Enzo: The Evolution
Two years ago, I introduced this audience to a then 14-year-old from Brooklyn named Enzo Edmonds. Charlie Issendorf, of the esteemed NYC cycling family, had asked me to go look at him as the boy had been posting superb race results (he was already an eight-time National Champion), combined with massive Zwift numbers that were the talk of the local racing community. I went to Prospect Park, course marshaled, then met Enzo and his family: a bond was immediately established, and I decided on the spot to throw everything I had into helping him. My impression was of a 185-lb bear cub, extremely intelligent (he’s an A student in AP courses at a tough school) with the knowing eyes of a true racer. I kept my involvement discreet, not wanting any distractions for him nor to be perceived as glomming onto a rising star for my own benefit. But now that he’s well and truly launched, I feel comfortable in telling the backstory of his metamorphosis from a pure track sprinter into what I feel can become a world class road sprinter if not a Classics contender.
Mind you, he came to me already very well formed in the arts of track racing due to that marvelous organization, Star Track, founded by the late Dierdre Murphy and continued under the strong leadership of Pete Taylor. (Please click here to learn more about them and to donate if you possibly can. https://startrackcycling.networkforgood.com) I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the organization, a true nursery for champions.
We began to meet in Prospect Park and I began the ‘do-over’: changing his bike size (his was two-cms too big) working on position, subtleties of movement, preaching pedal action, teaching him how to be “like water” in the peloton and flow through it unimpeded. His initial reactions when I started bumping him were to slam back hard – now’s the moment for all of you Master’s racers who used to hook and slam the boy to stand up and take your bows, you must be so proud – but we calmed that Brooklyn style down because you simply cannot do that stuff in Europe – which was where I was sending him.
It is in working with Enzo that I understood why this young generation is dominating road cycling now. They are so fluent in the language and analysis of data, have Strava and Zwift as reference points, absorb hours upon hours of race coverage and have a world of science to draw from. A different species. Enzo and his performance coach, the excellent Alan Buday, have years of data to study, which they clearly use well given how consistent Enzo’s results have been, and how he’s always in top form at the right moments. Such as when Enzo rode a 1:08 Kilometer that year – when he was still 14, to win the 15-18 National Championships. As said previously, he’s got a Hemi under the hood.
That summer, the president of my old French racing club V.C Cluses Scionzier, Pascal Cartier (his father and grandfather were presidents of the club as well) opened his home to Enzo, teaching him the French language and way of diet and focus, climbing the famed Grand Bornand Alpine pass together, giving the young boy a gentle and most formative first experience in Europe. It was there, in my old stomping grounds of Haute Savoie, that Enzo won his first European race but most importantly, established a warm and lasting relationship with the Cartier family.
It was that Fall of 2022 that, for me, Enzo had the first of two career changing moments. He’d raced in Detroit and Quebec, track races on 165-meter velodromes, dominating both race series. Pete Taylor and Pascal Cartier had worked to get Enzo in the ‘Four Days of Geneva’ again on a 165-meter, and both were there (Enzo stayed with the Cartier’s) to see him through the international event that boasted Cadet (15-16 age) teams from France, Switzerland, and Ukraine. He won the opening Flying Lap time trial, 7.75”, almost a full second ahead of the second place and all seemed to be going to plan. Then, he got his “Welcome to European racing” moment. As Enzo put it in a text, “We were going at 120% of FTP, and then they’d sprint!” He’d never experienced the flat out, kill them with speed, true Euro racing style and it came as a complete shock. Yet, he rallied, fought hard, and finished 4th or 5th overall in his first truly international experience. As Pascal told me afterwards, “Enzo listens. He’ll make a mistake; you point it out to him and analyze it. He doesn’t make it again – he asks questions and learns.”
Enzo needed a road team for 2023. I put out feelers in Europe but nothing bit, and with his schooling a European team would have proven difficult to manage anyway. So, we came up with a plan to get him on Hot Tubes, the dominant American Junior program that formed Magnus Sheffield and so many others. Problem was, Enzo was still a 15-16 class racer, and they are a 17-18 team. Toby Stanton, the team founder and DS), expressed strong interest and with Pete Taylor, came up with a plan to split Enzo’s year between being a Stagiaire for Hot Tubes and racing velodrome for Star Track.
