James Knox established himself as one of cycling’s most prodigious climbing talents as an Under-23, finishing second at the Liege–Bastogne–Liege Espoirs and behind Egan Bernal on the Tour de l’Avenir’s queen stage in 2017.
But after finding himself in the grupetto at the Tour of Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine in his first year as a professional with QuickStep, the Cumbrian began to wonder whether the WorldTour was a pedal stroke too far.
‘I was thinking, "Shit, if something doesn’t really change now, I don’t know what I’m going to do,’’ Knox tells Cyclist. ‘Those were the two hardest moments. I considered myself a climber but ended up in the grupetto for a week.’
Knox is reflecting on his neo-pro year and a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows: of feeling at home among the remarkable talents of Deceuninck–QuickStep and of lingering self-doubt.
‘Throughout the first half of the season there were little moments when I thought, "Yeah, I’ve cracked this now" but then a couple of days later I’d be getting my head kicked in,’ he says.
It wasn’t until the Tour de Wallonie at the end of July, where Knox secured his best result of the season with sixth in the General Classification, that he began to feel ‘totally relaxed’ at the sport’s top table.
Fast-forward to the start of the new campaign and that ‘first year neo-pro stress’ is a distant memory as Knox begins his second season.
If the 23-year-old arrived in Australia for the Tour Down Under as a calmer, more confident rider, little changed on the road for cycling’s most successful team: Elia Viviani won the opening stage of the 2019 curtain-raiser before triumphing once again at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
Surviving and thriving as a neo-pro
Knox rode for Team Wiggins at U23 level and it was after his performance at the Tour de l’Avenir, which in turn came off the back of top-10 finishes at the Tour of Croatia, Ronde de l'Isard and Tour Alsace, that Patrick Lefevere’s Belgian super team came knocking with the offer of a two-year contract.
'I made some calls in the next couple of hours and then accepted the offer,’ says Knox. ‘It was a dream come true. I wasn’t going to wait up for anything else.’
Knox admits to being star struck at the team’s first pre-season get-together in October 2017 but was quickly made to feel welcome.
Life as a pro cyclist made a stuttering start, however: a niggling knee injury forced him off the bike for three weeks, getting back in the saddle only shortly before a delayed debut in QuickStep colours at the Abu Dhabi Tour.
Two of the toughest early-season form-finders quickly followed: the Volta a Catalunya and Tour of the Basque Country.
‘I was expecting to go to Catalunya and Basque Country and get my head kicked in,’ says Knox. ‘That was fine, I’d come to terms with that as I hadn’t had a perfect start to the year. I went there and duly did get my head kicked in.’
An unrelenting schedule, not least for a neo-pro, saw Knox line-up for his first Classic at La Flèche Wallonne: a race where he had to ‘pinch himself’ riding in support of Julian Alaphilippe as the Frenchman - one of the undoubted stars of 2018 - rode to victory.
‘That was the first big moment when I thought, "this is a bit surreal." It was a race I’d watched for 10 years and I was there as part of the winning team.’
The Tour of Romandie and Criterium du Dauphine, and Knox’s time in the grupetto in the high mountains of the Jura and Alps, brought the reality of life as a young climber into sharp focus, but the Brit rode his first season with little expectation from the QuickStep hierarchy.
‘It was a case of one good race, one bad race, one good race, one bad race,’ he says. ‘I didn’t really know what was coming - that was hard - but I had great support from the team. You quickly bounce back anyway. All it takes is one good result and you move on.’
Riding for a team that includes names like Alaphilippe, Gilbert, Viviani, Jungels, Mas and Stybar on its roster provides motivation in itself.
‘There are so many top athletes,’ says Knox. ‘You don’t want to stand out and feel like the weakest guy there. It just makes you focus and keep your head down; do the work and get to everyone else’s level.’
That hard work paid off and Knox took his newfound form from the Tour de Wallonie to the Clasica de San Sebastian. If the Belgian stage race saw Knox achieve his best placing of the year, the Spanish one-day race provided his ‘sweetest’ moment of that first season.
The undulating route through the Basque Country regularly results in an attacking race and is well-suited to the Cumbrian’s talents - ‘I’m an out-and-out climber with a bit of a kick’ - and he duly finished 19th, with Alaphilippe once again crossing the line first.
‘We went there off the back of the Tour de France, where Julian became a star [winning two stages and the polka dot jersey],’ says Knox.
‘We turned up to San Sebastian already in a bit of a party mode and ended up winning the race. We rode really nicely as a team and I was top 20 myself, so I was over the moon with my own performance and we had a nice little drink to celebrate.
'It was a perfect day, to be honest.’
The Italian job
The hills have always felt like home for Knox. He hails from Levens on the southern edge of the Lake District and was a fell running national champion as a teenager before turning to cycling.
As a junior he eschewed the British domestic scene and rode for Zappi’s, the development team run by former pro Flavio Zappi, who lives in Oxford but bases the squad in his native Italy.
‘Because I was a climber, there was no use staying in the UK, where there were no real races for me,’ says Knox. ‘The big appeal for me was to go to France, Italy, Spain.
'Even now, if I was passing on any advice to young guys - young guys who consider themselves climbers - you really need to get yourself out of the UK because you won’t find the races there to show yourself and excel.’
After signing for Team Wiggins, Knox briefly moved home to Cumbria - ‘that was hard, I wasn’t at school anymore but was still living under my parents’ rule’ - and quickly considered returning to Italy before deciding to follow the well-trodden path to Girona.
Italy still holds a special place in his heart though, not least as an explosive climber, and Knox is on Deceuninck–QuickStep’s long list for a spot at the Giro d’Italia, having requested to ride the race at the team’s pre-season camp in October.
‘It’s probably my favourite Grand Tour,’ he says. ‘As a fan, it’s the one I enjoy watching the most. It’s got a bit more drama. I’ve always loved racing in Italy, there’s something special about it.’
Having first survived and then thrived in his first year with Deceuninck–QuickStep, Knox remains realistic about his ambitions for the forthcoming campaign: to be selected for the Giro, finish his first Grand Tour, secure a ‘top 10 or 20’ finish in a WorldTour race and, perhaps most crucially in the tumultuous world of pro cycling, earn a new contract.
Knox has a mature head on young shoulders but he remains an attacking bike racer at heart.
The prospect of riding the Giro d’Italia is ‘dead exciting’ and he occasionally allows himself to dream: to cast his eyes from beyond the wheel in front and into the mountains down the road.
‘I’ve got dreams of winning on mystical mountain stages,’ he says. ‘If you come away with a career saying you’ve won one of the hardest stages in a Tour or a Giro, that’s always going to go down in history.’