Interview – Raleigh’s Sam Lowe

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Making a new start this year is former GB Academy rider Sam Lowe who rides with the iconic brand, Raleigh, on his jersey in 2015

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Interview – Raleigh’s Sam Lowe

Making a new start in 2015 is former GB Academy rider Sam Lowe who rides with the iconic brand, Raleigh, on his jersey this year.

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Pic: Joey Severn

The former British Junior Road Race Champion in 2012 is a stage winner as well in the Junior Tour of Wales and came away from the European Track Championships in 2012 with a Silver medal in the Team Pursuit (Junior) showing that there’s some serious horsepower under the hood.

In 2013, he had a 4th place in the Stafford GP kermesse and has ridden a few of the British top races races like the Tour of Reservoir and CiCLE Classic. In 2014, he rode for French club Amicale Cycliste Bisontine but it didn’t work out as expected.

“The past two years have not gone great for me which has been massively disappointing. Signing for Raleigh gives me the opportunity of a new start and I’m hoping to give it a good crack this year. I have to learn my role in the team rather than racing as an individual. Working in a team environment will be different from every man for himself but I think it will be better and I’m looking forward to it.”

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Pic: Joey Severn

Sam explained that with the GB Academy, there was a lot of focus on the track post Olympics where they were trying to establish the new riders to do the Team Pursuit. “Over the winter, we concentrated on the track and when we came into the summer, I had a few knee problems and a bit of illness and never managed to get them sorted until midway through the year.”

“It was a shame but I found the Academy didn’t suit me personally, so I thought I’d see if I could try and make it in France.”

Helped out by the Dave Rayner fund, Sam says “I always felt I needed to give it a go abroad and see what it is like. A lot of riders try it and I was speaking to Adam and Simon Yates and Adam said the scene in France was really good.”

“It was a bit of a shock at first not speaking French and as the year went on, I found it tough doing my training and found it a lot harder than I expected. That took its toll as I found I was putting it all in and not getting the return back on the hard work. So it was good to get the opportunity to come back.”

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Sam (right) with the happy chappy Steve Lampier (centre) and George Pym.

“The Raleigh team has come on massively in the past few years and the support we have is massive with all the facilities we have open to us.” The 2015 season will be his first year on the road in Britain on his Raleigh Militis team issue bike which has new colours for 2015.

“I was doing mainly Elite National level racing in France, one dayers and stage races, and overall, the strength in depth I think is higher over there. It’s a tough place to race no matter what category race you do. The main thing for me this year is to get back on track here and winning races which is where I want to be”.

Sam spent some time in Calpe training and says he managed to get a decent block of work in prior to the team camp which has just finished. “The winter has gone well for me” he says. “When I got back from Calpe, I managed to sort out a coach and get some good work done”.

“I always find over the winter and you’re coming into your first races, you don’t know how you are going to go and it’s a nervous time when you’re meeting the riders on the team at the first camp not knowing how you are going compared to everyone else.”

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Sam with the team at the training camp. Pic: Joey Severn

That first camp is now done and dusted and all is well with Sam. Raleigh-GAC team owner Cherie Pridham told VeloUK “Sam is good shape and happy within the team. He came through the camp very well, contributing in the lead outs nd was committed to the work in the mountains. He’s quick, punchy and motivated.”

Sam is part of a full Raleigh-GAC team racing the Eddie Soens this Saturday and says “it’s always good to get back into racing but I’m nervous as well in finding out where you are actually at”.

Good luck to Sam at the Eddie Soens where Raleigh go into the race with last years winner Ian Wilkinson.

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