This cyclist almost beat Soudal Quick-Step’s World Tour sprinter, Luke Lamperti, at America’s most important criterium. Cole Davis sat down with me to recap how he nearly pulled off this amazing feat on Day 3 of Tulsa Tough.
00:00 – Positioning and Strategy on Cry Baby Hill
02:22 – Sprinting to Success on the back half of Cry Baby Hill
02:45 – Cole’s Peak Sprint Power
03:48 – Bike Set Up: Ribble Ultra SLR
04:42 – How Ribble Rebellion was formed
06:30 – Cole Davis’ Winning Streak and Future Races
Cole Davis Instagram ➡️: https://www.instagram.com/coledavis24y/
Ribble Rebellion Instagram ➡️: https://www.instagram.com/ribble_rebellion/
Watch the full race on Tulsa Tough’s YouTube channel ➡️: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Zc7-5WVU4
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A little about myself:
New to my channel? I’m an average recreational cyclist that recently moved from America to Girona, Catalunya, Spain. The Vuelta España and The Tour of Catalunya will all be held here in Spain!
Sometimes I race and when I do, I share my training with you along the way. So far, I’ve done crit racing, road racing and gravel racing. I haven’t done a duathlon or a triathlon yet, but it is something I am thinking about!
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🙏🏾 That was a lot to type!! If you’ve read this far, thank you for taking the time to watch!
all right Cole so walk us through the final lap I know when I was watching Brian Gomez had just gone down with the end of two to go and then going into the final lap you weren’t at the head of the race but like where were you after that turn and then like how did you position to get to where you need to be in the uh final lap yeah I want to say I was around 10th wheel which I was super happy with because CBB Hill the first half is momentum so you don’t want to be too close to the front but you don’t want to be too far back to where you’re getting swarmed and pinched in the corner either because I think what makes cry bab Hill hard is not the gradient but it’s that second kind of turn that narrows everything down so I felt that I was in a good spot and then some rain guys came up and then kind of got in front of me which I was ecstatic about because they have a good lead out train and I thought that they would take me to the front with the momentum and then that ended up not really happening and then we all sat up on the hill a little bit and it swarmed um so we kind of started panicking and the German team I wish I knew their names so I shout them right yeah that’s the alpon sponsored team right yeah yeah so then they started moving up on the right side and that’s when I kind of leaped out and then followed their wheel to the front and then there’s kind of that dip before the final right-hander over the hill into the bottom corner and I kind of sprinted into that came out of that corner third wheel with Luke in front I mean I was knew that was the wheel I wanted to be on um and then yeah made sure that I just got glued to that and then coming down the hill entering the final Corner uh I kind of had this battle of how much am I willing to risk you know a lap earlier like you touched on Brian had just crashed and that corner I was already fighting that corner quite a bit for the last few laps and so for me I just didn’t want to take that chance of crashing so I took it fairly conservative and in the video you can see Luke opens up several bike links in that Corner um but yeah I was surprised in my Sprint I would have never expected to close a gap on Luke but it’s also a result of how much work he had to do throughout that stage um and yeah ended up coming really close a lot closer than I expected for sure and I feel like the key to that to Krab Hills like the second half of that climb where essentially like you said you get into position by doing a Sprint on that back half to go into that final turn is that kind that was like your focus on that back half of the climb exactly as far as I was concerned the race ended before that final Corner because it is somewhat long Sprint from that corner but you’re not going to gain or lose more than one spot out of there okay and then what was like your Peak power I think that was I’m guessing like a 20 second Sprint during that final final Sprint trying to uh track down Luke yeah I wish I had the data but uh I’ve become a weight weeny so I took off my Wahoo Mountain Wahoo for that race it saves a little over 100 grams I figure there’s enough Laps on crybaby to where you don’t need the data you can just figure it out with your head um I I did a crit a few nights ago where like probably similar Sprint like 20 25 seconds at you know just over 900 so nothing crazy I am a smaller guy um but I take pride in being efficient in reading a bike race and not just using raw power to win yeah I think you did it obviously really well on that last stage uh and then talk to us about like what is your bike setup you guys are on the Ribble Ribble bikes what model is it and what’s your setup with the gearing and all that yeah so we’re on the Ribble Ultra SLR um it’s ribble’s Arrow bike uh we’re running a 56 44 front chain ring paired with a 1130 so it’s a lot of gear to push um but at race speeds it’s never been an issue and uh yeah we’re we just got the mavic slrs on there 65 so it’s a beautiful setup it’s super Arrow like I’m fully confident no one else has a faster more aerodynamic bike than us and uh yeah it’s been good so far and you said it’s a 56 uppr yeah man that is a big boy gear right there yeah it’s nice to be able to do some sfr workouts on the Flat Road sometimes yeah and tell me about the tin because I know this is your guys’s first year or first season together what are kind of the what were your goals for Tulsa and what’s your goals like overall for the year yeah we’re a team based from England um and the team was very late to form it was in October or November I believe and uh essentially Ribble came to Joe lck and said hey what do you think about this Criterion program in the US um and I believe that the US or North America I can’t remember which one is ribble’s third largest market and you go ask American hey have you ever heard of a Ribble they’re probably going to tell you no so the opportunity for them to expand the brand by sending a crit team there is massive um and so they said let’s get the brightest bikes brightest kits let’s make it impossible to miss let’s spread this brand name and then hopefully we can transition that into success as a company um so they went ahead and signed myself as the only American we have two other Canadians one Belgian and then I believe five Brits or four Brits um so we’re kind of all over and the situation that we were all in was similar of you know it’s October everyone should have their contract sorted for next year by then and there’s a lot of uncertainty between all of us um I think probably half of us were thinking we were done myself included I thought is pretty much the end of the line uh and as a result the team chemistry is unmatched like it’s we all understand each other and have so much respect because we know that we’ve all been very good bike racers we’ve raced at a high level but now we kind of have the humid yeah the humility and we just I don’t know it’s just we don’t we didn’t expect to be in this position so every opportunity is just one that we’re grateful for and we’re just wanting to see each other succeed which is a really cool Dynamic unlike anywhere else I’ve been yeah that’s cool man then you’ve won some races already this year right right yeah so uh this last Tuesday was actually my most recent win and that put me up to six wins this year wow congrats man thank you it’s been a fantastic year so far so I guess it’s working out okay huh fallen into place that’s for sure yeah uh so you told me in you’re you’re in the UK now what’s what are you guys racing next so that if people want to tune in and then what is your Instagram handle so people can follow your journey yeah so up next for us is the national circuit series uh which is just the Criterium Series in the UK with maybe a road race sprinkled in there uh and then for those guys I believe their national championships are this weekend um but obviously I won’t be there and then for people who want to follow along it’s Instagram is probably the best way to do it so the team page is at Ribble rebellion and then my personal is at coold Davis y okay cool man I’m excited to see what’s next for you guys and uh thanks for coming on and joining me yeah thank you I appreciate the opportunity