He acquitted himself with excellence at the Hot Tubes Spring training camp, raced very well with them at the Valley of the Sun stage race, won U-19 Somerville with ease, and placed 5th, 4th, and 5th at the Road Nationals in the road race, criterium and time trial, a vast improvement over 2022 when he was incapable of finishing the road race. Back in the Star Track colors, Enzo dominated the Track Nationals, repeating as Kilo Champ with a…1:07 flat (Hemi) winning everything else including the Team Sprint which give you an idea of his versatility.
He was now ready to experience that crucible of cycling, Belgium. I contacted some old friends, true Flandrians – Alain De Roo, a pro’s pro of my era, and his son Bjorn who was also an excellent racer. Bjorn accepted Enzo with open arms: “Just get him to Brussels Airport and we’ll take care of the rest.” Like the Cartier’s, the De Roo’s treated Enzo beautifully. They took him to ride the last 50-k’s of the Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix (where he took a shower in those famed stalls), climbed the Koppenberg, went to watch the Champs Èlyśees, versed him in Belgian cycling culture and mentality, and, with Alain, took turns taking him to the races. More expert guidance cannot be found. Enzo took to Belgium like the proverbial duck to water. He won every field sprint he contested, finishing almost every race in the top 10. Yet, I felt from afar and in reading the tea leaves of the texts, that something was missing. Which brought us to his second career changing moment.
Sometimes a fellow countryman’s voice is important. Alain and Bjorn know 1000-times more about racing than I do, and they showered Enzo with superb advice and guidance. But I had the sense that Enzo was too concentrated on results and not enough on ‘performance’. That he wasn’t taking risks – which is common in this young generation so hammered by the importance of test scores. So, I wrote him and basically said, “Look, sprinters are a dime a dozen. What the Belgians respect is someone who can break legs. It’s all about strength and power. So, next race, go break every leg you can, attack the race non-stop, don’t worry about where you finish and just see how hard you can go and how much destruction you can wreak.”
Couple of days later he wrote back that he’d done what I’d asked, destroyed himself through attacking, yet, bonked and exhausted, still won the field sprint for 7th.
“Good!”, I responded, “Now you know that even completely cooked you’re still the fastest. So next race, do not let anyone escape your clutches. You make them sprint you for the win no matter how hard you need to go.”
He won his next race, his first-ever win from a breakaway, and the mentality had finally shifted. Enzo had learned the joys of successfully commanding a race from the front. And he’s won in Belgium: not many can say that.
Enzo finished his European trip with a return to the Cartier’s where he won two races including the prestigious – and hilly - GP Charantonnay, which is Vincent Lavenu’s (AG2R boss) race. “I tried like crazy to win alone, I’d never done that. They caught me with 500-meters to go, but I still won the sprint.” Such music to my ears.
Enzo is now launched; my work is essentially done. Toby and the National Team Director met with Enzo’s school – which had been somewhat unaware of their star – and secured European racing breaks for him which one would hope includes Belgian Classics. I feel that I got ahold of him just in time and he’s now ready for the 17-18’s, which are brutal. I mean, they are taking kids out of there and putting them straight into the pros. I’m convinced he’s now strong enough to contest the field sprints, and, who knows? Maybe more than that as well.
He is finishing out his Cadet career with a return to the Four Days of Geneva next week. It will be his final, 170-rpm small gear blowout before he steps into the big power world of international 17-18 racing, a class that has basically replaced the U-23’s as the talent pool for the pros. Updates are promised.
The beauty in his story is in how many people have come together to help this young talent. Above all, his incredibly supportive family, Star Track and its fantastic coaches, the New York City cycling community in general who can claim him as their own, the two European families who took him in sight unseen and gave so much of themselves, Toby smelling great talent and acting on it as he so successfully has over the past decades: an entire network of people working together. Which is what it takes.
Thirty-three years ago, I wrote an article for Winning Magazine: “The Search for the Great American Road Sprinter”. We’ve never really had one – good sprinters yes, but never a dominant Cipo type. Perhaps the wait is over. Enzo Edmonds will be a delight to follow.
Like
Comment
Share