Sam Boardman - A Man (And His Mullet) Abroad

Make yourself a coffee (or three), find a comfy seat and dive into our biggest blog to date, with Project Echelon Racing’s, Sam Boardman, as he shares an in depth perspective of a North American pro road racer, tackling their first European campaign. Read his firsthand account of what it was like to jump into a peloton packed with talent, the skills he sharpened in the American crit-scene that kept him upright, and the multiple shout-outs his famous “flow” garnered him on live TV.

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Sam Boardman, self-described “push-bike pilot” for Project Echelon Racing, America’s premiere Continental Pro Cycling Team, isn’t hard to spot among the collage of colourful riders that make up a pro peloton. Within the North American race scene the past several seasons, he could typically be found as a driving force at the pointy end of the bunch, stringing out the field and setting up his former L39ION teammates for one of their countless criterium victories. The undeniably awesome trademark head of hair, that cascades like a waterfall out of the back of his helmet, often paired with an equally impressive moustache, is yet another defining feature of the inspiring rider. It was a highlight year for Sam, who jumped into the deep end of the sport this past season, tackling a European race calendar stacked with talented riders, demanding parcours and new challenges. Read what Sam’s takeaways, highlights and eye-opening experiences were from his racing adventures abroad this season with the ascending Project Echelon squad.

The unmistakable look of professional push-bike pilot and part-time style icon, Sam Boardman.

You transitioned from several years of crit-focused racing in North America (formerly with L39ION) to more of a road race and stage race-oriented season with Project Echelon this year, how did you alter your training knowing what was in store this past year?

Funny enough, I didn’t alter my training much when I switched teams going into 2024. Prior to joining L39ION, I had focused almost exclusively on road races and stage races since I had discovered cycling and began racing competitively, so a much more volume-intensive training regimen wasn’t anything with which I was unfamiliar. Even when I knew I was joining L39ION and that my schedule would transition to one that involved pretty much only crits, save for one or two smaller American stage races, I maintained the same level of volume for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I knew that my role would be as a lead-out rider, which meant riding the front and controlling the pace for the roughly hour-and-a-half-long races that we were doing. Having a high level of base fitness was key to helping me complete the role and be just as strong in the last lap of the race as I was in the first lap. I may not have had a very large top-end in terms of a sprint, but I didn’t need that for the role I inhabited during my time in the program. Secondly, and more simply, subscribing to large-volume training is something I genuinely like. I enjoy riding my bike, and the more I get to ride it, the happier I am generally.

Going into 2024, if I were to cite any large changes I made to my training, they would probably have to do with the quantity of threshold/sub-threshold work in the off-season, as well as my recovery routine, which I needed to convince myself was as much a part of the training as the actual riding itself. In previous years, when I have pretty much just used the off-season to ride as much as I can and wrack up tons of hours, it felt great, but there wasn’t a whole ton of focus beyond that and some period threshold testing as we got closer to the start of the season. This past season, however, my coach and I decided that we would spend a lot more time doing concerted “engine-building” sessions that focused on that 80-95% range of power because we both knew that the base pace of most of these harder races that I was slated to start was going to be way higher than that of the domestic stage races to which I had grown accustomed. That work also started a lot earlier than it has in the prior few seasons because the season started in earnest much earlier–i.e. Between 2021 and 2023, when the big races wouldn’t come until late March or early April, this year we started racing by the end of January. With that in mind leads to the latter change, which was that my recovery needed to be infinitely better. With crit racing, I grew complacent in that department because it felt a bit easier to get away with knowing that a race wouldn’t last longer than 90 minutes. But this year I knew I needed to cultivate way better habits, such as actually staying off my feet and timing nutrition intake as properly as I could because the intensity and length of the races (many of which were between four and five hours for consecutive days) meant I couldn’t afford not to maximize my body’s recovery.

As a self-described workhorse/domestique for the teams you’ve raced for, would you say you train any differently than a designated team leader, whose job it is to have the winning punch at the end of a race? For example, more TT style efforts so that you can sit on the front of the peloton for long periods?

I think in the context of previous seasons when I was racing a mostly crit-focused calendar, I was training differently to many of our sprinters on the team–i.e. generally more volume and TT-style intervals–but in the current context of a road racing calendar, I think my teammates and I all train fairly similarly, and there isn’t that much difference in our programs. The races are so hard that everyone–sprinters, lead-out riders, and climbers alike–has to do fairly high volume to be able to make it to the end fresh and ready to contest for a result, and while sitting in does exist in longer road races, no matter how much sitting in you do, the fatigue still accumulates and you need a large base of fitness to combat that.

