America’s Newest Cycling Team Makes Its Mark in Year One: Five Wins and a Roubaix Debut

Modern Adventure Pro Cycling winds down its debut season in Europe this weekend, with five wins on the board and a season packed with highs and lows.

The first new U.S. men’s team with major European ambitions in more than a decade raced Binche-Chimay-Binche on Tuesday before signing off Sunday at Paris-Tours.

Not a bad first lap around the calendar.

Harry Lasker rode into the early break Tuesday in Belgium, while Ben Oliver leads the team’s hopes for the French season finale.

Since lining up in February, Modern Adventure has been in the frame all season long.

The squad comes into its final races after a strong week at the Tour de Langkawi, where Riley Pickrell delivered a stage win and three second places.

Pickrell finally got the better of Matteo Malucelli on stage 6 for the Canadian’s third pro win and his first for Modern Adventure.

“When you finally do get a win, it really feels like you’re paying your teammates back,” he said. “I can’t be happier.”

Lead-out man Scott McGill collected a yellow card in what’s all part of racing for the first-year squad.

Commissaires cited McGill under the rule for decelerating during a sprint and endangering others.

Pickrell added another second place in Sunday’s finale, while Stefan de Bod finished 16th overall.

Not bad for the team’s final stage race of 2026.

From a dream to the Roubaix cobbles

Simply getting the team onto the start line this season counted as an early win for George Hincapie’s project.

With the help of key backers, Hincapie signed the riders, built the staff and infrastructure, and put rubber to the road in the team’s pro debut at the AlUla Tour in February.

“I wanna look back in five, six years from now and go, this is where we started,” Hincapie told Velo earlier this season. “From basically ‘Bad News Bears’ to building to be one of the best teams in the world.”

Hincapie launched Modern Adventure with ambitions to reach the Tour de France within the next five years and give U.S. talent a foothold in the European peloton.

Race organizers gave the new kids a chance after Hincapie dug into his Rolodex of contacts.

Several high-profile invites kept the team busy, capped by a Paris-Roubaix wildcard that threw the first-year squad straight into the deep end.

The team got some wins on the board, too.

Samuel Flórez took the final stage of the Tour of the Gila in May for the team’s first win, where Modern Adventure also won the team classification. De Bod had already claimed South Africa’s national time trial title.

Oliver’s three victories, Flórez’s Gila stage, and Pickrell’s Langkawi win make five wins in its debut year in the gutters.

Finding its place

Oliver supplied the team’s biggest breakthrough at the Tour de Wallonie in June, winning two stages and the overall against WorldTour opposition.

In an interview with Velo, Oliver said how much the opportunity race as a pro meant to him and many of his other teammates. They were from scratching out a living to being able to focus on training and performance full-time.

“If we didn’t have credibility in the peloton, I think we definitely do now,” Oliver told Velo after those first big wins. “It was just pure emotion across the line when I realized there was no one in front of me or beside me and I hit the finish line first.”

The season’s toughest blow came on August 30, when Ezra Caudell crashed at the Philadelphia Cycling Classic.

The 19-year-old American suffered severe head and chest injuries, and friends launched a fundraising campaign to support him and his family.

There was good news this week when Caudell left the hospital to begin his rehabilitation.

Building blocks going in season two

Going into this week, Modern Adventure ranked 35th in the UCI standings and 14th among the 16 ProTeams, ahead of Flanders-Baloise and Novo Nordisk.

That’s important because the top-30 ranked teams qualify for invitations to grand tours. Modern Adventure will finish 2026 about 1,000 points below that cutoff.

There was no expectation to race a grand tour even in 2027, but that’s the medium-term target the team will be targeting.

A diverse calendar of racing that spanned across the United States, Europe, and Asia will give the squad a foundation of a full season of racing to build on.

To reach the Tour de France, the team will need to take another step up next season.

Hincapie and the staff will need to recruit some key riders for the team’s second season if it wants to move up the rankings. So far, there have not been any official signings.

Factor will step up as co-title sponsor for 2027, with the promise of more financial backing, rider development, and performance support.

First, there’s one more Sunday in France.

Paris-Tours is near-monument status, with 216.2km from Chartres to Tours across the rough vineyard roads. The scenery is lovely, the racing is brutal.

Oliver gives Modern Adventure a chance to squeeze result out one more result before everyone finally puts their feet up, at least for a few weeks.