Phil Gaimon and 12-year-old who rode alongside Tour of Britain peloton join multidisciplinary team

Jukebox Cycling will attempt to inspire others with the addition of six riders to their roster

Jukebox Cycling Phil Gaimon
(Image credit: Peter Griffin)

Phil Gaimon and 12-year-old Tour of Britain extraordinaire Xander Graham will form part of the same team this year, both donning the kit of Jukebox Cycling, a team created with a "new approach to racing."

The team roster includes six riders from multiple disciplines, with Jukebox, a global printing company based in Vancouver, Canada, providing the cyclists with opportunities to flourish in their chosen field of cycling. 

This doesn't mean Gaimon, a former WorldTour pro who last competed for Cannondale Pro Cycling in 2016, will return to racing though - likewise, don't expect to see Graham lining up in an adult peloton anytime soon.

Instead, the team's formation is intended to allow the six riders to "experiment with different ways to embrace cycling for a sense of community."

Joining Gaimon and Graham in the squad is cyclocross champion Ruby West, and gravel and cross-country mountain bike riders Adam Roberge, Alexey Vermeulen and Dylan Johnson. 

The team's website states:: "Jukebox is a multidisciplinary cycling team with a goal of promoting positive people doing awesome things on and off the bike.

"We want our athletes to have the power and the support to excel, whether success looks like a win at Big Sugar Gravel or making it up Mount Lemmon faster than anyone ever has before. We’re a pro team with very different aims from any team you’ve seen before: We want to empower our riders to push the envelope with what’s possible in cycling.

"Our riders are visionaries, rule-breakers, inspirations, badasses - they’re riders with that certain X factor that sets them apart from the rest of the peloton. From a former World Tour racer to up-and-coming gravel aficionados to a world class cyclocrosser, the team roster isn’t well-balanced. It’s deliberately out of balance, with the scales tipped towards riders who follow their passions with their whole hearts.

"Everyone has their own strength and skill set, and they’re racing where they want to race - but they’ll be coming together for a few key races, and when they do, magic is going to happen."

Xander, who stunned Tour of Britain viewers by sprinting up a hill during the final kilometres alongside riders on the seventh stage, stated on the team's website he is targeting the CXNE Series, a Scottish cyclocross event. 

Meanwhile, Gaimon will work on his gravel event Phil's Cookie Fondo, also raising money for the No Kid Hungry foundation in the team's colours. Since his retirement, he has also obtained over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, and with the team's support he will continue to share his cycling adventures to his channel.

Ruby West will race the Cyclocross World Championships, while Roberge, Vermeulen and Johnson are all focused on the Life Time Grand Prix series events. 

All of the squad's riders will also share stories throughout the season through Jukebox's social media. 

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Staff Writer

Ryan is a staff writer for Cycling Weekly, having joined the team in September 2021. He first joined Future in December 2020, working across FourFourTwo, Golf Monthly, Rugby World and Advnture's websites, before making his way to cycling. After graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Journalism and Communications, Ryan earned a NCTJ qualification to further develop as a writer.