What are some of the biggest differences you experienced when jumping into the European races the team did this season with Project Echelon, compared to your experience racing in North America? Would you say it changed or helped the way you raced when you were back in the US?

The two biggest differences between races in Europe and races in the U.S. are two-fold, in my opinion: 1) the depth of strength across all riders in a European peloton versus that in a U.S. peloton is much greater; and 2) in general, the design of courses is far more technical and topographically difficult than most races that currently exist in America right now. These two features don’t pertain to crits, a discipline seen pretty much exclusively only in America, England, and Australia, and is completely different from longer-form road races that I focused on this year.

In a European professional peloton, pretty much every rider is a paid athlete who is expected to treat racing like it is their job, and, accordingly, even the lesser-known riders are still insanely strong and skilled, so the peloton as a whole is composed of very capable and competitive racers. In the U.S., on the other hand, some riders are paid as athletes and pursue the sport as their only gig, but I would argue at least half, if not more, of the riders in America who race in the country’s largest races (such as Redlands or Tulsa Tough), have day jobs and pursue it as a very involved passion, but not as a career in and of itself. Consequently, the skill level in the American peloton has a much larger disparity and the racing style isn’t as ballistic as I experienced when competing in the European races that I did.

Additionally, most of the larger-scale road races in the U.S. generally take place on wider, less technical roads, whereas in Europe you are more prone to see very narrow, twisty, undulating roads incorporated into courses. My best explanation as to why this is the case would most likely be that permitting for closed roads for cycling in the U.S. has become extraordinarily expensive for race organizers (almost prohibitively so), which forces them to find courses that are cheaper to permit through the local jurisdiction and can attract the most amount of participants possible, both as a way to maximize income for the promoters. This usually translates to closed-course industrial park/suburban neighbourhood crit races on the outskirts of larger urban centers making for convenient travel access to a large population of potential participants, and a lower barrier to entry in terms of the fitness required to finish and/or compete in the race than what is required for a longer-form road race that might last between 3-4 hours. This isn’t to say that noodly, technical road races in the U.S. don’t exist at all–they do–but they are just not that common because they usually have to take place in more rural countryside areas where that kind of road infrastructure exists, which yields a cascading negative feedback loop: these races are more difficult to get to for participants; the overall turnout and money earned from registration is lower; therefore it may be harder for the promoters to break even, meaning the amount of these kinds of races are shrinking.

And this style of course design for the U.S. isn’t just consigned to smaller local races. Just watch Cosmo Catalano’s How the Race Was Won video from the 2013 US Pro Challenge. Behind Tour of California and Tour of Utah, this was one of America’s most prestigious races when it was around (it has since disappeared), and even then, within the first 10 seconds of the analysis, Catalano makes note of the ginormous roads riders race on, and continues to do so throughout the analysis.

In Europe, however, crazy technical courses that parade the peloton through random roads in and out of towns aren’t uncommon at all. Quite to the contrary, with cycling commanding a decent level of mainstream following in many European countries, community buy-in is one of the ways promoters make their money, i.e. small towns can pay the organizers to have a race start, finish, or pass through the area. And let me tell you, some of these roads are bananas. Just watch any stages of Itzulia Basque Country, Volta a Catalunya, or literally any of the classics and you’ll understand that the prospect of cramming 170-plus riders onto what would amount to a sidewalk in the U.S. is ludacris, but these folks do it week in and week out seemingly unphased. While I have not done any of these aforementioned races, the ones I have done in places like Mallorca and Portugal made what felt like a tremendous effort to deliberately route the peloton through cramped center-city cobbled streets, forcing a terrifying compression and consequent expansion as the peloton would squeeze in between the buildings.

While utterly stressful, I will say that this racing style in Europe did make the racing back here in America feel almost hilariously spacious, and I remember distinctly a former teammate of mine who had spent years racing in Europe coming up to me during Redlands to say, “Isn’t it lovely doing a race and not bumping into someone every two seconds because you’re packed so tightly?” He wasn’t wrong…

As someone who ventured to Europe for stints of racing as a junior and U23, the level of racing was always super high and challenging, but I feel like another element that makes it demanding to go there and perform, is all the off-bike culture shock that you’re also dealing with. Everything is different… the language, the food, the architecture, the hotel wall sockets lol. This is the beauty of travelling, of course, to experience new things, but it also could feel overwhelming, from simply being out of my element constantly. Did you experience that at all, or did you feel pretty at home with the experience?

