{"id":94450,"date":"2025-08-24T22:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T22:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/94450\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T22:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T22:23:11","slug":"introducing-the-criterium-cowboy-the-most-entertaining-man-in-american-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/94450\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the \u2018Criterium Cowboy\u2019 \u2013 The Most Entertaining Man in American Cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lucas Bourgoyne has stormed to the top of the criterium scene in the United States with a lot of swag, a ton of celebrations, and one big hat \u2013 but his rise is so much more than his sprinting.<\/p>\n

\"Introducing<\/p>\n

Introducing the Criterium Cowboy, Lucas Bourgoyne. (Photo credit: Utah Crits\/@veloimages)\n<\/p>\n

Published August 24, 2025 03:52PM<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll remember you \u2013 they remember you even though you were just a guy in sunglasses and a helmet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucas Bourgoyne has cracked the code, or at least he thinks so. After half a day together, checking off his long to-do list before the famous Tulsa Tough criterium series, he has gotten to his big point: cyclists don\u2019t try to be cool enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the bone I have to pick with cycling right now \u2013 and it\u2019s not just crits, it\u2019s WorldTour level down \u2013 if you don\u2019t think you\u2019re the coolest guy in the race, how the f**k are you going to sell that guy on the sidelines that you\u2019re the coolest guy in the race? And so people need to show their personality and not be scared. That\u2019s what happens in any other major sport that people get behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thing about Lucas Bourgoyne is that he aspires to be the coolest. He pumps up the crowd with shouts and gestures. His podium cowboy hat makes the crowd go gangbusters in the American South. Most importantly, more and more often Lucas Bourgoyne wins.<\/p>\n

But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. We are jumping the gun. We assume you are familiar with Lucas Bourgoyne and his racing background. Chances are that you aren\u2019t, but let us present the reason why you should learn.<\/p>\n

Lucas Bourgoyne is the new US Criterium National Champion and the rider\/director for the top American criterium team of the year, Cadence Cyclery.<\/p>\n

Bourgoyne came to the team after a year racing for the Justin William\u2019s owned Austin Outlaws team and has transformed the Texas-based outfit into a small fighting force that has won several big crits across the cycling calendar. It is set to win the two team titles of the big US criterium series, USA Crits and the American Crit Cup.<\/p>\n

The lore of Bourgoyne, however, goes back much further, and his impact on the sport in the US is growing.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe game plan? Race to win, but never take things too seriously. Bourgoyne would win that race 70 minutes later. (Photo credit: Ron Short)
\nBuilding the \u2018cowboy\u201d brand<\/p>\n

When we caught up with Bourgoyne, he was smack dab in the middle of his criterium season at the three-day Tulsa Tough Omnium. While the race is the biggest target on the calendar for most crit riders, Bourgoyne and his Cadence Cyclery team were tired, Bourgoyne was sick, and the team van was actively breaking down.<\/p>\n

The online world was also firing up criticism of Bourgoyne and his team for the way they ride, both in sitting back for most of the races and in some of the sprint lines that Bourgoyne would take at the end of races. Noise, illness, mechanicals \u2013 it all adds up.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, winning started it all and winning was sustaining the bedraggled group.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning is the first piece when it comes to the idea of reach,\u201d Bourgoyne explained as we drove the team van, black smoke gushing from the tailpipe, to a Mercedes dealership a few hours before the race. \u201cThat\u2019s what I see most people lose sight of. They start to win, they start getting a lot of reach, and they forget that no one cares what you\u2019re doing if you\u2019re not winning.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t win all the time; no matter how good you are, you can\u2019t win all the time, and when you get your shit kicked in, everyone likes to tear down the person who is winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Criterium Cowboy began to build his WWE-adjacent persona with his black cowboy hat last year, and it has only snowballed since. (Photo credit: Ron Short)
\nAn audacious target for year one<\/p>\n

From the start of his career, winning is the juice that gives Bourgoyne the ability to handle everything else, even if, from the outside, his antics around winning are what bring his biggest detractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was his first bike race, and I remember watching him like, who the f**k is this kid?\u201d Gabriel Porterfield, one of Bourgoyne\u2019s teammates, shared his story about meeting him for the first time back in the spring of 2015.<\/p>\n

