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| D. Pulliam, D. Lall, R. Bahati, M. Richey, J. Williams Poolside at LA Marriot |
Cycling Coach David Pulliam is a Revolutionary
For instance, Coryn (Rivera) Labecki of Garden Grove, recently won her second Pro National Criterium Championship two years in a row!
The Criterium race is typically a short fast circuit race that attacks tight turns on urban blocks, and is popular amongst fans and sponsors alike. Unlike road bicycle racing, the big packs of cyclists don't just fly by once after a long wait, but burst into sight every few minutes.
In American cycling, the lion's share of America's Criterium National Champions rise up from streets of Los Angeles. Currently the most famous leaders of this discipline are faces of color, so often missing from the sport of cycling. In criterium racing, L.A.'s own, Coryn (Rivera) Labecki, Rahsaan Bahati, and the Williams brothers have revolutionized the discipline, and the sport.
What does this group have in common? They all were advised, served, or simply, their parents were befriended, by a little elder Angelino named David Pulliam.
Champions become champions because someone in the know recognizes their awkward and inelegant potential, and advises them with a palatable bit of relevant information. In any sport, with any developing star, there is a period of uncertainty when the careful voice of experience illuminates the budding brilliance within.
In SoCal bicycle racing circles, David Pulliam is recognized for his elegant timing, his kindness, and his endless generosity. This is not your "scream insults" type of coach. Dave is a listener. His laughter is an affirming soul food for cyclists trying to get to the top. After listening, Pulliam may not speak many words, but instead will show up the following day with the bike part that, upon his installation, make the athlete's back feel better and ride flat, out of the wind.
His words and maneuvers instill strength, speed, and technical skill into cycling athletes. Sometimes he works on the young Champion's parents. Other times he assists the coach they already have, and improves their training program with his curiosity.
Born in the late 1950s in Athen's Heights, David came up working construction with his father. Considered well mannered, and curious by the nuns at school, David was a small fella who wore glasses with a prescription as thick as coke bottles.
David began riding and racing with the Major Motion Cycling Club in the 1980s. Major Motion, a predominantly African American cycling club took their name from the all but forgotten American World Champion of 1899, Marshall "Major" Taylor. The Major's incredible speed and aristocratic demeanor was world renowned at the turn of the century, but by the mid 1930's the collective memory had been erased in the United States. In the late-1990's the Major Motion Cycling Club of Los Angeles discovered their own Major Taylor incarnate when they nurtured a young man from Leimert Park named Rahsaan Bahati.
Bahati brightened the elite cycling scene when he won Silver at the Junior National Championships in 1999. He won the next year in 2000. Recruited for the National Team in Europe, he became a media darling. He was celebrated in, and beyond the American Cycling scene throughout the early 2000 and 2010's. As a professional cyclist, Rahsaan Bahati inspired up coming youth, and adult cyclists, around the world.
Three wide eyed young cyclists who as Belezian immigrants growing up in South Central saw the example of Bahati, were brothers Justin, CJ, and Cory Williams. Upon joining the Major Motion Junior Development squad, their father Calman, a bicycle racer himself, became fast friends with David Pulliam.
Two peas in a pod at race side, Calman and Dave could be seen in close conference at Elite Junior races all over America. To this day, when asked about David Pulliam, Calman Willams becomes ebullient. "None of this could have happened without David!" exclaims Calman.
And what happened next, is as they say, history.
LEGION of LA , the unprecedented, and historic pro cycling team created by Justin Williams, leads modern American Pro Criterium Racing today. By building formidable "lead out" formations at the end of races, they win again and again. The "Lead Out" is a team formation that cuts the wind for the star who then "sits in" or rests while the team keep the speed to the finish so high, no one can come around before their star jumps away.
"The Williams brothers's Legion of LA came to dominate American criterium racing like no other team since Team 7-11 of the late 1980's." says Ken Nowakaski, retired head coach of nation leading, Marian College Cycling Program of Indianapolis, Indiana.
Los Angeles has become a fertile spawning ground for champion cyclists, especially in the discipline of criterium racing. Criteriums are the most exciting, often frightening, tight circuit races that utilize speed and iron nerve. Cutting into corners on thin rubber tires only inches away from the next racer, is not for the faint of heart.
In the early two decades of this century, Dave Pulliam's Major Taylor Junior Development Cycling Program was pumping out National Champions regularly. Men were not the only product, either. Dave was very effective directing young female racers to the Championship Podium. Coryn perfected her sprint sprinting for traffic lights against Alex Garcia and Justin Williams. Alexis and Kendal Ryan, as well as, Carla and Paulina Lopez came to the team to race with a young Corynn Rivera.
This began "the Mexican Connection" Arturo and Ceazar Lopez were two fathers who brought their children to Dave.
Freddy and Ricky Cruz were affiliated with Dave especially in preparation for a Canadian bench mark stage race called L'Attibi. Freddy Cruz went on to coach Issac Del Toro who recently won Europe's highly esteemed Tour de France prep race called Tour de L'Avinir.
(see Issac here)
Nowadays, Pulliam feeds his recruits into Damon Turner's Los Angeles Bicycle Academy. LABA's rise in bicycle racing over the last two years has been meteoric. It's no secret.
At race side the careful observer will see the very fastest racers take time to hold court with the venerable little man with the big glasses, because one bit of his advice can make all the difference between seeing it coming, or wondering what just happened.
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