I think one of the things I’m lucky that I’m good at is the ability to find some kind of rhythm and comfort when bouncing around to completely unfamiliar places. As someone whose first exposure to the international race scene was through participation in smaller and more remote races in places like China, The Dominican Republic, and Rwanda, I figured out very quickly what it was that I needed when away from home that would make me feel comfortable and happy. This obviously includes some snacks from home, outlet adaptors, and maybe some TV shows downloaded to take your mind of any stress you may be feeling, but I honestly think I benefit so heavily from going on most of these race trips with people who are genuinely good people and who I consider my close friends. I’ve mentioned this to so many people, but when you are doing stage races, typically they have a communal dining area that the race and a contracted caterer provide to every team. You go to an area in the hotel and you all eat the same food and sit in the same area, and in doing so, you have a chance to see what other teams look like during their bonding time. Nine times out of ten, the teams that I have been on are the loudest at their table because we are laughing and talking and not just all sitting on our phones, together but alone. I am so lucky that I can say that because I know how isolating this sport can be, but having good people around you, people whose company you seek out, is tantamount to having a good race experience.

You spent a good amount of years at the pointy end of the US-crit racing scene before venturing abroad with Project Echelon this year, how did those skills come into play in Europe?

During the three years, I was on L39ION racing the U.S. crit scene, I worked extremely hard on the technical aspects of racing that I hadn’t spent any time improving in the years prior. As I already discussed, I was confident that I had honed the training aspect of racing to the point that I didn’t feel like I needed much change in that department, but I desperately needed to learn how to read a race, how to predict what was going to happen, how to respond efficiently, and also, perhaps most important, how to corner.

Counterintuitively, I think that last one took the least amount of time to see improvement simply because that is pretty much most of what you are doing in a crit. You need to get around the course before you can start thinking critically about anything, so I spent time pushing myself incrementally to see the extent of grip in my tires and just how far I could lean to squeeze through a gap or come around another rider. From then, I began to study the dynamics of the races and take notes on the similarities and consistencies between each race such that I could make more effective moves during the next one.

Hilariously, these skill sets of reading race dynamics and cornering came in handy in Europe not because they were helping me win races, but rather because they were helping me finish races. I don’t know if I’ve made this clear yet, but if I hadn’t I’ll spell it out here: holy crap, people can bike so friggin’ hard over there, and while I felt like I was the fittest I’ve ever been going into a season at the beginning of this year, I was still getting my teeth kicked in almost every single race. Consequently, my goals shifted mostly to just being able to finish the races and soak in the fitness I was getting from just completing them, but even to do so and make timecut was requiring laser focus on reading the movements of the pack, maximizing my efficiency, and using every inch of road in the corners to make sure that I was able to hang on and not get dropped on the descents, which were the only places I felt like I wasn’t dying and could recover.

What were some of the highlights for you, in terms of personal accomplishments/process goals being achieved in Europe, and what were some of the more humbling moments?

As a domestique, most of my highlights are sincerely tied to the success of my team leaders, but in terms of a couple personal ones I can point one, firstly winning the KOM Jersey at the International Tour of Rhodes in Greece was very cool, and it was the first race that we had done all season where I felt like I was genuinely competing for something and contributing meaningfully to the team goals of the race. Secondly, during Tour of Norway, I got in the break on stage 1 and was shown clips afterwards from the coverage on Eurosport, and one of the commentators, José Been, made mention of how my hair was “really impressive” and “next level,” and the fact I can fit it under my helmet is a “miracle.” Honestly, that made my spring and was vindication more than anything that as dumb as my ugly-ass mullet haircut may look, it helps me and the team stand out, and if it can make at least one person laugh, then it’s doing its job! On top of these personal moments, seeing all of the wins that the team took this year–and honestly, I can’t name them all here because it would be obnoxious, fills me to the brim with pride.

As far as humbling moments, honestly, ninety percent of my time in Europe was spent getting humbled. The level is just so high there, and while I so rarely saw the front, any time I got into the break of was trying to attack off the front, it felt good, although those instances weren’t too plentiful.

Did you get a lot of comment and compliments from the Europeans on your stylish flow? Is it hot racing with that much hair in Spain?!

