Riley turns pro with Israel Cycling Academy

[Lister Farrar]

Congratulations to TS alum Riley Pickrell, announced today as a member of the UCI pro continental u23 team, Israel Cycling Academy. The team will race in Europe in races such as the Baby Giro, Liege Bastogne Liege, and the Tour de Rwanda. The team is part of a development system towards the Israel Start Up Nation World Tour team which is aiming at a Tour de France spot.

http://israelcyclingacademy.com/israel- ... RD3Nx2NTXA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Isra ... ion_season

[EricS]

I firgured Lister would beat me to this! And rightly so. Much of Riley's success is rooted in the work of the TS Youth program, and the FastTrack program on the velodrome. I spoke with Riley about his new team and then wrote the following. Perhaps our new Social Media Team could put something together for IG and FB?

As many of you will have heard, Our very own Riley Pickrell has joined the Israel Cycling Academy. This is the Development Team for the World Tour Team which means if they race well, they will actually be able to do World Tour races this year. Riley will be living in Girona, Spain for training, and racing will be throughout Europe. The goal of the team is development: to get riders good enough to go to the world tour team. There will be lots of races at different levels. Riley will leave for Europe in the next couple of months.

Living in Victoria, we are surrounded by exceptional athletes, and have seen many of our friends turn pro or compete internationally, but having had the chance to see Riley from the beginning is quite special. Many of you have witnessed this “kid” do special things on the road, or on the track. His physiology is freakish – in a good way. His determination and dedication is inspiring. But what I really appreciate about Riley is that he remains positive and friendly in difficult situations. He demonstrates true sportsmanship and is already giving back to our cycling community.

[Rolf]

You're a star, Eric. (And you're hired!) We're just looking for appropriate visuals before posting; your write-up will be very helpful.

Super excited for Riley and his future. This may even get me over my dope-scandal cynicism and have me following pro cycling once again!

There's a post on the Club's Facebook page which includes a brief photo essay of some of Riley's early successes with Tripleshot (thanks to Lister for helping me pull it together in record time!)

It includes this awesome shot of Riley (and Coach Lister) right after Riley set a Canadian record on the track:



And this equally awesome (if tiny) shot of Riley cleaning house at the 2015 B.C. Crit Champs in Penticton, miming sipping three coffees as his winning salute to Tripleshot:



It's pretty funny to read Lister's first mention on the forum of a 13 year-old Riley.

Here's a thank-you note Riley posted to Tripleshot in 2018 after he was named to Canada's UCI Junior World's track team.

And here's a great CHEK TV piece on Riley in Tripleshot gear at 14.

And finally, if you want to get a feel for the quality of this fella and what our Tripleshot Youth Team means to some of its alumni, the following is taken from a Facebook post by Riley to the Youth Team in July 2018 (and included in The Rivet, Fall 2018):

Hello everyone!

After my recent success at Tour de L'Abitibi and as I approach Junior worlds I feel it is important to thank this team.

This season I haven't had as much involvement as I may have wanted and some of the newer riders may not know me very well or at all, but this youth team has given me a lot more than I understood at the time. Of course this team taught me how to ride and how to race but it gave me way more.

This team gave me a group I could enjoy the company of, compete with, have fun with, and strive for excellence with.

It gave me the first thing in my life which I can really go for, something I can take and run if you will. It's the first craft which I have really worked towards perfecting every day for 4 years; unknowingly at first, but still doing so.

And in doing so, this sport, through this club, and every other organization, race, and event I've taken part of has taught me life lessons which I may not have learned quite like I have.

It taught me how to be a student in an environment other than a classroom, how to think critically and ask why something was the way it was. I gained career ideas and opportunities.

This sport gave me friends who I know will help me when I need it, friends who will support me when I'm down and help me back up.

It taught me how to be a sportsman, what is proper, what isn't. How to be empathetic and how to be a leader.

Most importantly, It taught me how to be comfortable in my own skin, and helped me discover who I was. I learned about the morals of others and the morals of mine, I was taught how to uphold them and how to accept other people's values.

Of course, I never understood any of this at the time, I was just having fun riding my bike, and I still am. I can honestly say this sport changed my life and this club took me on the start of this journey.

For everyone in the program right now, I can't give you much advice as I am hardly older than many of you, but I can tell you some things which can help out a little.

One - Show up. It can be the easiest and the hardest thing to do, but just riding your bike is at least 75% of training.

Two - have fun. Most importantly learn to have fun even if you lose. I only really discovered that this year and as an early maturer I had a lot of success early, but by junior and elite, people catch up. I realized there are 150 riders in a race sometimes and only one will win. I will try my hardest but when I cross the start finish line, I can't get caught up on it.

Three - For the late maturers out there, you will catch up and you'll be just as competitive as anyone else when it starts to really matter. Ethan Pauly was a relatively late maturer, and he only beat me a handful of times through U15 and U17. This year he beat me by over 2 minutes on the National Time Trial Championships.

Same thing for the early matures too, as one all I heard growing up was how the late matures would catch up and would beat me, which scared me a little. Don't let it scare you. You are going to end up at the same level, just keep training.

Lastly, Do your best to be classy; thank the volunteers and officials. Compliment your competitors, especially if you beat them. One of the best words of advice I was given was to "always compliment what a man (or woman of course) did well after you best them". Make them feel like they won their result, not lost it.

I loved being a part of this group and I hope to pop my head into a group ride every once and a while.

[Lister Farrar]

And Riley’s guy won!

Riley’s leadout launched Greipels first win since 2019.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/races/trofe ... n/results/

Riley lead the whole peloton from 1100 to 500 m to go. Two teammates finished the lead-out before Greipel took the sprint win. It’s 11 pm there now, so he’s heading to bed. Report tomorrow.

[Lister Farrar]

Peter Lawless got this screenshot. (“ Yup that's me!”) GCN didn’t show Riley’s leadout, but you can tell he pulled the front group clear of the peloton. His two teammates are also visible, one still pulling Greipel, and the other having swung off also, after Riley.

Report coming.

[Lister Farrar]

Greipel says thanks.

[Rolf]

Video edit of the race finish and Greipel’s thanks to his Conti teammates here: https://fb.watch/5yZmICOoDm/

[Lister Farrar]

Riley’s report
“Pretty crazy racing over here since my whole mentality towards racing has changed. The first hour of the race is almost always the hardest part as people flight for the breakaway. Today was no different. We avgd 51.1km/h for the first hour, even with a 6km climb at 3% which we went up at 40kph which is unbelievable. (about the gradent of the climb up to uplands gate). After the first hour though the race settles down and you just roll around for a couple hours at 42-44km/h while the poor workhorses have to keep the break in check. My job was supposed to be to move the leadout train from 3km to go into good positioning with 2km to go but with the chaos of the final and the difficultly getting organized I ended up further back in the train than i was supposed to be. By that time though the leadout had already started so I had to take over the 1km to go pull. There was only UAE and Movistar with rival trains and most of their leadout squads consisted of climbers so their leadouts were quite poor. From about 2km to go our team took it up on the front. Guy infront of me pulled off with about 1.1km to go, I pulled until about 550 where the last lead out man took it up. He went until Andre came off his wheel about 350m later. I was to far back to see if Andre won but the amount of screaming in the race radio made me quite confident. Super cool experience.“