24 to watch in 2024: Luke Lamperti, pro bike racer for Soudal Quickstep
Name: Luke Lamperti
Title or position: professional bike racer for UCI WorldTeam Soudal Quick-Step
On the (new) job since: Jan. 1, 2024
Age: 20
Hometown: Girona, Spain. He now spends just a month or two back home in Sebastopol each year.
Why Luke Lamperti is someone to watch:
After signing a two-year contract in August with Belgian powerhouse Soudal Quickstep, Lamperti is poised to become the next in a line of world-class bike racers from Sonoma County. That small but illustrious list includes two-time national champion Laura Charameda, two-time Leadville 100 winner Larissa Connors, and former pro riders Alison Tetrick, Steven Cozza, Ted King, Peter Stetina and Levi Leipheimer.
In 2021, at the age of 18, two weeks after graduating from Cardinal Newman High School, he became the youngest rider ever to win the men’s criterium at the U.S. nationals. The kid just got lucky, some speculated. Lamperti silenced the skeptics by winning the same race in 2022. And 2023.
This year, in his third stellar season with Trinity Racing, an Under-23 team based in the United Kingdom, Lamperti won a jaw-dropping nine races, finishing in the top 5 on nine other occasions. In August, he signed with Soudal Quickstep, one of the Union Cycliste Internationale’s 18 WorldTeams. Lamperti will be one of just a dozen Americans racing at the sport’s highest level.
The Wolfpack, as his new team is known, shines brightest in one-day “Classic” races popular in Europe, such as the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and the Giro di Lombardia. That focus makes the team an excellent fit for Lamperti, an all-around talent whose goal is to make his mark in those single-day sufferfests.
What others are saying about Lamperti:
Quickstep is retooling, noted Tyler Williams, a Santa Rosa-based pro who will race next season in the recently unveiled National Cycling League.
As a result, he said, ”I think Luke’s going to have a fair amount of opportunity to go after his own results” — rather than ride in support of other team members.
“He’s going to have a little bit of a learning curve, obviously, but that’s where his natural talent will help close the gap for him.”
A longtime training partner of Lamperti’s, Williams has extolled his old friend’s “racecraft” — Lamperti’s knack for reading a race, his uncanny sense of when to launch an attack.
“Sometimes, when people talk about Steph Curry or LeBron James, they say the game slows down for them. For Luke, the race is moving slowly. He’s just so under control. He knows where he needs to be, and he knows how to get there.
“Luke is going to a team where he’ll be well supported, that will give him the guidance to help make the jump a little easier.
“I think he’ll be pretty competitive, fairly quickly.”
What Lamperti says about 2024:
“As for my goals this year, realistically, I’d like to be competitive in some of the small classics“ he said, specifically pointing to Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and the Grand Prix Denain.
“Soudal-Quickstep has a strong classics team. I hopefully will be in a handful of bigger races” — he mentioned the cobbled Flemish classic Gent-Wevelgem, on March 24, as a strong possibility — albeit “in more of a support role.”
“The team has Tim Merlier, one of the top sprinters in the world, so I’m kind of going to be second sprinter to him. But in the races he doesn’t do, I’ll kind of be the leader” in events with sprint finishes.
Asked if he felt it wise to manage expectations, going into his first WorldTeam season, Lamperti said, “Yes, but I’m also going into it with a bit of confidence. I’ll just give it a go. I’m really excited, after all the work I’ve put in, to just be here. And now’s the time to do it.”
You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.
Luke Lamperti
Pro bike racer for Soudal Quickstep
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