They met after a race that Bourgoyne won, as a 13-year-old junior with no experience, by simply being better than everyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember finishing the race and going to talk to him. I\u2019m like, \u2018hey, what\u2019s up, man?\u2019 And he\u2019s like, \u2018yeah, this is my first bike race, blah, blah, blah\u2026\u2019 Instantly, I knew he was going to be good. You know what I mean?\u201d Even still, no matter how confident Porterfield was of Bourgoyne\u2019s talent, his belief in himself was even higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me his one goal for the year was to win nationals. And I took a step back and like, oh, man, slow down, you know, pump your brakes. But I was also trying not to be that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six months later, less than a year into a brand new sport, he won the road race and criterium at U15 nationals with two race-long solo wins. From that point, Porterfield knew that Bourgoyne was just cut from a different cloth, even if it ruffled feathers throughout his entire cycling lifespan.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven then, he won nationals and would wear his national kit at cat three\/four races. These adult guys would get mad at him like, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re not the 3\/4 national champion,\u2019 which is dumb because there\u2019s no such thing, but yeah, that\u2019s him doing his thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That thing he does took him from local racing in Texas to the Hot Tubes junior program, a year on Hagens Berman Axeon, and 18 months on the French amateur circuit. Nevertheless, that thing \u2013 that swagger \u2013 didn\u2019t fully click until he came back to the United States in the summer of 2023 to start racing crits full time.<\/p>\n

The cowboy finally got comfortable in his big hat, even if not all the riders and fans love all of his attention-grabbing antics. Antics like that hat, the constant social media content, the post-race hype generation, and the pre-race t-shirt tosses during call-ups.<\/p>\n

\"FetzerFetzer has been a staple at the front of most of the crits he has done this year, regardless of the terrain, weather, or competition \u2013 as seen here on a rainy day of the Tour of America\u2019s Dairyland. (Photo Credit: Ron Short)
\nEstablishing a criterium-based brand as \u2018America\u2019s team\u2019<\/p>\n

It turns out we caught up with Bourgoyne and company at the nadir of their season. The team struck out at Tulsa, which came on the heels of striking out at Armed Forces the previous week, and the van was in repair for the full week after the races.<\/p>\n

Yet that adversity seemed to make Bourgoyne\u2019s bullishness that he was on to something with his team and his success all the more convincing. There was a palpable sense that Bourgoyne\u2019s biggest strength isn\u2019t found in his legs, but rather in his tenacity in pursuit of that coolness he aspires to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a competitor \u2013 screw that guy who beat me that day, I don\u2019t want to talk about how he beat me or how he bested me, but I think that\u2019s a part of maturity and growing up,\u201d Bourgoyne said. \u201cI would say I was a lot worse at it when I was young. Now, I\u2019m starting to see the bigger picture and what all of that means when you tell the story on your bad days.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story continues to be what Bourgoyne hammers home, especially on the moments of victory, but also in the moments where he is bested. It makes the winning greater, he says, but more importantly, it embeds winning energy \u2013 or charisma, to put it more succinctly \u2013 into the fabric of his presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to win the race to still win the day and capture the crowd. If you\u2019re energetic, exciting, you talk to people, even on your bad days. Whether we win, lose, or whatnot, we\u2019ve got six guys and all six of them after the race will be along the barriers, talking to a different section of the crowd.<\/p>\n

We want to make sure that they had the best time and that they come back next year and remember who Luke Fetzer and Richard Holec are when we come back to a city a year later, or two years later, or five years later. Maybe we built that little bit of fan base and then grows beyond itself, right? That\u2019s what I see.\u201d<\/p>\n

We want to make sure that they had the best time and that they come back next year and remember who Luke Fetzer and Richard Holec are when we come back to a city a year later, or two years later, or five years later. Maybe we built that little bit of fan base and then grows beyond itself, right? That\u2019s what I see.<\/p>\n

\"LukeLuke Fetzer (left) pictured next to Justin Williams at the start line of the 2025 St. Francis Tulsa Tough (Photo Credit: Courtesy of St. Francis Tulsa Tough)
\n\u2018He just destroyed me in the gym\u2019<\/p>\n

While Bourgoyne is, without question, a sprinter in every sense of the world, he goes to great pains to steer everything back towards the team he leads. If anything, making this story a profile of just Bourgoyne rather than him and a few of his key teammates could be a misstep. Especially as two of those teammates, Luke Fetzer and Richard Holec, have won the last two stops of the American Criterium Cup.<\/p>\n

