The Biggest Crit in America Was Just Won on A Gravel Bike

How do you follow up a 200-mile gravel race? Well, if you are Matthew Wilson, you head a few hundred miles south, swap wheels on your Scott Addict Gravel bike, and solo to victory at one of the biggest criterium races in the United States.

On Sunday, eight days after clinching his wild card spot in the Life Time Grand Prix, the Kiwi off-road pro took on the infamous Cry Baby Hill, the centerpiece of the Tulsa Tough criterium series in Oklahoma. The race has quickly established itself as one of the two biggest criterium races in the U.S., vying with Athens Twilight for the crown. While Tulsa might be the biggest party, Cry Baby Hill is the ultimate race to win.

Well over 100 top U.S. and international criterium racers battled for one of the crown jewels in criterium racing on a punishing 0.80-mile course with a climb touching 15%. Wilson rocked up with the same Scott Addict Gravel bike he rode to 28th at Unbound Gravel and demolished everyone.

“I decided to do it a week ago,” Wilson told Velo of his criterium sidequest. “Logistically, [Cam Jones and I] were in the area and our mechanic. He also runs the Scott demo program. He was coming to Tulsa to do a demo for a local shop, so we decided to join them on the road and just see what the crit thing is all about.”

“I thought it would just be a fun way to get a bit of punch back in the legs and a bit of top end in before the summer. You need to remind the body of what it can do and open the lungs a bit. Come Sunday, I felt like I had the punch to follow any of the moves I wanted. I thought that my VO2 wasn’t great at the moment, but clearly it was good enough!”

One wheel swap and a few openers later, Wilson was in the mix among the throngs of riders and fans.

Wilson was on the very same Scott Addict Gravel RC he rode at Unbound, with a few modifications. The wheel swap was the big difference, with Wilson opting for a deep Syncros road wheelset with a narrower internal rim to accommodate the 32mm tires he ran.

Though he is a Pirelli athlete, the last-minute entry meant Wilson had to lean on Scott teammate Cam Jones, who provided 32mm road tires from Schwalbe.

All of it was a pure shot in the dark that landed spectacularly with a 10-lap attack to close out the notoriously difficult Cry Baby Hill circuit. In the end, the powerful Kiwi went solo for the last five laps after cracking Riley Wrightsman, who was the initial catalyst for his move. To underscore just how powerful Wilson was, Wrightsman took second, crossing the line just ahead of the chasing peloton 22 seconds down.

That is about as commanding a victory as a race like Tulsa Tough sees, and Wilson did it on the “wrong” bike.

“The perk of the Scott gravel bike is that it’s very similar to just a normal road Addict,” Wilson said. “There’s not a lot of change to the geometry. It’s a lightweight gravel bike that still is very snappy if you want it to be.”

No doubt, Wilson also benefited from being an outsider in the criterium scene and, in a roundabout way, knowing exactly what the limits of his gearing were heading into the race.

“I just had a 50t chainring from Unbound and an 11-34t road cassette, so I knew that I would be a bit spun out,” Wilson said. “I figured out I can’t really sprint, and I’m not gonna be winning these races in a sprint anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go get those results on my own.

“I knew a couple of the guys from the gravel scene there and a few of the Kiwi guys that were there, but particularly the bigger teams like L39ION and DCC, the German team that was there, I figured they wouldn’t have any idea who I was. Anyone who would have the power to chase me down wouldn’t really know who I was.”

Given his exploits over the past two years—including winning wild card selections and nearly taking Big Sugar last year—Wilson won’t be given much rope if he turns up at another crit anytime soon.