Rapha Gone Racing - Tulsa Tough

this is going to be the biggest race you've ever won this will be the biggest race you've ever won this would be the biggest race you've ever won so you just keep telling something yes i keep telling myself that over and over again everyone's tired we're not giving anybody a [ __ ] inch today this is the first time under the lights with the pressure of the best guys in the country punching in the face they want to talk about the internet this is real tulsa hot different from all the other races because everyone is getting here with their top fitness you should have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder man it's definitely going to be the most important race of the year it's when people start running their mouths and don't really pay the respect to us when we do win is when losing becomes not an option the more steady we make the race the more the higher the chances are that we removed yeah and i want you guys to understand like i i [ __ ] love the chaos like when we're leading our corey we can string it out when we're leading out me i want the [ __ ] to be as slow as we can ride with getting away with it i love that [ __ ] i love it when there's people next to me i love it when there's people behind me it allows me to be me all these dudes like don't want to appreciate what's happening and [ __ ] just beat them into submission how would you describe the state of pro-cycling in the united states today okay that's a tough one the state of cycling in the us is quite interesting the tradition in cycling is just to kind of be replaceable honestly thank you my theory is is that people are scared that the thing that they worked so hard for is completely changing and they don't understand how to accept that or take it i've been told to cut my hair i've been told to stop making youtube videos they told me you don't want to be the guy remembered for making youtube videos and i feel like that's gotten us so far away and if i would have stopped that who knows where we would have been today we got a [ __ ] a couple bones to pick skyler it's a good day for you kendall you're riding fantastic you guys are phenomenal together legion's changing pro cycling and i think changing pro cycling in america the only chance they can beat us is off the front between me corey and ty fastest guys in the country two guys who do things differently being the face of it and wearing gold chains and kicking hands we're trying to change the sport by allowing people to be who they are even from the beginning i already wasn't comfortable with being myself in the cycle in the community just here it was a culture shock that was completely different the way that they perceived competition was completely different there were so many people being fake even my dad would act different at races or at group rides our goal was to create spaces where people from different backgrounds can come in and feel comfortable and feel like they have culture in that sport and they feel safe like they feel safe to be themselves in that sport and the the last thing was to like go out there and [Music] redefine what success looks like in american cycling when you're standing on the top step no one can really say anything and that's it's kind of just like the icing on the cake and it just silences all the haters we went on a greenwood tour on thursday it was really heavy we stood out in the sun for about two hours and no one really cared that it was hot we were just like really upset sad and and we just wanted to do a good job out here with what we're doing like we're the only black owned team in america maybe even in the world i think the soccer team works with this brand that is representative of the greenwood district and kind of everything that happened on black wall street so they created these packs to like commemorate that and the soccer team wore them so we thought that would be cool to kind of do the same bring that same kind of feel to the race the guys they just felt it everyone was hugging and it was just it was just tough you know to swallow that pill and we just wanted to do right by the the people that were murdered i grew up drawing and being into art and i didn't know who jean-michel basquiat was until i was 26 and like so i gave up on art because i was like well i don't see any black artists so like obviously that's not a possibility and so understanding all of the success that took place in black wall street and then coming here and you know winning the race in 2019 um was important and hopefully we can do the same damn thing tonight okay the legion of los angeles has put together a brand new women's team for 2021 and on the men and women's side the diversity in their program is unrivaled as a ton of fans are also swarming around the tent trying to get autographs and their leader is skyler schneider looking to be able to start off on race number one with a win under her belt a lot of times we uh get stuck in this robotic mindset of cycling and uh we're trying to change the sport by allowing people to be who they are just uh just to let your character out like we're not all the same and we're underway as it's race number one here at tulsa tough 106 riders on the start line everybody descending the speedsters of the nation coming to salsa oklahoma to try to challenge themselves and immediately the attacks were fast and furious as this field started to get strung out everybody looking to be able to start their season on a good mark the world felt very limiting and then getting into cycling expanded like all of that to like a different level to where i could go i could do whatever i want i didn't even know marketing was a job like a lot of kids that grow up in the hood don't know this [ __ ] exists it all comes down to this final lap and the final straight away as skyler schneider wins race number one to represent this team and what it stands for and everything that it means and then to take a win home i mean i mean what's that feeling like i felt really good i'm so happy we can be here and yeah what's your strategy for the rest of the weekend now that you went full gas on this one yeah we'll take it day by day each course is really different so we'll come with a new strategy and china once again i feel like we're kind of like the renegades of cycling at this point it's so new and different and controversial even which for whatever reason it is that's that's fine those feeds are energy and it makes us know we're doing it doing the right thing justin williams this guy excels at these tight criterium races nicest guy off the track but he turns it on comes race time justin is a very nice guy until you probably have to race him as we get closer to the race i am just locked in i don't want to talk to anybody don't look anybody i want to shake your hand shake your head after the race i just want to race my bike and i want to not have to think about anything but going as fast as i possibly can with one lap to go with a massive field of 156 riders leaks of los angeles