EF Education-Aevolo reveal ‘climbing-heavy’ 14-rider roster for 2026 with six freshmen

Six of the 14 riders will be new on the roster for EF Education-Aevolo in 2026, the 10th Continental season for the US development squad.

Two key signings are 18-year-olds Peyton Burckel, from Louisiana, and Robert Capello, of Asti, Italy. The balance of new U23 talent includes Colombian Juan Felipe Rodriguez, Briton’s Tomos Pattison and US pair Nathan Cusack of Vermont and Texan Jack Makohon.

A trio of US riders return – Alfredo Bueno, Gavin Hlady and Noah Streif – while the balance are from Europe – Dane Magnus Carstensen, Briton Joshua Golliker, Linus Larsson of Sweden, Miguel Ángel Marín of Colombia and Belgian Jenthe Verstraete.

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Head Sports Director Mike Creed told Cyclingnews he was eager to see the new talent soon at a winter camp, and the continued development of returning riders was rewarding. Second-year riders Larsson, Carstensen and Marin, he noted, were getting stronger and fit in the EF Education-Aevolo team well, with the Dane overcoming injuries from 2025.

“Joshua Golliker, he’s probably one of the most talented cyclists in the world. I think he turned a corner mid-year with just brute strength, a bruiser. He’s like a really good, blunt force instrument, but can be much more of a knife, and a lot more cutting. His talents are in climbing, like those hard climbing with three or four climbs per day,” Creed told Cyclingnews.

Among the returning riders, Gavin Hlady will be the oldest, turning 23 in February. He won double US U23 national titles in 2024 in both the road race and criterium, and repeated as the U23 road champion last year. Creek said he would most likely have opportunities to compete with EF Education-EasyPost at some races.

“Gavin is not under-23 anymore, and we’ll try to use him as much as we can like [UCI] .2 and .1 races. He had an offer from Modern Adventure, and I thought it was a good deal, but [EF Pro Cycling management] didn’t want to lose him either.

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“And then we’ve got Alfredo. We brought in Alfredo mid-year and he hit the ground running, a top 10 at Tour Alsace and he won a stage at West Bohemia Tour. “

The two youngest riders,18-year-olds, are Burckel and Capello, both with two-year contracts. A four-year alumnus of the EF Education-ONTO programme, Burckel was a junior criterium national champion in 2023, and won the highly esteemed Green Mountain Stage Race in the US last year. Creed noted that he was 12th in the junior men’s road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Switzerland, and in early 2025, he was part of the Team Pursuit gold medal ride for Team USA in the Netherlands.

“I first spotted him at a track camp, and he immediately stood out because, for someone of his relatively small size, he had a lot of speed. He’s had a tricky 2025 because he broke his collarbone at the start, but what we’ve seen from Peyton on and off the bike over the last couple of seasons is a rider who is talented and ready for EF Education–Aevolo. We have a lot of faith in him,” Creed said.

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Capello is a promising all-rounder who won the junior national time trial championships, was second in the junior road race at the European Championships and came away with third in GC at the Course de la Paix Juniors.

“We’ve quite a climbing-heavy squad for next year. Juan Felipe is a really good climber. He has lots of talent and lots of horsepower,” Creed noted in the rider announcements this week.

The 20-year-old trio of newcomers are Makohon, Pattison – both climbers – and Cusak. Makohon rode the last two seasons with US Continental-level Team Skyline, where he had a European-heavy schedule that saw him win the KOM title at 2024 Turul Romaniei. Pattison is a British all-rounder who rode the last two seasons with the Visma-Lease a Bike Development team, winning his nation’s under-23 time trial title in 2024. As a junior, he had a wealth of results, including the victory at the junior Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

“Nathan [Cusack] rounds out our group and just gives us a few more options so that we can be relevant in every stage of every race, so it was really rewarding.”

Cusack had a breakthrough season in 2025 with Kelly Benefits Cycling Team, winning three of four stages at Tucson Bicycle Classic, the USA Cycling Collegiate criterium championship and then securing his first European road racing victory in Spain at Vuelta Castilla y León.

Moving to the parent WorldTour team are Noah Hobbs and Colby Simmons, the latter who took an early jump to the World Tour last spring. Ian Lopez de san Roman goes to the Modern Adventure Pro Cycling.

In 2024, EF Education-EasyPost added Aevolo Cycling to the organisation as their own under-23 development programme, also based in the US. Creed, a former 12-year road pro, founded Aevolo in 2017 and has directed the Continental-level squad ever since.

2026 calendar

EF Education-Aevolo 2026 roster