Luke Fetzer, in particular, has transformed this year from a solid rider to a national-level race winner and absolute bulldozer of a setup man for Bourgoyne and Holec, the two faster finishers. Most importantly, Fetzer has bought into the Bourgoyne experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, man, it\u2019s just a party, every single race we go to,\u201d Fetzer told Velo from Tulsa. \u201cI think at first, I was thinking that this guy was a little bit out there, he was extravagant, and I was like, \u2018Man, I\u2019ve got to deal with him for a whole year?\u2019 And then we quickly became boys, and now he\u2019s my best friend. I told my girlfriend he would be the best man at my wedding. He\u2019s there for me on the bike and off the bike. It\u2019s a relationship that comes once in a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of this relationship has been forged on the road over the last two years as the two have travelled the US together, racing crits from Los Angeles, where Fetzer is from, to West Virginia, where Fetzer and Bourgoyne won the U23 and Pro crit titles this year. What has also helped, though, is the key training camp the two did together in Bourgoyne\u2019s hometown of Austin this winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI flew to Austin for about two weeks, where we had our mini training camp, just me and him, and we just went out and smashed it,\u201d Fetzer said of his pre-season Austin camp. \u201cWe would be on the bike for many hours and then would go to the gym. He got me under the squat rack for the first time and just destroyed me in the gym. That was tough \u2013 I think he squats over 400 pounds, so I couldn\u2019t keep up with him there, but on the bike, I could push him a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would just go as long as we could. until one of us would crack. It was just full gas for those two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

It should be mentioned that at the time, the pair were set to ride for L39ion of Los Angeles. They only switched to Cadence Cyclery once they couldn\u2019t negotiate what they felt were the right terms for Fetzer. In the end, this has been a blessing as the two have built a massive amount of synergy in a team where they have all the control. Bourgoyne does logistics, Fetzer edits the content, and everyone has a voice at the table.<\/p>\n

For Bourgoyne, the result has been massive growth to his Instagram page, sponsorship from one of the biggest bike shops in Texas and California, and wins across the calendar. For Fetzer, that bet on themselves has had massive off-bike ramifications as well, and it all started in Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cConfidence off the bike was the biggest difference,\u201d he said. \u201cThe results are better, but just spending two weeks with him when he\u2019s in his cave at home, let me see him grow in the off-season, and how I could kind of replicate it off the bike. He juggles a lot of work off the bike too, and that pushed me to be better, to start school, to step up my game all around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe team wouldn\u2019t exist at its current level without Bourgoyne. Yet, as Fetzer\u2019s win at Boise Twilight proved, the team around Bourgonye is rising to his level. (Photo credit: Brian Kohagen)
\nThe power of nerds in spandex<\/p>\n

Later that night, Bourgoyne and his Cadence Cyclery crew suffered what was their biggest flop of the year. It was night one of the American Criterium Cup, Tulsa Tough, and the first day the pair of national champions could debut their new national champion crit suits. And the team failed to finish better than 13th.<\/p>\n

For the outfit that started the race throwing t-shirts into the crowd during the ceremonial call-ups, it was a shocker. But you wouldn\u2019t know it by the way the team lingered along the finish straight well after the race finished. They are committed to winning the day however they can.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite saying is that whether you\u2019re a WorldTour racer or a pro gravel privateer, you\u2019re just a nerd and spandex,\u201d Bourgoyne said. \u201cYou\u2019re not that big, and that\u2019s okay, but if we do things like after the race, we\u2019ll go activate and talk to people on the sidelines so they have it be a memorable experience. We\u2019ll skim the barriers early in the race, rattle the feet, get people just like, \u2018Oh my God, this is racing!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact is, while winning at Tulsa Touch can make a team\u2019s whole season, Cadence Cyclery is looking to put together a whole season and not just hit highlights. The project is bigger than Tulsa, and the team were hoping to make the defeat a footnote in the narrative. With that, energy and defeat was a key components.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to go for the title of America\u2019s Team, and so that comes from really engaging with the fans,\u201d Fetzer said. \u201cWe\u2019re not just crit racers, we\u2019re people as well. And Lucas is the dude, he\u2019s a leader, no matter if it\u2019s in a meeting on the bike, he\u2019s a frickin\u2019 leader. And so he puts that energy into us to make us better, and then that just reflects onto the fans, and everybody loves a leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the fans see that, the fans grab onto that, and people can feel connected to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ethos is what makes Bourgoyne and his Cadence Cyclery team exciting. They are not playing to the script. They aren\u2019t even playing the script that just worked well for the Williams brothers earlier this decade. They are forging success by being public-facing in a new way, racing in a new way; they are being open and genuine in a new way; by losing, when it happens, in a new way.<\/p>\n

They are playing into the energy that comes with being the center of the circus that represents so much of crit racing that has thrived for decades in an American cycling calendar that constantly changes. And by all accounts, it\u2019s working<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the energy we feed off and what we are building to in the last five minutes,\u201d Bourgoyne said \u201cAt the end, I\u2019m like,\u2019 Damn, those people came out to watch me do my thing.\u2019 And so in that moment, whether I am shit sideways, whether I\u2019m incredible, I\u2019m gonna go so hard in the paint that at least I can go to them after the race and know I gave them my best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucas Bourgoyne has stormed to the top of the criterium scene in the United States with a lot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,54263,82,55276,54267],"class_list":["post-94450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-road","tag-sports","tag-tag-lucas-bourgoyne","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}