Hot Tubes Development Cycling, a junior team that has a rich 34-year history in the US, has become the newest member of the Ineos Grenadiers network. The official announcement was made Thursday by the British WorldTour team, which has worked closely with Hot Tubes for several years in an unofficial capacity.
"I've had a relationship with Ineos for a long time since Magnus [Sheffield] was a junior, and when Ian Boswell was on Team Sky," Hot Tubes Development Cycling Founder Toby Stanton told Cyclingnews.
"If you're a good junior and you're interested in Ineos, you got to come to [Hot Tubes] now. We have more cache because of that association."
The team operates as a not-for-profit, donor-supported organisation based in Massachusetts and Stanton is proud that what started as a small junior programme in 1992 is now the longest-running U19 setup in North America. His first 'star' rider was Jonathan Page, who went on to win four US cyclocross national titles and finished second at 'cross Worlds in 2007.
In the past three years, Ineos has signed a trio of US riders, each spending time in their junior years with the Hot Tubes programme. Magnus Sheffield established the connection in 2022 when he joined Ineos, having caught their eye after two seasons with Hot Tubes and part of 2021 with Rally Cycling.
He made an immediate impact, winning a stage at Ruta del Sol and Tour of Denmark as well as taking a solo victory as a 19-year-old at De Brabantse Pijl.
Andrew 'AJ' August jumped up as an 18-year-old directly from Hot Tubes in 2024 with a three-year deal. Artem Shmidt, who turns 21 today, spent some time at the Continental level with Hagens Berman Jayco before moving to Ineos in the fall of 2024, and he is an alumnus of Hot Tubes from 2022.
“There’s an historic and long-term working relationship already in place with Hot Tubes and to formalise this process was a logical next step as we grow and develop our talent programme," Scott Drawer, performance director at Ineos Grenadiers, said in a team statement.
“Toby and his team have strong values and a great approach to development, always putting the junior rider at the centre and underpinned by significant safeguarding and welfare support."
Last summer, Ineos leaders confirmed to Cyclingnews that they wanted to return to dominance at the Grand Tours and would invest with a long-term plan to sign and develop their own young talent rather than pay big price tags for established riders.
First, the Ineos Grenadiers’ Ascent talent programme was put in place as an alliance of different organisations and teams to carve a path for talented young riders to earn opportunities to reach the professional ranks. Then, the WorldTour squad joined forces with the German UCI Continental team Lotto Kern-Haus PSD Bank for 2025.
"Within our team we have Dario Cioni and Simon Watts overseeing how we work with talent and our partners. They’ll play a crucial role in this partnership and be able to support the team when they’re travelling and racing in Europe," Drawer added about the alignment with Hot Tubes.
“This partnership will also enable us to expand our talent search in the USA and provide a pathway for American riders to the under 23 category and eventually into the WorldTour.”
Stanton agreed that a being a true development team is more than just wearing the same kit, and his riders will benefit from shared resources for training, nutrition and also leverage opportunities to race against other top juniors around the world.
"Historically, we've always been the 'big guys', so recruitment hasn't been hard. But now that EF Education has a development programme with ONTO, it puts us back on even keel with US development," Stanton noted.
"So the pragmatic part is being associated with the WorldTour team, which puts us back on a level playing field with two things - getting into events and secondly it will help with recruitment.
"People go on and on about [North] American races are in decline, but it isn't. American races are in decline, but American cycling is better than it has ever been. There are more WorldTour US riders now than there have ever been, and the horizon is incredibly bright with the talent that's coming up.
"I think Ineos realises, with others, that America is really the only unculitivated field out there. In Europe, if there's a 15-year-old that's descent, every WorldTour team knows about it. That isn't the case in the US."
He said there are even more ways to recognise and harvest young talent for Ineos, and that would be adding development teams in other countries.
"I think the hope is ultimately to have a British team they're associated with, and maybe an Italian team they're associated with, to cast a wide net and not just say, 'well UAE and Bora have junior teams, therefore we have to have an identical one'. "
Under the stewardship of Stanton, the team has won over 130 US national titles and more than 10 Hot Tubes alumni have gone on to ride for UCI WorldTour teams over the last two decades. Gavin Mannion, Nate Brown and Lawson Craddock all races for Hot Tubes at the same time and made their way to the WorldTour. Other alumni include Boswell and Will Frischkorn, who are both on the Hot Tubes board of directors now.