See above with the Tour of Norway bit! And it wasn’t Spain that was hot, given we raced there in January and February, but Portugal was infernal when we were there in July and August. I honestly haven’t experienced heat like that in a long time and racing in it is a whole new kind of suffering. I’m stubborn, and I want to keep my hair because I like having something unique and distinctive in a sport where everybody looks the same, but I was very very close to just buzzing all my hair off mid-race because I was looking for literally any possible way to cool down.

As with all sports, the big names and those winning the races get a lot of the shine, but like all team sports it wouldn’t be possible without the well-oiled machine they have working with/for them. As someone who often rides in a domestique role, can you describe the satisfaction you get from being part of that machine that’s delivered some big results for your team this year?

With all the satisfaction that I had this year given the team’s success throughout the season comes a huge amount of gratitude, and the two are inextricably connected. Even though, as a rider, I self-classify as a helper, that doesn’t mean that I’m not getting help myself, be it from our wonderful soigneurs and mechanics, the host families that house us when we are racing domestically, or a variety of other folks who play a part as we go out and compete. You ask about what it’s like being a part of a well-oiled machine, and I would say that being on the inside of a race team is analogous to opening up your car hood and looking at the engine. When you do that, you quickly realize just how many little bits and bobs go into making this colossal thing work and take you places, and it makes you all the more appreciative of each one of those nuts and bolts working to do their part to hold it all together and propel you forward. Nobody on this program works in a vacuum, and, if nothing else, the satisfaction I feel is a testament to how support, mutual respect, and communication all make success possible, and not just one single piece that happens to cross the line first.

When it comes to riding with a power meter and the data it provides, what numbers are you referencing the most and for what purpose (for example testing to establish zones, keeping endurance rides between a certain wattage, trying to set new max power sprint PB’s, etc)?

For training, the metrics I look at pretty much exclusively are your very standard power numbers these days. During rides, I track average and normalized power of the entire session, the latter of which being a little more applicable if I have intervals in the session. If I’m just doing a zone 2 ride, I’m basically just looking at average power as a whole for the day to make sure I’m not going above or below my endurance zones. If I’m doing any kind of interval, I’ll be looking at my average power for that interval to make sure I’m hitting the goal wattage and hitting the targets for the session. And after the session is done and I’ve uploaded it to TrainingPeaks, then I’ll take a look at the Training Stress Score (TSS) and Intensity Factor (IF) to see if the session is adequately aligned with the goals my coach set out. One of the things that I have appreciated about my coach over the decade that we’ve been working together is that his approach to training with power has been very simple, but that isn’t to say stagnant. He reads up on the current literature and we’ve tried a variety of different protocols and approaches to training and races throughout the years we’ve worked together, but he has never subscribed to extremely convoluted workouts that force riders to wear holes in their lap buttons. The sessions feel extremely targeted and I have always appreciated that there isn’t a whole lot to think about when you’re doing them.

Everybody uses power data a little differently in race scenarios, some don’t look at it until post-race, and others use it quite heavily for pacing. What’s your relationship with power numbers in a race scenario?

In a race scenario, the only instances in which I have ever looked at my numbers are if I am solo and the race situation looks to be such that I will be solo for a while and therefore need to gauge my effort, or I am on a finishing climb and I am trying to make time cut without absolutely obliterating myself for the next stage. Other than that, I don’t ever look at numbers. In so many of these instances, I am just trying to finish the dang thing, and more often than not, looking at your numbers is only going to discourage me. You either have it or you don’t, and if I do peep my watts, they’d probably tell me I don’t, so I just ignore them and hope that I can trick myself into thinking I do. That’s probably (read: definitely) very stupid, but it has gotten me up and out of some pretty deep dark places. After the race is over, I’ll be mulling over numbers for ages, absolutely, but during the race, I’ve never actually found it to be extraordinarily useful.

Going into 2025, what are some of your personal goals?

Obviously, I want to see the team as much if not more in 2025, but that’s the boring typical answer! We touched on this earlier, but one of the amazing things about cycling is the ability to explore new places as part of the competition itself, and that has always been one of my favorite parts of the sport. Accordingly, I want to do at least one new race that I have never done before in a country that I have either never raced in before! Seeing the world has been one of the many privileges afforded to me as I pursue racing, and I want to take as much advantage as I can while I can to continue to check on places on the map!

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