Cycling in Nottingham: Team Raleigh GAC

image: Christopher Paul Bradshaw
 

What does Team Raleigh GAC need to win the Tour of Britain? Cyclist Steve Lampier (pictured, right) blows out his cheeks and says, “Religion, I think.” It’s a joke, but also a frank admission that none of the eleven-man squad seriously expect to be wearing the yellow jersey at the end of the eight-day race – especially since the competition will include several top flight international teams, including Team Sky, whose Chris Froome won this year’s Tour de France.

Lest you forget, 2015 Tour of Britain starts on 6 September and stage six will end in Nottingham on 11 September. The final part of the course will see riders from twenty teams race along Gregory Boulevard and up Mansfield Road before making a sharp right hand turn onto the final stretch through the Forest Recreation ground. While Lampier – who finished seventeenth and eighteenth in the last two Tours – or any of the team could get the Raleigh colours across the line first on the day, they are realistic about their chances of winning the overall race given that they are up against the likes of Sky, Tinkoff-Saxo, Lotto-Soudal, Cannondale-Garmin, Etixx Quickstep, MTN Qhubeka, Movistar, IAM Racing and BMC – all of which competed in this year’s Tour de France and other big international events.

The tiered structure of cycle racing means that Team Raleigh GAC, as a third level continental team, cannot take part in such races – but they can still compete against the world’s biggest teams when they enter events such as the Tour of Britain. That’s great for spectators, and a great experience for Raleigh’s young riders, but the nature of the competition also dims the prospects of an overall Raleigh victory. The riders admit that.

As Steve Lampier’s young colleague George Pym (pictured, left) tells LeftLion, “One aim is to get in the top ten. Another aim is to get on TV.” This latter point isn’t as frivolous as it may sound since cycling teams are totally dependent on sponsorship – unlike football, nobody pays to watch a bike race and there are no TV fees – and what sponsors want most is their corporate logo on the telly, websites and in newspapers. And preferably on the front of a winning cyclist’s jersey when he or she rolls over the finish line with arms in the air. From this perspective, Team Raleigh GAC may have an advantage, and the advantage is that the Raleigh brand is already universally recognised, especially when it is embroidered into the traditional black, red and gold team colours.

It was these colours that the old TI-Raleigh team wore in the seventies and eighties when it competed at the top level and Joop Zoetemelk won the Tour de France. Yet, for some reason, when the new Team Raleigh was launched as a UK domestic team four years ago, after a long absence for Raleigh from the road racing scene, the riders were clad in bland white outfits. Management, or someone, soon saw the error of their ways and the team has reverted to its traditional colour scheme.

At the time of the relaunch, Raleigh, the bike company, also said that its ambition was to get a Raleigh team back into the Tour de France. This hasn’t happened yet. Like the prospects of winning the Tour of Britain, the ambition is there – but achieving the goal is dependent on long-term financial support.

George Pym and Steve Lampier
 

“When Raleigh started, we had very big aspirations to take the team back to the highest level, but the reality is that that has to be sustainable and it’s all about trying to bring in a big corporate partner – and that takes time,” says team manager and former pro rider Cherie Pridham. “You don’t want to throw all your eggs into one year and not be able to maintain the team. It’s all about having a great business plan and having great people behind us.”

At this point I’d like to say “enough of the business talk” but the next matter, concerning Raleigh’s identity, is also tied up with money. The fact is that Raleigh, the team, always had a connection back to Nottingham because of the presence of Raleigh, the bike maker. But while Raleigh still makes the team bikes, they have since moved out to Eastwood and the team’s management, and much of its sponsorship (e.g. financial services company GAC), is based in… Derby. Indeed, in a recent press release, Pridham was quoted as saying, “Our roots are firmly embedded in Derby and many of our riders live in and around the city.” Gasp.

So, is Team Raleigh GAC really saying goodbye Nottingham? Pridham, aware of the sensitivity of the matter, is politic in her response to the question of where Team Raleigh GAC is really from these days. “You’ve got to look at our sponsors and partners. Most of them are East Midlands-based and Raleigh, who are based in Nottingham, are one of our headline sponsors and partners. We have a number of partners who are here and in Derby, so, I prefer to say that the team is based in the East Midlands.”

In this context it’s perhaps worth bearing in mind that the old TI-Raleigh team was also not actually based in Nottingham. It was essentially a Dutch team whose connection to the Nottingham area was Raleigh’s sponsorship, and that the bikes were made at its Ilkeston factory. And anyway, these days cycling teams, like Premier League football clubs, take their people from anywhere and everywhere. Only one of Team Raleigh GAC’s cyclists actually comes from Derbyshire.

Ah yes, the cycling. At 21, George Pym is happy to be described as one of Team Raleigh GAC’s domestiques. On this year’s Tour of Britain, his first in red, black and gold, he will be working to get colleague Steve Lampier into the best position to win stages. Lampier, 31, is a mountain man who has his eye on a high placing at stages two and five, the latter finishing on the top of mighty Hartside in Cumbria, usually best known for the motorbikes which roar up to its summit café.

Which rival teams will he worry about most? “Any of the Pro Continental teams. We don’t have that level of racing in the UK so it’s hard for us to be continuously racing against them, but on the last two Tour of Britains I’ve been seventeenth and eighteenth overall and that gives me a lot of confidence this year.”

The same question to George Pym gets a similar response. “Teams like Sky. All of the world class teams. We will be aiming for the GC [general classification] but we also aim to be in the breakaways. Getting the jersey on the TV. Doing the sponsors proud.” But manager Cherie Pridham is more defiant. “We fear no one,” she says. “We race against whoever there is to race against. We have respect for everybody, but if you fear someone then you’re in the wrong game.”