Racing for joy: How Ian Boswell balances family, work and gravel’s new era

When Ian Boswell and Lachlan Morton crossed the line together at last month's Vermont Overland, Sule Kangangi was at the front of everyone’s mind. Three years on from the Kenyan’s tragic death at the event, the two gravel professionals who knew him best found a moment of shared closure, celebrating Kangangi’s life as he lived it: riding together, racing together, and giving positivity a win.

For Ian Boswell, Kangangi and his Team Amani project was a huge step in his professional career post racing. Boswell is the Global Athlete Manager for Wahoo, where he has managed the brand's global athlete partnerships for the past five years. Team Amani was a key partnership in that global portfolio early on, and Kangangi was a fundamental part of that team.

Likewise, Morton and his major sponsor, Rapha, have been huge advocates and partners of the Amani team. Both riders were very close friends with Kangangi when he died in the summer of 2022.

“We spoke a couple of hours after Sule was pronounced dead, and, you know, I didn't really have much to say at the time,” Boswell said. “I think there was still just a lot of shock of losing a friend, being the one at the hospital, and the one performing CPR on him, you know, there was just a lot that I was experiencing.

“[Lachlan and I] had never really talked about it outside of the hours after Sule had passed. We mutually knew that it was still something that was on our minds, but usually when Lachlan and I see each other, we can’t sit down and chat for an hour.”

Of course, both riders have networks of friends and colleagues who were in the same boat as the two athletes. But then again, Boswell and Morton were in unique positions to empathise with each other in a deeper way.

“We've never really had that time to kind of reconcile with his loss together, and then [the Vermont Overland] provided an opportunity for us to do that in a very special spot. I mean, that was one thing that Lachlan mentioned. While it's still tragic, what a beautiful place to spend your final day on earth.”

Balancing Family, Work and Racing in Gravel’s Era of Monetisation

The Overland joint win with Morton was a part of an emotional end to a very satisfying season for Boswell.

Boswell, who is a past WorldTour racer for Team Sky, a former winner of Unbound Gravel, and on the shortlist for most popular gravel racers in the world, has been picking and choosing his races away from any series, prize money or even professional race obligations.

Nearly a half-decade into his gravel journey, Boswell has hit his stride in a sport where everything is constantly shifting.

“I hit the tail end of what you call the grassroots gravel period,” Boswell said. “There are a couple of people who came over [from the road] before me, athletes who had been pursuing it as a career for a while, and I caught the tail end of the moment where people were doing it because they just love riding their bikes.

“Of course, people wanted to do well and wanted to win, but there was a real purity to the process and the experience of every event, where it was still incredibly competitive, but with a sense of shared experience and camaraderie.”

Yet over the years, gravel has backed itself into a more competitive corner. And while most simply see this vibe shift as the professionalisation of gravel, Boswell doesn’t see it that way.

“The monetisation of gravel is really what it is,” Boswell said. “All of a sudden, a race throws up $25,000 worth of prize money, and everyone shows up.

“In a way, this is great, and I think that's awesome that U.S. cycling has been kind of reborn with gravel. Now, there are young, up-and-coming riders who can pursue a career domestically by racing bikes. But, I don't go to races because of prize money. Maybe I should, but I go to races that I would enjoy and that inspire me, where there is some outside connection to it.”

If anyone has digested gravel’s move away from its modest roots and refused to give up that foundational spirit, it is Boswell. He has the luxury to keep things fun, and he has grabbed it with two hands.

“I'm 34 now, I've got two kids, a full-time job at Wahoo. Training is not my job,” he said. “Of course, I enjoy doing it most days, but it's not always the priority, and it doesn't get the full attention as it did when I was in my twenties and racing on the road.

“It’s actually worked out pretty well for me. It still feels like such a gift to be able to work with Wahoo, which is incredibly flexible with me blocking out the middle of the day to go for a ride.”

And yet, despite the full-time job Boswell holds, these midday rides are enough to generate enough power for Boswell to compete at a high level. Interestingly, Boswell seems to be riding stronger than ever.

Power Records, Strava KOMs and Fitting that into his Gravel Philosophy

In August of 2025, one fascinating subplot of the niche-gravel Instagram content was Boswell’s journey to the Mount Washington Hill Climb. Along the way, Boswell was open with his power files, where week after week the former WorldTour climber was setting his all-time best power numbers.

Ultimately, this culminated in a Strava KOM on the famous and fearsome Mount Washington (12.4 km, at 12.6%) where he managed a 405W performance for 50 minutes with a VAM of 1719. For those uninitiated, VAM is the speed at which a rider accumulates meters on a per-hour basis. For reference, Boswell would have ranked third on the KOM rankings of the steep side of the Mortirolo, the best approximation of Mount Washington on the Grand Tour circuit. That would put him just above Vincenzo Nibali’s Strava time from the 2019 Giro d’Italia.

Add in his top-ten finish at Unbound earlier this year, and it is almost hard to believe that Boswell isn’t a professional anymore.

“The whole power record thing puzzles me as well,” he said with a light chuckle. “Since Unbound, I don't think I've done more than a 14 or 15-hour training week, and most of them are like 10 to 12 hours a week.

“I think part of it is residual fitness. Especially when you look at Washington or Mount Scotty, those were one-off efforts, and that is a big difference. You know I'm a little bit heavier, I'm also way fresher than I ever was racing on the road, and I am not carrying months of fatigue or 25-hour training weeks.

All of that gave Boswell the ability to chalk up his 450-watt 20-minute power record the week before the Vermont Overland to just having a lot of “love” for the bike.

“I know that I'm getting older, I know that at some point there will be a drop off of performance, whether that's age or availability, so I'm just enjoying this for all that it is because I don’t know when the writing will be on the wall.”

When that will be seems to be anyone’s guess. For the time being, Boswell has signed off on his 2025 season. After we had our conversation, Boswell hopped on a plane to Greece for a wedding and a week without a bike. Not because he “needed a break,” just because of logistics. He needed to freshen up his running, anyway.

And when the 2026 season comes around, Boswell will dust off his gravel bike after a long Vermont winter and will be back on his own curated schedule of certified bangers of events. If this year is anything to go by, expect him to once again baffle the gravel world with professional performances by gravel’s best non-professional rider.