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USPro criterium star Luke Elphingstone, 'a Michael Matthews kind of rider', among three national champions featured in younger Project Echelon Racing squad for 2027
Team has heavy European calendar but ending season with trio of US UCI races – Armed Forces Cycling Classic, Battenkill, Philadelphia Cycling Classic – is 'especially important to us'
Luke Elphingstone, racing with the stars-and-stripes helmet as a USPro road national champion in the criterium, at the 2026 Tour of Istanbul(Image credit: Yucel Cakiroglu)
Three national champions feature on a leaner roster for Project Echelon Racing in 2027. The team are adding five new riders to a lineup with eight returning teammates, three of those having performed as stagiaires last season.
The trimmed roster of 13 riders moves the average age from 25.5 to 22.6 years, in what the team called a "big transition year", their fifth at the UCI Continental level. Seven familiar faces depart, including Eric Brunner, Ricky Arnopol, Stephen Bassett, and Laurent Gervais, who have been with the team for the past three or more years.
"These guys have been with me for a long time and helped me build a really strong legacy with Project Echelon. Retiring or just moving on, the majority of the guys were going to be leaving, and I wanted to give them an opportunity to leave on their own terms and move on to a different phase of life," Eric Hill, Project Echelon Racing team director and non-profit co-founder, told Cyclingnews.
Arnopol and Gervais are retiring, while others were "just taking a different direction", such as Bassett, a former USPro criterium champion, and Brunner, a three-time US elite cyclo-cross champion who was expected to refocus on that discipline. Caleb Classen, Quinn Felton and Ethan Craine also bid farewell.
Hill was excited to have consistency with "cornerstone" riders back, such as Tim McBirney, who was third overall at the 2026 Tour de Beauce, as well as versatility with Brendan Rhim and Colby Lange, who have been with the team for four and five years, respectively. Second-year riders Elphingstone and Gauthier will showcase their national jerseys with the team's international calendar.
"He's a Michael Matthews kind of rider. If it's a straight-up drag race sprint, he's going to be in the mix," Hill said about the 23-year-old Elphingstone, who performed well in stage races with stage wins at the Tucson Bicycle Classic and Tour de Bloom, then a podium at the Tour of Samsun in Turkey in the back half of last season.
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"Jérôme's just an absolute grinder, and you know, when things are uncomfortable, and people want to start giving up is kind of when he shines," Hill added about the 22-year-old Canadian.
Gauthier finished second at the UCI 1.2 Gran Premio New York City and scored 4 top 10s at Tour de Beauce, including a podium on the final day in Saint-Georges, to win the youth classification. However, it was at Canadian road nationals, where he won the elite road race and, with it, also secured the U23 title, that exhibited that true grit.
"It was cold and raining and windy and miserable, to the point where they had to take down the finish banners because it was too windy and postpone the podium celebration. He just thrives in that type of gritty environment, and he made it happen for himself."
Jerome Gauthier rode for Team Canada at the GP de Québec (Image credit: Getty Images)
A trio of stagiaires return to the squad on one-year contracts: 19-year-old Canadian Jacob Roy and 20-year-old US talents, Ben Boroff and Noah Shelton.
Boroff caught attention for a stage win at the Tucson Bicycle Classic and then held the points competition lead in the American Criterium Cup for several weeks until he went to Turkey to race for Project Echelon. Shelton was also on the late-season swing to Europe and impressed with a stage podium at Tour of Istanbul.
Two 19-year-olds debut Project Echelon: Canadian Arnaud Lajoie, who moves from Team Skyline and US rider Garrett Beshore, who rode with Roy and Kreikemeier at Meridian Racing.
Kreikemeier made his big step this year at USPro Road Nationals, winning the U23 ITT. He rode the last three seasons with small Spanish squads, his best season in 2024 in national stage races, sixth overall at Vuelta a Ávila and second on GC at the Vuelta Zamora.
The final two new riders are Dylan Fluckiger, 24, who has a US collegiate medal in the time trial, and Jesse Maris, 22, a native of Washington in the Pacific Northwest who had a breakout ride at the Volta a Portugal U23 stage race, placing in the top 10 in all four stages and finishing third on GC.
The team starts 2027 with a camp in Southern California at the end of January and will transition for racing and more training in Arizona with Valley of the Sun and Tucson Bicycle Classic stage races. They will travel in the spring to Croatia, Spain and Portugal for racing before a swing back for Redlands Bicycle Classic, then to Tour of Norway.
They'll have a long North American campaign through the end of June with the back half of the year in Europe. A special focus will be on three US races – the Armed Forces Cycling Classic, Battenkill, and Philadelphia Cycling Classic.
"To have this kind of resurgence of some of these one-day classics in North America, and to be able to end our season with all of these, is really important to us. Especially these guys that are retiring [and were] at Philadelphia this year, Ricky and Laurent, was really cool to see."
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Jackie has been involved in professional sports for more than 30 years in news reporting, sports marketing and public relations. She founded Peloton Sports in 1998, a sports marketing and public relations agency, which managed projects for Tour de Georgia, Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and USA Cycling. She also founded Bike Alpharetta Inc, a Georgia non-profit to promote safe cycling. She is proud to have worked in professional baseball for six years - from selling advertising to pulling the tarp for several minor league teams. On the bike, she has climbed l'Alpe d'Huez three times (not fast), and spends time on gravel around horse farms in north Georgia.
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