Rob Britton: 10 top tales and facts about the climber from the Prairies

 

I just had to write a profile on Rob Britton. His story is fascinating. He’s a high-altitude climber from flat Regina. He himself says he had no natural talent when started competing in Saskatchewan races as a teenager. He moved west and got stronger and stronger as a cyclist, but was somehow always slightly outside of the core Canadian programs of the day: he never got on Symmetrics or Spidertech. He never got any breaks. And, he came close to quitting road cycling at least three times.

The reporting for the story led me to great conversations not only with Britton, but his former teammates and team staff. When I wrote the story, which is in the Feb./March 2018 issue of Canadian Cycling Magazine, I had a classic problem: too much good material, not enough space in the magazine for all of it.

Below are some great quotes and stories from Britton, and those who know him, that I had to share.

On Rob Britton’s work ethic

Everyone I spoke to, literally everyone, mentioned Britton’s work ethic.

My biggest takeaway from Rob is seeing how he has had a steady rise, even with a bad season or setback. He always has the persistence and tenacity to keep improving.

• Sepp Kuss, Britton’s Rally Cycling teammate from 2016–17

I believe hard work works. It’s easy to lose admiration for hard, specific work. But no one out works Rob. With some people, it breaks them down physically and mentally. But Rob gets it done. It’s straight up bizarre how much he’s able to handle.

• Chris Baldwin, Britton’s teammate on Bissell Pro Cycling in 2011 and coach since 2014

I mountain bike with him when I see him. But on the road, he feeds off of other people’s misery when he’s on his bike. I don’t super enjoy that anymore. I still pretty much blame him for ruining my entire last season by making me train way too hard when we were in Maui for 10 days in February. I had power averages over four- and five-hour days that were significantly higher than any time in my career. I was unbelievable in late February and then I just completely fell apart.

• Zach Bell, Britton’s teammate on SmartStop from 2014–15 and staff at Rally Cycling since 2016

On racing in Europe

If I could never race [in Belgium], I’d be pretty happy. There nothing too exciting to me about cobbles, rain and crosswinds.

Algarve is a great race. It’s dry, warm, hilly.

• Rob Britton, who’s from Regina, likes the warmer climes

On Rob Britton’s humour

He’s got a pretty dry sense of humour that a lot of people don’t understand sometime. It’s a very sharp wit. That comes from the Saskatchewan cold winters.

• Eric Wohlberg, men’s team director at Rally Cycling

He was on a bike ride in Victoria. He saw a sea lion in the bay and took a picture of it. On Instagram, he captioned it with “it’s nice to see @zerailleur [my handle] doing some cross training before the season” or something like that, basically implying I’m a big, fat sea lion. Everyone on the team saw it. I thought, “Ha, ha. OK. Good joke. You’re a funny guy.” Then he started doing it more. He followed National Geographic and these sort of things. He kept tagging me with comments, like Family Circus or Far Side captions, involving me and sea lions. Then it evolved into walruses and any large aquatic mammals that lounge on the beach. This started on Smartstop and still going on right now. I still get a couple of them a year.

It did become a back-and-forth. After the first couple of tags, I kind of got fed up with it. [On SmartStop,] it was Rob and Kris Dahl who were both tall and lanky guys who were both doing it. Kris was kind of egging Rob on. So, I started the same kind of things with gibbons, the super, long-armed monkeys, for Rob. So, now that’s one of our connections: insults via animal captions.

It’s kind of unfair because National Geographic seems to really enjoy taking pictures of sea lions, but there are actually not a lot of gibbons. When I get him, it has to be really good.

• Zach Bell

For me, he can be that archetypal British Columbian or Canadian guy: nice, polite and courteous. But once you get to be friends with him, he can cut you deep with sarcasm and wit.

• Michael Creed, Britton’s director on SmartStop from 2014 to 2015

On balancing a relationship and a career in pro cycling

Rob Britton and Ricki Hagen have been together for roughly eight years, since Britton’s days on Bissell.

[In January 2013, as I was leaving for Europe to ride with Raleigh,] Ricki was off on her own adventure to teach nursing in Bangladesh. So…never fly out of an airport the same day as your partner as you’re about to not see each other for seven months. It’s not fun.

She’s really supportive when it comes to travelling, including for training. I try to find times when she’s really busy or might not notice me being gone, maybe. With her med school, that’s pretty much all the time now.

• Rob Britton

On the start of Stage 2 of the 2014 Tour de Beauce

That was an eerie day. It was close to the one-year anniversary of the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic. We had a moment of silence before the start. But what was so eerie about it was that you could still taste the diesel fuel from the explosion in the rain, taste it and smell it in everything.

• Rob Britton

Growing confidence ahead of the 2015 season, the year he won the Tour of Gila and was 10th overall at California and third overall at the USA Pro Challenge

I remember, crystal clear, I was riding up this busy highway in the rain in Victoria and I got a call from [Mike] Creed. He’s one of the few people I’ll answer the phone for when I’m riding, and I was happy to get off the road for a minute or two. He told me how he was looking at this guy [for Team SmartStop], Juan Pablo. He could be a really good signing. He won the Tour of Mexico. Creed said he didn’t want to take any opportunities from me but… I thought about it for a second and said, “It shouldn’t matter because I want to be the best stage racer in North America. It shouldn’t matter who you sign.“

• Rob Britton

The polite Canadian

When Rob comes to stay with me, it’s like I’m staying with him. He cooks. He cleans. I can’t imagine a more wonderful house guest.

• Chris Baldwin

The climber

There are a lot of problems you can fix when there’s a 10 km, 10 per cent climb at the end of a bike race.

• Rob Britton on the climb up to Snowbird at the end of Stage 6 of the 2017 Tour of Utah. During the stage, Brent Bookwalter became the virtual race leader, but Britton pulled on the yellow jersey at the end.