Bend's Boswell inks one-year deal with Bissell

Ian Boswell of Bend signed one-year deal this week to race with the Bissell Professional Cycling Team for the upcoming 2010 season.

Boswell, a member of the powerful junior racing team Hot Tubes and the USA Cycling Junior National Team, said the deal was a last minute "changearoo" when plans for the Cervelo Test Team U23 development squad fell through.

"I had talked with Omer (Kem) and he said they were kind of looking for a younger rider," Boswell said. "I raced with Ben Jacques-Maynes at Nevada City Classic in June, so I contacted both of those guys and asked if there was still an available spot on the team. They were about to sign another rider, but they both had known me and thought I’d be good for the team. The opportunity opened and I jumped on it."

Bissell is also a good fit for Boswell because he's currently going to school in Chico, California, which means he'll be close to a core group of Bissell teammates who race and train around Santa Rosa. The Jacques-Maynes brothers and last year's Mt. Hood winner Paul Mach all came up through the NorCal racing scene.

"I’ll race a lot of NorCal stuff with the team for a lot of the early season," he said. "Based off my performances there and how I’m riding, the better I ride, obviously, the bigger races I go to. Hopefully I can do some fun races like the Cascade Cycling Classic and Mt. Hood. And I want to try and have a good performance at U23 Nationals in Bend. Having it be in my hometown makes it a big goal. I missed it this year because I was at the (junior) world championships in Moscow."

Boswell will start the year with team camp in Santa Rosa and then hit the NorCal circuit with his new team.

"There’s a pretty good group to race with in northern California week in and week out," he said. "There’s a lot of BMC guys, so there are some pretty competitive fields here."

With the Cervelo Test Team hiccups and the added stress of a late signing now behind him, Boswell's looking forward to start the new season.

"It’s one of the premiere professional teams in the U.S.," he said. "So I’m excited to race with those guys and get some good experience."