riding on the front his teammates trying to be able to set up their sprinters for the team as justin williams flying around the final turn right on his heel is corey williams that they challenge each other to the line but it's justin williams and corey going one and two i can take losing on the chin if there's a sense of understanding and respect amongst each other all the internet was solved right here tonight they want to talk on the internet this is real hot that's all i got to say it's when people start running their mouths and don't really pay the respect to us when we do win is when losing becomes not an option we won the women's race we won the elite race with our development riders and we won the pro race let's go so over the last year it just becomes an internet social media sensation to kind of put all of that hype into reality and take home these wins that really just puts puts it all into perspective and you guys really uh walk the walk my whole life i felt like i have more to prove i always have to be how sweet it is a lot better than someone else to get any recognition and that's just made me a tougher person i can really care less about the negativity and i just push forward it's not even early in the day we always have to wait for justin has anybody spoken to him pushed him back to 9 30 and he's still late it's 9 40 10 minutes late that's what's going on but we're gonna go out for a little hour ride and then hit a coffee shop good luck tonight thank you so much i am not a cyclist but i follow you guys that's awesome that's what we want to hear that's exactly what i like yeah that's what we want to hear you go get this coffee can i get what you get i want to get a blender sometimes get a blender something for us dad called me last night he was like why didn't you let my son win and i was like what i was like bro you have children you don't have a child i was on a pro team having a terrible time uh justin raced by itself and he had so much fun and he wanted to share that experience with me you got french toast too you're living my life it just changed something in me to see my little brother like struggling the same struggles that i had it wasn't getting any better he wasn't getting paid anything he was training his ass off he was suffering every day he was he was changing and i just didn't think it was fair justin's like hey man come like ride with me and we'll just do the whole thing by ourselves and i told them like i wasn't done with the team aspect of the sport so i really wanted to put a team behind us and help the people that we love i literally spent like months coaching him through why having that professional bag didn't matter and it still doesn't matter to me to this day but eventually i got him on board screaming i'll give you this the worst corner of the day was taken by tyler which one the last two corners tyler was going 40 miles an hour and i was on the inside of the turn and he decided not to take a good race line through the corner i thought he was going to crash did i make it there is that there's a there's a line didn't have any control and out of control it was totally i didn't touch brakes no that was that was super scary i was like is he gonna pull out is he gonna pull out you know we do it as a family most of the time we argue every time we get on a bike but it's just that bond is so much stronger from suffering together from like i can win the races justin can win but we put it all on the line for one another i think it's about controlling controlling the field staying together we're stronger together so i think our best plan would be to stay together we have the some of the fastest guys in the race and why not uh use that to our benefit they're like the best one i can be yesterday bro and you just came around me i had two cameras on you know one on my head maybe less arrow i need every every little advantage i can get if i'm gonna beat him i was pretty upset that he passed me on friday night i'm not gonna lie uh i had a really good sprint when i came out of the corner i felt it in my leg just he's not passing me and he got past me i don't know how but it's good we we never argue about who's gonna win you know it's in the family like like i said again the whole team is a family i grew up watching my older sister winning races so i could see what she was doing in training and go with her and then watch her win races so that really inspired me to be at that level one day and i'm hoping like watching kendall and i do what we're doing and yeah expanding the visibility is inspiring many little girls out there today too race number two is the tulsa arts district is underway riders flying around the race courts you can see l.a sweat on the front the pink jerseys of dna as they're trying to be able to control the field as it's coming down now to bell lab it's one lap to go the final time around and right now dna is on the front maggie cole's getting ready to go heather fisher oh and she goes down a massive crash the bike flying into the group legion of los angeles has made it through now maggie cole's trying to be able to come around but it's kendall ryan coming through the final turn now sprinting towards the finish skyler schneider sitting in second and it's going to be legion of los angeles kendall ryan taking the win skyler schneider in second it's a one-two finish craziest most hectic last lap are you excited that's my favorite one i think you'll like it yeah i'm really excited good good let me find me tomorrow and let me know how it went okay okay good night mind if i get a picture of you that's great awesome today in this environment everyone's really encouraged to express themselves and it's cool watching cyclists who are taught to be one way just like find their own selves and to be free to express it on the team is really neat this is the best team i've ever been on the team dynamic is crazy we love each other out there now with the guys that we have in the team and the way that the other racers are racing us we're having to constantly evolve we all know what the job is and they have faith in us and we have faith in them essentially my job is to make sure that the races if something is hard is happening then it's my job to make sure that whatever is going on is under control so i have to fix pretty much everything these guys are time travellers they're sprinters they're climbers the only two guys related to one thing is uh me and justin these guys they do everything it's amazing they're so good they're so well-rounded and i just really want to be more like them relaxing los angeles came in with a plan to control the race on the front for the entire 60 minutes multiple attacks tried to be able to get away but legion shut everything down and in the final lap ty magner launched up the climb and then it was a one-two for legion of los angeles corey williams takes the win we haven't seen this level of bike racing for about a decade in the united states what you all are doing tonight's winner corey williams courtney is