CHARLIE QUARTERMAN
TREK-S EGA FRED O
Trek seems like the perfect fit for Charlie Quarterman, the young British rider who wants to follow in Fabian Cancellara’s footsteps. After all, the Swiss giant spent the final six years of his career with the squad.
2020 was a tough year to be a neo-professional, but Charlie is ambitious and raring to go for his second full season in the WorldTour. Part of the challenge for the man from Oxford is working out what kind of rider he is. He tells Procycling: “I think that’s something to be worked out. The way things are going, I’d say I was going towards the type of rider Cancellara was. I can do a job in the classics one day, but at the same time ride time trials well and use that skill across different disciplines. I’m not saying I’m going to go and get the results he did, I’m not going to put my neck on the line like that, but that’s the type of rider I want to be.”
If you wanted to paint a stereotype of the type of person energised most by the cycling boom in the UK over the last decade, you might well end up with Quarterman. Well spoken, comfortably middle class, someone who admits to an interest in investments (“something I started doing recently”), whose parents regularly ski at Morzine. It’s a reflection of the journey cycling has been on in the United Kingdom, away from the traditional working class sport of France, Italy, and Belgium, and towards a more international white collar activity.
It was 2012 that gave him the cycling bug: “I got into cycling through the Tour and Olympics, it inspired me to do my first big ride. We’d just moved house from the countryside into Oxford, and I decided to ride there, hang out for the day and then ride back, about 50 miles or so, which was pretty good for the first attempt. I did it again without the rest in the middle a few days later and it slowly took off from there. It’s strange to think, considering where I am now, but it’s nice that it started in such a humble way, I think.”
Expect erudite and varied columns from Charlie. Away from cycling, he says he likes to play music, among other hobbies: “I play a lot of music, quite a lot of guitar and piano, which is a lot of fun. Even more recently, we’re now living in Annecy in France, so I’ve been doing general mountain activities. It’s a bit cold in winter, I’m so excited to be there later in the year, and experience it when we can do things again.”
When he speaks to Procycling he is locked in his hotel room at a training camp in Calpe with a cold, but it is clear that he wants to perform well this season, to really show himself: “I’ve put a lot of work in the last few years, and especially in the last couple of months, that it would be nice to see that paying off.”
He doesn’t just want an average year, with less disruption than 2020. Charlie wants to go beyond that. He says: “My first year wasn’t ideal, but I really appreciated having the security.
The support we get is unbelievable… With the type of rider I am, I think I’ve just got to take my opportunities when they come. Whether that’s in a breakaway, trying something late on or in a time trial. The priority is just to help the team win, and we’ll see how it goes. I’d love my year to be much better than normal.”
What about further in the future? What’s Charlie’s ultimate dream in cycling? To perform well at the Tour of Flanders or Paris Roubaix, but most of all to win the World Championships, he says. Hopefully, some extra support from Procycling readers can push him onto bigger and better things this season.
Charlie gets stuck into racing for Trek-Segafredo as a neo pro last year
“I play a lot of music, quite a lot of guitar and piano, which is a lot of fun. We’re now living in Annecy so I’ve been doing general mountain activities”