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Scott McGill (Human Powered Well being) and Sam Boardman (L39ION of Los Angeles) are amongst an inflow of 5 new North American riders on the 2024 roster for Venture Echelon Racing.
The US-based Continental squad will embody a roster of 13 and alter up racing targets to incorporate occasions like Unbound Gravel and SBT GRVL amongst their rising calendar of European highway races to develop health and attain new audiences.
Final season Venture Echelon Racing notched 14 podiums on the highway, with all six stage victories coming from Cade Bickmore and Tyler Stites. Each riders reprise roles as GC leaders for 2024 and proceed alongside Trofeo Calvia KOM winner Matt Zimmer and 5 different returning teammates.
“I feel on paper, it is the very best highway crew {that a} US continental program has put forth for the reason that Hincapie-Holowesko days. That is the calibre that I see on the roster,” mentioned Eric Hill, director for Venture Echelon Racing.
A novel strategy for 2024 would be the inclusion of gravel races on the calendar together with choose criteriums and levels races in North America and roughly 40 days of highway racing in Europe, which he mentioned was greater than double final yr. For gravel races, he mentioned they’d strategy them as “North America’s Classics”.
“You need to go the place individuals are and gravel is a good house for us to have a shared expertise with folks and nonetheless get to compete at a extremely excessive degree that prepares us for our key focus of racing, which is on the highway and in our rising calendar in Europe. We view these occasions as North America’s Classics,” he instructed Cyclingnews, including they may very well be the first UCI highway crew dedicated to sending squads of 4 to 5 riders to gravel races.
“It is an thrilling new problem, and retains guys, , motivated and sharp after they’re house, and hone in on some racing dynamics that can assist us to attain success in Europe.
“We’re stepping again just a little bit from the criterium scene. We’ll be on the massive 4 stage races in North America. Our hope is that we go and race these races in Europe and we convey that pleasure and expertise again to the US and assist to develop that scene once more.”
Venture Echelon Racing will once more open their highway season in Spain at Problem Mallorca, the place final yr Matt Zimmer gained the KOM classification on the opening cease at Trofeo Calvia. They’re scheduled to race Tour de la Provence and are hoping to verify one other European cease in February earlier than turning to the US for the Tucson Bicycle Basic and a crew camp in Arizona.
Different European stage races on the spring calendar embody Vuelta ao Antelejo, Tour of Rhodes, with Vuelta a Portugal in the summertime. True to Hill’s phrase, solely a handful of US criteriums have been famous, and as an alternative the off-road record included Unbound Gravel 100, Belgian Waffle Trip California and North Carolina, SBT GRVL, Chequamegon MTB 40 and Large Sugar Gravel.
“We consider that gravel is the very best place for us to construct group and join with folks via a shared expertise to activate upon and develop our mission to coach, equip and empower veterans via bodily exercise.”
The crew introduced earlier this fall that Torbjørn Røed, winner of Belgian Waffle Trip Kansas and Large Sugar Gravel, can be on the roster, however Hill mentioned the crew has launched him from the contract to pursue different alternatives.
Street races will proceed as the principle focus, with McGill taking a lead function. He had prime 10s in 2023 at Maryland Biking Basic and Paris-Chauny for Human Powered Well being, and held the factors classification lead within the early half of the four-day Tour Poitou-Charentes. The yr earlier than on the Continental degree, he gained two levels and the factors classification at Volta a Portugal.
Boardman strikes from three seasons at L39ION of Los Angeles, the place he competed throughout stage racing, criteriums and gravel. He was fifth within the highway race at US Professional Street Nationals and gained the Sunday crit at Saint Francis Tulsa Powerful. Caleb Classen, a 22-year-old from Group California, was fifth in GC Tour of the Gila, sixth in GC Joe Martin Stage Race and gained the younger rider classification at each stage races.
Brendan Rhim joins from American Biking, who not too long ago gained the elite males’s US Madison Monitor Nationwide Championship with Danny Summerhill (American Biking). The ultimate new rider is Canadian Laurent Gervais from Cannondale Echelon p/b 4iiii. He gained the boys’s elite title on the 2023 Canadian Street Championships in Québec and was fifth on GC at Tour de Beauce.
As a non-profit, Venture Echelon helps veterans and their households, eradicating the boundaries to therapeutic by fostering relationships between veterans, their communities, and the professional athletes. The crew served greater than 530 veterans this yr and supplied greater than $70,000 in veteran scholarships and programming.
Venture Echelon Racing 2024 roster
- Ricky Arnopol (USA)
- Cade Bickmore (USA)
- Sam Boardman (USA)
- Caleb Classen (USA)
- Ethan Craine (New Zealand)
- Laurent Gervais (Canada)
- Zach Gregg (USA)
- Colby Lange (USA)
- Scott McGill (USA)
- Brendan Rhim (USA)
- Hugo Scala Jr (USA)
- Tyler Stites (USA)
- Matt Zimmer (USA)
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