our plan no sir i was in a plan uh it was really hard actually and then it basically creates momentum for us cycling to us is everything i've been poor for this i've been homeless for this i like literally have not made any money from cycling and i still wanted to do it this is amazing this is what america is about america is about a success story talk about successful athletes this is the man against all odds making things happen but yeah these guys are freaking legends so at the same time it was hard but it was easy because i could trust the guys and everyone did it perfectly again my performance now with this team is better than it ever was at any level of my career i think part of that is the environment in the head space that i'm currently in i was so gassed when it came out corner i started stepping and i was like get low tyler get low and i was like i'm gonna win and then i see corey just come i wanna win the confidence that justin and corey have given me to to be me and they use me to the best of my abilities and help amplify those those skills that i have that does not happen like you have six people in the race to go one two three four when these guys roll for an hour it does not happen there's always these moments where people talk about like these things that happen in their life and they're like when you're in that moment you gotta really soak it all in and i feel like this is exactly one of those moments where we really have to try our best to like get back decompress and really soak it all in because this does not happen it does not happen high knows we've been doing this [ __ ] for a long time you see it doesn't happen like this good job i love my love i love you one two three four we hit it everyone is definitely racing for us to lose or to try to help for us to lose they're not really racing for them to win we just have to kind of do our race and control our own destiny in a way it's been so long since i was at a big race i didn't expect to be doing this as my job ever again surprisingly i'm not nervous today i wasn't really nervous yesterday either i was hyped for yesterday probably hyped today what really makes me proud about this program beyond the winning is the buy-in that we've gotten from these people that are coming from these places in the sport that weren't easy where tyler williams wrote a year on his own it was like who knows what was gonna he wasn't he was becoming a paramedic [Music] i was in europe for eight years and then when i i didn't get resigned in 2018 so then 2019 i was just kind of racing for fun and going to school and doing other stuff legion is the reason i have a career right now i would not even be remotely even probably thinking about bike racing now the tale of crybaby hill it used to be in reverse direction so it went up the other side apparently when they switched it the hill we actually go up now is harder and like the racers were crybabies about it i love crying baby hill it's hard all the races here are hard i'm not afraid of the sun i'm not afraid of the hill i have my guys with me we stay together we can be successful again my team is the one the most capable of hurting me well it's day number three of tulsa tough and all the riders are getting ready for crybaby hill the most famous race of tulsa tough it's like a rave and a massive party going on and there just happens to be a bike race going through it today is going to be amazing at the end of the day i think we've come out and proven what we're trying to do so i'm not really worried about the results coming up to the start line skyler schneider and the overall leader's jersey for tulsa tough instead of her blue legion jersey [Applause] i'm so proud i'm so proud because at some point i'm not going to be racing i'm going to be sitting on the sideline and i'm going to be taking care of my riders and i'm going to be running around like a reef what justin is doing for pro cycling especially in america we're not going to know what it is until 20 years down the line when it's been done and we can reflect on the impact that it's had final race of crybaby hill and once again i thought it was going to be too difficult for him but legion of los angeles decided to ride on the front sam boardman tyler williams alec cohen doing a fantastic job we're halfway through the race here in about 10 minutes 20 minutes that's what legion is going to take over and that's when they're just going to shoot up and pass everybody it's going to be amazing justin williams is a [ __ ] man after three days of racing a lot of tired legs are in the peloton now it comes down to who wants it the most then what a sprint tyler williams taking the win with corey williams in second and that means legion of los angeles has swept the podium and the overall of the 2021 tulsa tough [Music] [Laughter] we're going to hopefully look back and see that it has created so many opportunities for so many different kinds of people but for me to say right now what that's going to look like i think i would be selling them sure [Music] that's so crazy because there's such a lack of understanding of how we've gotten to where we've gotten everyone's going like well you guys are good at social media well you're the national champion well you're this and you're this and they're trying to in their head justify and make sense of how we've elevated what we've done so quickly but it's just hard work we were called uh instagram cyclist um flashy a whole bunch of stuff but the people that love us really believe in our mission [Applause] i'm coming in from the outside so i've been kind of shocked how yeah people talk about us on the internet we're actually investing in media and we're putting out these photos and we're doing cool things and people are like wait a minute like you can't do that you just have to race your bikes i've never won a race this boot before in my life it's so new and different and uh controversial even this one should really be for the team though winning to legion it's gone beyond that honestly we're trying to get more uh minority kids into the sport and before the race on friday uh [Music] i'm sorry uh there's these uh two little black girls that came up to me and they're just saying how much they like love watching us and i've never seen two little black girls at a bike race for no no family members and it's come up to me and they're staring at me and i'm just like hi little girl like she's like i really love watching you race and she just stared at me and she didn't move and it made me so emotional because at that moment i knew what we were doing was way bigger than winning a bike race we're winning at life [Music] you

Channel: Rapha Films

Views: 93,753

Rating: 4.928247 out of 5

Keywords: rapha, legion, legion of los angeles, la, l.a, los angeles, cycling, criterium, tulsa tough, tulsa, Oklahoma, racing, 2021, justin williams, cory williams, tyler williams, skylar schneider, gone racing

Id: 5nP8J0D0ynA

Length: 25min 40sec (1540 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 26 2021