The American is focused on the classics after his big win at Dwars door Vlaanderen this spring and excellent results in top-class one-day races during his time on our team. He is grateful for the encouragement our directors have given him to continue to evolve as a racer and take on new challenges.

“I don't think I ever would have realized that I could be a classics rider until I joined this team,” Neilson says. “This team is famous for its outside-of-the-box tactics. Letting me go to the classics, or the way Ben raced into the yellow jersey at the Tour, or just the way we race the Tour every year, shows that. It makes it a really fun team to race for. Our tactics are always exciting and there are a lot of opportunities here for a lot of guys. That has helped me progress. I have found my niche in cycling here. Being opportunistic in hard, hard races has really paid off. That's the way I've learned to race and the way I want to keep racing. This team is just the perfect environment for that.”

EF Pro Cycling founder and CEO Jonathan Vaughters is thrilled with the progress that Neilson has made with our team. When Neilson started out in the pro peloton, he wanted to be a grand tour climber, propelled up the highest mountains by his powerful natural motor. His first ride on the cobbles at the 2022 Tour de France convinced him to try his luck at the Ronde van Vlaanderen the next spring. He’d already won the Clásica de San Sebastián, but really fell in love with the no-holds-barred, hyper-tactical nature of one-day racing there when he finished fifth. Neilson is now focused on turning himself from a contender in the biggest races into a winner.

“We all know that Neilson’s work ethic is basically second to none,” Vaughters says. “He's going to train as hard as he possibly can, until the day comes when he can no longer race a bike. That is so in his nature. I have no doubts that his performance will continue to be excellent. Slowly but surely, he is learning real race craft too. Neilson was sort of a bull in a china shop in years past, using his power to fix problems. He's learning to be a bike racer now. His race craft and his ability to tactically read a race has improved considerably. That is going to help his performance over the long term. He will be able to win more races, because he knows how to be a better bike racer now than he did before.”

The tactics that come into play at the classics fascinate Neilson to no end.

“The classics embody cycling at its purest,” Neilson says. “You are just all in on that one day. Your body has to be so strong to be able to handle the distance. And there are a hundred different ways you could try to win the race. Obviously, being the strongest gives you the best chance. But, the tactics in the classics are just so intriguing and so exciting to me. It's like a chess match the whole day for five or six hours. You're constantly running through the different ways you can try to chop up the race and have the race unfold in your favor, whether you're trying to put your team on the front for a specific section to put pressure on guys when they're not expecting it, or trying to go into a breakaway earlier than expected to try and catch the favorites off guard. For people who really understand cycling, I think the tactics at the classics are just the most exciting.”

The hardest and most prestigious one-day classics are the five Monuments – Milano-Sanremo, De Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Il Lombardia. Neilson has finished in the top-ten in all of them except Roubaix. That shows just how versatile of a rider he has become.

“I've transitioned into this opportunistic one-day racer, who's able to race on almost any kind of terrain – cobblestones, climbing, flat, circuit races, or just super long point-to-points like Sanremo,” Neilson says. “I think I have developed into a really complete rider during my time on this team. The way that we go to races and try to achieve results has brought that out of me. I am really happy and proud of the kind of rider I have become. I never thought in a million years that I would try to win a cobbled classic, but it happened this year, and now I am chomping at the bit to back it up and build a spring around Monuments racing. I haven't won a Monument yet. And that's definitely a goal that I want to hit. But, just being able to be in the mix of every Monument I've started shows the completeness and the diversity of the athlete that I have become. It makes bike racing super fun, because I can go to every race and get involved in the action.”

What makes bike racing even more fun for Neilson is that he gets to race with his EF Education-EasyPost teammates. Spending season after season in Europe is a challenge for the American, but going to races with our squad makes him feel at home.

“Our team has so many different nationalities, and I think that's the thing that makes it feel so comfortable,” Neilson says. “I had to leave my own country to race and be a professional cyclist and create a new home for myself and take myself out of my comfort zone and immerse myself in a culture that's not my own. On this team, almost everyone is in that same boat because we have all chosen to race for a team that is not from our home countries. We’re an American registered team, but we're an American team that's made up of 30-something nationalities. We’re all different people from all the corners of the world all trying to achieve the same goal and turn this group into a team of our own that is like a family and that's just really special. It's unique. America is a country that's made up of people from other countries too. That is what makes us special. And that is our team too. All of my teammates have left their comfort zone. We have a French rider not riding for a French team, an Italian rider not riding for an Italian team – we are athletes from all corners of the world and we're all on this melting pot team.”

Neilson credits EF Pro Cycling’s staff for creating an environment where he and all of his teammates can succeed. He sees how hard everyone on the team works to achieve our goals and that motivates him.

“The staff is always doing everything possible to make the most and get the most out of every piece of equipment we have and tailor every minute of the day to help us recover and perform,” Neilson says. “We can really feel that. In the summertime, the mechanics will be working super hard with their shirts off, because it's 40 degrees outside, and the soigneurs will be lugging their tables and coolers all over the place, or standing on the side of the road in the boiling heat or pouring rain. And they do it with a smile. They're the first ones to celebrate with you when you win, and they're the first ones to pat you on the back when you've had a hard day. They love cycling and they love their work and that just makes the whole machine well oiled. You can feel it when staff want to be there and when they don't want to be there and with this team, I've always gone to every race with the staff wanting to be there and wanting to be a part of the action and a part of the dream that we all have. You can see it when we have a good result. They feel that joy just as much as the rider who crosses the line first. I have crossed the line and seen staff in tears, they're so happy, and that's just such a special feeling that you can share all together.”

Here’s to some big wins in the years to come, Neilson!