The former racer, who enjoyed a 13-year pro career riding for US-based teams against the world’s best, helped found the squad during the lead up to the 2017 season, when it launched as an under-23 program focused on North American racing.

At the time, Creed was working for the US Olympic Committee and had just got back from the Rio Games. The vision that the team’s backers presented to him impressed him right away. The idea was to create a team that would allow young riders to flourish academically and build character while racing the hardest events in North America.

“Maybe you weren't the outright talent at that time. Maybe you needed a little bit more time to develop and you wanted to go to school too,” Creed says. “In those days, you could race a really good calendar with 90 percent of it being in North America and still race against the WorldTour teams when they came over for the likes of California, Colorado, Alberta, Missouri. Those were still options. And it worked out pretty well.”

Highlights from the team’s early years include Gage Hecht’s 2018 stage win at the Colorado Classic, Tyler Stites’ stage win at Joe Martin, and Toby Klein’s stage win at the Volta Castello Tour, as well as numerous national championships. Just as rewarding for Creed was the character growth he saw in the young riders who raced for the team.

“It is important to me that the guys come out better people when they leave the team than when they came in,” he says. “Obviously, winning a race and being at the front of a race is a lot more fun than being at the back of the race, but good results are just the cherries on top. What is really important to me is seeing these young guys grow. Right now, I'm seeing these kids that I met when they were 18, 19, and now they're 25, 26, and it’s like, ‘Wow, look at this this dude’. That's what I do it for, for sure.”

Creed thinks that the best lessons that bike racing can teach come from the reality checks that the sport provides to riders. When attacks start to fly on a climb, you either have the legs to go with them or you don’t. Those moments of truth provide young racers with a healthy dose of perspective.

“In a race, you get found out. You can't lie to yourself,” he says. “In life, you need to be able to look in the bathroom mirror and do an honest self-evaluation of what you need to do better and if you want to spend the energy to do it. If you don’t, no worries, right? You don't have to be some perfect human being, but if you have the desire to do something extraordinary, you can't have that and not face the reality of what it's going to take to get there.”

Much of Creed’s job is helping young riders deal with ups and downs of that process and making sure that they don’t get discouraged if they struggle. It’s especially hard for young North Americans to adjust to the smaller roads, higher speeds, and increased competition they encounter when they first venture to the sport’s European heartlands.

“The adjustment to the pacing and the level of competition in Europe can get in the guys’ heads,” Creed says. “Say, you go top to bottom on a climb as fast as you can and in the States, you're used to looking behind you and seeing 40, 50 guys dropped, but then you do it in Europe and you look behind and only one or two guys are dropped, that is really tricky. That can mess with you mentally. You could actually be having a good day, setting power PRs, but you're in 40th place and suffering really badly instead of being fifth place, so you think, ‘I'm not doing well’. You psych yourself out. Sometimes, we’ll be in the car driving home and a rider will say, ‘Man, I was doing 450 watts and I got dropped. Can you believe it?’ In those moments, I will say, ‘What does that tell you, man? One you're capable of doing more power than you thought. Congratulations – you're stronger than you've ever been, but you have to do more. So, let's just get to work.’ Instead of demoralizing them, it should actually be exciting.”

For the young riders on EF Education-Aevolo, the process of becoming the best bike racers that they can be just got a lot more exciting. Kellen Caldwell, Magnus Carstensen, Josh Golliker, Gavin Hlady, Noah Hobbs, Linus Larsson, Ian López, Miguel Ángel Marín, Colby Simmons, Noah Streif, and Jenthe Verstraete just got back from their first training camp with EF Education-EasyPost and EF Education-Oatly on Mallorca. The squad is now an integral part of EF Pro Cycling, ready to take on the top under-23 races in the world as our team’s in-house Continental-level devo team. That makes their road to the WorldTour much clearer. Gavin Hlady, Ian López, and Colby Simmon already had the chance to step up and show what they can do with the EF Education-EasyPost pros during the Mallorca Challenge. There will be more opportunities for EF Education-Aevolo riders to do the same throughout the year. Creed’s job is to make sure that they will be ready.

“If I can bring the pro team a rider and I don't hear from one of the directors about any teething problems, like this guy showed up and he didn't have his license or his race bag or a spare pair of shoes, I will be happy,” he says. “I want that guy to walk in and know how it is done. I want to make it seem like he's been a pro for years. I think that would be a success for the pro team and for the under-23 team and make it worthwhile.”

EF Education-Aevolo’s riders will kick off their racing season in March in Greece and then take on a full calendar, focused on the most prestigious under-23 events in Europe, with races such as Paris-Roubaix Espoirs and the Baby Giro on the docket. With fewer and fewer American races on the calendar, this has become the only avenue for young riders to test themselves against top-class competition. Creed is thankful that the young riders on the team can now pursue their dreams with EF Pro Cycling’s backing.

“Now, we can draw on the years and years of work that was done before us and the infrastructure that EF Pro Cycling has,” Creed says. “It is basically a completely new team, one with a really strong legacy. The level of the under-23 races have gotten so high and scouting for under-23s has gotten so competitive that Aevolo on its own would have had a really tricky time to get a roster together that could compete at that level anymore. Luckily with EF, we've been able to jump that hurdle. The recruiting has become easier and getting into races has become easier. With all of the other WorldTour teams starting devo teams, the race organizers want their parking lots to look like mini Tour de Frances. To even get into those races now is very, very competitive. Partnering with EF Pro Cycling is a big help for us.”

Welcome! EF Education-Aevolo’s next chapter is going to be very exciting.