I try to stay rested and hydrated. And it sounds strange, but it's very apparent if I'm riding (or if someone's riding behind me) that my body just doesn't want to turn left. I guess maybe it's the fear of the tire sliding out or just not committing to the turn. Sometimes it’s something as simple as not wanting to unclip on my left side.
FEATURED ATHLETE
THE NEW KING OF GRAVEL Name: Ian Boswell Age: 30 Profession: Wahoo Fitness, Athlete Liaison Family: Wife, Gretchen Sports: Road and gravel racing. Lives in: Peacham, Vt.
How do you stay in race shape now that you are living away from a team and have a full-time job? In January 2020, I took a full-time position at Wahoo Fitness. I do the Breakfast With Boz podcast and manage all of our athlete relationships. I end up going to a lot of events and because we are in the endurance sports world, Wahoo is fully supportive of my, say doing a 3-hour ride in the middle of the day. My training is pretty random, but I try to get in at least one long ride per week and a couple of times this summer I've been able to do some hard rides with Ted (King) or Ansel (Dickey) or Mike Barton. And during the pandemic, a group of Northeast Kingdom riders got together and we started the weekly St. Johnsbury Creemee Ride – we meet at the Milk House and it's anywhere from 15 miles to 27 miles. I don’t always do it, but it’s fun to see it growing and some days it’s 50/50 men and women. But often I’m indoors using a Wahoo platform called Sufferfest. It combines cycling workouts with yoga and strength training.
I
an Boswell was a pro cyclist on the WorldTour, racing the Tour de France and living half the year in Nice, France when he a crash in 2019 left him with a traumatic brain injury. Boswell, who grew up in Oregon, had recently moved to Peacham, Vt. with his wife Gretchen, a Vermonter. While Ian recovered, the couple settled into life in the rural Vermont village and started the Peacham Fall Fondo (happening on Sept. 25). This past summer, Ian jumped back into competition, racing gravel for the first time. In June, Ian won Unbound, the 200-mile gravel classic in Kansas, following a sprint where he beat Laurens Ten Dam, a pro Dutch road racer, and Colin Strickland, the 2019 winner, as well as Vermont’s Ted King. We caught up with Ian just after he won Rooted Vermont and as he was headed to race the Belgian Waffle Ride in Asheville, N.C., a race he also won. This summer you won the premiere gravel race in the country, Unbound Gravel. Not bad for someone who has allegedly “retired” from pro racing. Was there a moment when you said, “I’m going to get back into racing, but go for gravel?” I guess it didn't really happen until I was there, you know. I didn’t have any expectations going into Unbound. It was good to be in the lead pack of five or so for much of the race, but I certainly didn’t think I was going to win, even right up until the final sprint. I had a level of fitness from my career of racing bikes in the WorldTour, but Unbound was only my second gravel event. There were a lot of unknowns and I had no idea how I would do against guys like Colin (Strickland), Ted (King) or Pete (Stetina)—all former pros. But I just had a magical day. I really surprised myself there. I wasn’t used to all the other factors that go into a 200-mile gravel race – the flats, the hydration. It’s similar to road racing, but these events are super long and you are looking after all your own stuff. The riding can also be really technical.
8 VTSPORTS.COM | SEPT./OCT. 2021
Ian Boswell racing his custom Specialized
Photo by Wahoo Fitness/Vermont Social
What’s the biggest difference for you between racing on the World Tour level and just going out and riding on your own on the gravel circuit? I think the biggest difference is that I'm doing this because I love it. I really think the time I spent not riding, post my crash and concussion in 2019, was when I realized just how much I love riding my bike; how much positivity and health it brings to my life in so many ways. And that's kind of why I'm still doing it today. I love the people I meet and riding different areas. But it’s not a job anymore. There's no pressure to perform. I feel incredibly fortunate that I still get to travel to these events and races and make time in the day to ride.
When you were racing road events, you had several concussions including a bad one that left you with a traumatic brain injury and some vision problems. Are you fully recovered? I would say that I am doing fairly well. I mean I am still racing, obviously. But I am not always comfortable taking turns at high speed. I don’t know whether its physiological or psychological, but I limit the risks I take. There have been numerous gravel races this year from Rooted to Unbound where I found myself off the back because I was just not willing to take on a certain level of risk. I still suffer from some visual effects, especially when I am tired or it’s been a long day on the computer, so
You recently were invited to race Migration Gravel in Kenya. What was that like? The Amani Foundation reached out to me and a few other riders and invited us to come race this four-day, 650K gravel ride through the Maasai Mara. It’s a race to help support Kenyan riders and they really wanted us to ride our hardest so their athletes could gain experience and see what it’s like to race internationally. It was one of the most unique and influential races I've done. It was pointto-point every day and at night we’d set up camp with these different Maasai tribes. The terrain was a mix of ParisRoubaix and mountain biking – some of it was more like an adventure race with dirt tracks or riding through grass. And the landscape was like nothing I've ever seen before. We were up at 9,000 feet one day and then down in the Masai Mara in open grassland with elephants and giraffes and wildebeest. Just leaving at sunrise and seeing herds of wildebeest running in front of us was amazing. One time we even had to stop because they weren’t going to slow down.
