because he won but the consensus is once the Riders forced them to stop it and reestablish the gaps that everything was good solid yeah um Mak sense but so then they got a group a bigger group away and he attacks Gibbons attacks again in from that group with about four to go and he he timed it perfectly in this window where like it’s close enough to the Sprint that the pure sprinters are really like have mentally flipped the switch to like this is a Sprint I’m saving my leg for the Sprint I’m thinking about positioning but far enough out that like he wasn’t just setting up a fast Sprint for someone else if you make that attack with one to go someone who’s a sprinter says like I’ll just just stick this and I’ll Sprint as soon as this guy Fades yeah um so yeah a crazy win something that I would not have expected and we talked about how we thought automatic was maybe like building for someone else to be the winner in the future and I think that’s still true maybe to some degree but a really good ride for for Gibbons fun to see Gibbons still has it he still got something the bottom line like and it is a this is another like little mini story that we should talk about it’s an Olympic year so like Gibbons has been training for the track uh he’s been training with the USA Track Team I don’t know if he’s going to the Olympics but I think he’s maybe angling that way and I think uh clever Martinez a crit Rider you know we talk about a lot I think when the NCL you know when NCL money was in play he was going to race American crits this year and then that went away and he seems to have pretty much shifted his Focus to the track he was at a couple of speed week races he was at Peach Tree Corners and he did make the the winning break there he didn’t win from that break but he was a factor for sure um so he’s on good form but I think he’s off in Germany racing track now yeah absolutely and that’s what you’ll see a little bit some of these guys who do lean the track direction there’s a little bit of crossover between criteriums in the track just like cycle Crossing Criterium right M um you’ll see some of these guys especially cuz what Paris Olympics is in July because I know there’s some Crossover with torter France right um you’ll see some of those guys they’re starting to to hit to Peak so they’ll race a little bit and they’ll race really strong they’ll go to the Olympics and then you probably won’t see some of those guys again you mean ever or this season no no this season this season yeah yeah yeah that’ll be that’ll be it for them and Y they’ll be off the scene yeah I think Gibbons maybe one of those guys where yeah he’s going to put his Focus toward the track uh a little bit I think um we’re nearing the 50 minute Mark we’ve been all over the map I’m trying to think if there’s anything else that we absolutely that I felt like I absolutely had to hit that we haven’t um I guess one thing I want to mention that hasn’t come up organically yet is just uh F cycling Guild on the women’s side I briefly mentioned that they had a rider nearly win the national championship but uh I think we saw the first like glimpses of them being a real good team like kind of shockingly at NCL Atlanta last year and at the time I thought that was maybe the the two big teams the two NCL emic teams kind of marking each other out of existence um CU F was able to get up the road and score an insane amount of points that women’s program but they’ve had success with a couple of different writers uh recently and yeah I think it’s just like we got to mention that got to shout it out Fountain cycling women’s team is stepping up F cycling women’s team is significantly better than their men’s team like yeah women’s team is able to compete with your higher and women’s teams whereas like their men’s Squad they’re regged for the the one two at Tulsa right so where like so you’re kind of there’s a little bit of Separation there so I’m curious to see if their men’s team ends up leveling up to that women’s squad or if you know that women squad’s really going to take the Helm of that and maybe you see their men’s Squad kind of dissipate and they put more resour steam it’s uh it’s a good way to hedge your bets to have both I guess because yeah you know one gets better or worse you pick up some Riders lose some Riders so I don’t think it’s a huge concern that they’re like a little bit out of whack I think it was actually like a huge anomal I mean it’s a relatively recent phenomenon that that it’s so prevalent that so many and probably good also that so many uh programs have a men’s and a women’s Squad under the same Banner but it’s really uh an anomaly that for a couple of years their Legion on both sides was so dominant um and I think now legion’s kind of in the same place where Legion women’s team is Ju Just by virtue of having uh kall and Alexis and then being they they are still like op among the women’s pelaton and when they don’t win it is uh a function of like uh other like lucky uh being there and everyone racing against her or you know people looking at each other but in just a Flatout power test I think uh still kindall and Alexis would be tough to beat I agree and skill and positioning everything yeah this is one of those things where like when you talk about bike racing it’s one of those things where it’s not just the best like the strongest person on paper wins there’s so many factors involved right which and that’s especially true in crits like in the jro the strongest person in the race won the bike race unequivocally his team may have not even been there and he still would have won right whereas like in the the recent stream of criteriums you have a lot of like upsets interesting things that played out where Criterium racing is becoming a lot more interesting overall yeah I think there’s more par among team there are more people at comparable levels and more teams at comparable levels um across men’s and women’s I think right now there’s been some interesting racing and and the thing I want to Circle back to which is going to be the theme for this year is last night there were three or four International Teams there have been International Teams all over USA Christan Speedweek everyone like read it they all went like oh you know if any of these teams went to Europe or D D D D they’d get you know La you know it would be like watch American Racing sucks and no one cares about it it’s like except the teams you know globally are coming here to do it right and you have all these teams from New Zealand Germany England and they’re not lapping these guys yeah they’re they’re compet competing at the front end but they’re not running away with it right and similarly like lecki coming back legit World Tour Rider just came back from the uh the spring Classics on the women’s side uh comes back and does well and has I want to say she’s gotten so she won nationals I think she got another win in the last couple she won Somerville or not Somerville Easton I believe on the women’s side I think so um she’s definitely gotten a couple more wins under her belt and cracked the code but it was awesome to see her out at um speed week but like to see someone legitimately a world tour Rider at like Peach Tree Corners which is a little bit of a rinky dink random race uh yeah it just shows and not able to like completely run away with all of these races shows the level and that does also remind me of another thing I wanted to talk about which is ryers racing essentially without like being very strong but racing without teammates like Lecky was kind of up against it where everyone’s looking at her because she has the national champ Jersey and she is strong so she just had to try and try and try to break the race um and it made it really interesting to watch but similarly on the men’s side um Garrison Michael Garrison whose brother Ian was World Michael was never World Tour but he was on action the last few years uh didn’t get renewed with them and he’s kind of doing more of a privateer thing this time around he’s doing some crits some gravel he’s doing a lot of everything but he’s clearly like hungry to prove himself um yeah he was basically like forcing every break away himself through speed week I think we got to mention that like every split that happened it’s like he would be the one that would split it he would burn himself and not end up winning from that group but he was Without A team out there splitting the race I I think he was racing Little Junior brain and like if if you look at like who’s there like you had all throughout speed week had rainstorm butcher box all these teams he was like okay well I’m just gonna go right yeah um and a lot of these guys that come from Europe they come to use the the national crit races and they kind of underestimate the level of the field and we saw that with gay heck at Sunny King where he literally just came from Human powered Health came off the plane from Jona raced sunny King attacked the field nonstop in the first 30 minutes and then dnfed and so Garrison not to that extent but I think really coming from action underestimated the level I think uh I don’t know I I wonder if he would consider so he ended up second on the series overall I think he really wanted to win win the full speed week series I wonder if he would consider it a failure that he did didn’t get a better result than that or if he would consider it a a win in the sense that like he was a factor every night and he was getting airtime because I think that more than anything like getting seen and proven that proving that he’s a strong Rider is what he’s out there for as much as I’m sure he wants results but yeah I don’t know it seemed like what he wanted out of the races was more to be racing at the front and to be consistent with which he was but he was just consistent in the like 3 to8 range you know I yeah as an athlete I think he would consider it a failure that he didn’t win it I think from a marketing perspective like obviously he’s going to be like you know I was there by myself I got second overall in this series with all these big teams right yeah but as athletes you obviously want to win um and then even at prats um he’s won the time trial before and was like fourth I think to the junior brain comment like that that is a thing it’s a phenomenon with Juniors I think because as a junior you’re always looking to like level up and what’s your next contract and like every Big Race you’re at you feel like you need to be seen and it causes you to race aggressively in a way that doesn’t serve you in the Finish you know and I think like I saw that at lrange for for sure um lrange is the race of speed week that has it’s basically all uphill or downhill it’s downhill into like a chicane super technical corner and then goes straight back uphill um he was in a breakaway with uh guys from Ribble and from rainstorm and they were getting close to lapping up and he was still driving it and I was I was yelling at I was like you don’t want to lap the field of all the people in this grp group you should be sitting on the back like but you know he does he wanted to prove that he was strong which he certainly did but I think there was a really good chance he could have there was a better chance he could have won or podiumed from that smaller group and even if you yeah I don’t know that that was the one moment where I was like yeah that’s a um perhaps a tactical mistake I think he could have even if the group lapped up anyway without him pulling he could have just sat at the back and had a good reason to do that tactically he could have said I don’t want to lap up so I’m not pulling and at least gotten five 10 laps of uh free ride as free of a ride as you can get in a hilly crit like that but yeah so that’s you know obviously we’re talking about him so I think you know mission accomplish as far as as far as he’s concerned um but yeah I think a lot of folks especially in the in the Atlanta area feel a lot of Pride around him um and want to see him do well and I think he’s kind of there’s always a revelation like it was kind of Brock Mason last year there’s always like a that’s what’s cool about these local series and I think it probably is also true of like intelligencia and stuff that like yeah there’s it’s a chance for like a local person to uh you know really show out in a bigger on a bigger stage or whatever against National caliber Riders absolutely um I think we hit most of the things we needed to talk about yeah I think that was my last bullet point we’re just over the hour so um we’re going to be at Tulsa um I’m the team’s doing the one two not the pro there’s a pro one and a one two we’re doing the one two yeah so um we there yeah I will be there in our new team polos from classic cycling one second oh he’s getting the props I thought about wearing that on this stream um instead I wore the t-shirt from our coffee sponsor domesti but for the audio listener Ben is um getting a polo out of a bag and I assume he’s going to hold it up to the camera yeah there we go this is the for the video people this is the way to identify Ben at Tulsa if you want to talk to us say what’s up tell us what wrong right yell at me uh whatever it is I so far it’s been great to meet people at races who know us from the show I will have Good People Brewing Beer Once Upon a coconut coconut water on me at all times oh yeah go find Ben and get a beverage from him at Tulsa we are Skyway is beverage racing so get a coconut water from him before the race or a beer from him after after the race I can vouch for the quality y uh I said this on the ride on a ride yesterday rainstorm may be the best team in the country in a flat crit but our beverage sponsors are superior I would rather you give me a rainstorm and you give me a Once Upon a coconut um caffeinated coconut water I’m taking the caffinated coconut water every time well you know the the caffeinated coconut water is not going to tear up your stomach lineing bring me some of those I’m G to pound one before every race at I have a I have a fresh shipment coming out I talked to our guy over there he’s sending us like he usually sends me like 10 cases every time I ask him for more so well I’m ready to rip into some of those uh yeah I’m gonna be racing in Georgia at the Georgia state championship next weekend to kind of tune up tune up the legs so yeah uh come come find us out there say what’s up to us and uh I guess send in your submissions for what my new sign on should be maybe you think I’m still mediocre I don’t know and if you’re a cat one looking for a squad in 2025 in the Southeast send me a resume yeah yeah that too we’re uh we’re looking to pick up some ones we’ve got a few newly minted ones and I’m looking to become the next one by the end of the year so yeah see you out at the races I guess uh see you guys later thanks