Ben Oliver spent years stacking honey boxes around New Zealand, packing warehouse orders, and trying to keep a cycling career alive.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s winning European stage races.<\/p>\n
Oliver won two stages and the overall title at the 2026 Tour de Wallonie, delivering the first European victories for George Hincapie\u2019s first-year Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI almost still have to pinch myself when the paycheck comes in,\u201d Oliver told Velo<\/em>. \u201cMy lifestyle hasn\u2019t changed much, but now instead of spending all your own money, you\u2019re actually making a little bit of money. It\u2019s an unreal change.\u201d<\/p>\n The 29-year-old New Zealand cyclist had never won a professional road race before. Neither had Modern Adventure.<\/p>\n In Belgium last week, both of those boxes were checked off at the same time.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have credibility in the peloton, I think we definitely do now,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n Since its ambitious debut this season, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling had a lone win back home, but Europe is where it counts.<\/p>\n In the five-day race across the heart of the hilly Belgian Ardennes, America\u2019s new cycling team had its best shot to prove any doubters wrong.<\/p>\n After riding to fourth on the opening day while working for a teammate, Oliver backed himself in an uphill sprint on stage 2 and got there first.<\/p>\n The photos of his finish-line celebration told the story. Oliver pumped his fists and screamed into the Belgian rain, with all those years of near misses and working odd jobs pouring out in a single moment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference between winning and second is absolute night and day. Myself and the whole team got so much confidence from that.\u201d<\/p>\n The leader\u2019s jersey didn\u2019t survive the next day. A late crash took down nearly the entire peloton, and Oliver lost it on bonus seconds despite finishing with the front group.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took out all but seven guys,\u201d Oliver told Velo<\/em> in a telephone call. \u201cWe did absolutely nothing wrong. I think it was one of the most impressive rides the whole team did that week.\u201d<\/p>\n The race-winning moment arrived on the brutal, Li\u00e8ge-like final stage in a scene fit for the Sporza<\/em> highlight reels.<\/p>\n Arnaud De Lie rolled through his hometown roads surrounded by cheering fans. Earlier in the week, the Belgian star had even asked Modern Adventure if he could move to the front so local supporters could see him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had like 100 fans in this tiny hometown of his,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n Oliver knew De Lie\u2019s wheel was the one to follow. He avoided a late crash, came around the \u201cThe Bull of Lescheret\u201d in the sprint, won the stage, grabbed the bonus seconds, and stole the overall victory.<\/p>\n \u201cA few minutes later I realized that it had actually happened,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cI got just enough bonus seconds from winning the stage to take the overall. I didn\u2019t find out straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n At 6-foot and 157lbs, Oliver isn\u2019t a pure climber, and he\u2019s not really a pure sprinter either. He\u2019s part of that very crowded no-man\u2019s-land of the all-rounder.<\/p>\n \u201cI seem to be able to sprint well after a hard day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s almost too hard for me, but I can just make it over the hills, I know I have a good chance against whoever\u2019s left at the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n His confidence had been building for months as Modern Adventure kept hoovering up marquee race invitations.<\/p>\n At Ruta del Sol in his first day of European racing, Oliver finished third behind Christophe Laporte in a bunch kick. At Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, he made the front group to sprint for the win behind Matthew Brennan.<\/p>\n He survived the team\u2019s improbable start at Paris-Roubaix and made it to the velodrome.<\/p>\n \u201cStraight away I knew it was possible,\u201d he said after the spring classics campaign.<\/p>\n Before he was racing in Belgium, Oliver spent more than a decade chasing success in mountain biking. The big win never came.<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say mountain biking got boring,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cI never quite cracked the code there.\u201d<\/p>\n Turns out he was pretty good at road racing too. After one final hit-out at the 2025 Cape Epic, where he raced to eighth with his brother Craig, he pivoted full-time to skinny tires.<\/p>\n A stint on the American criterium circuit revealed a sprint he didn\u2019t know he had.<\/p>\n The transition to full-time pro racer wasn\u2019t glamorous. He\u2019d spend the off-season filling the bank account with random jobs, then empty it chasing races.<\/p>\n One year he worked for a beekeeper. Other odd jobs included installing race timing equipment or packing warehouse orders.<\/p>\n \u201cJust anything you can do to get a bit of money to live over the summer and afford the next race season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Modern Adventure Pro Cycling was still assembling its roster when Oliver got the call.<\/p>\n Despite years in mountain biking and chasing crits, Oliver had never raced for a professional team. At 29, the door finally opened.<\/p>\n \u201cIt couldn\u2019t have been better timing that Modern Adventure Pro Cycling almost came out of nowhere when I got a phone call,\u201d he said from Andorra.<\/p>\n Oliver had raced against future team director Ty Magner on the American criterium circuit.<\/p>\n Magner remembered those clashes and reached out.<\/p>\n \u201cOne year at Intelligentsia Cup it was kind of me versus him every single night,\u201d Oliver laughed. \u201cI think beating him a few times helped.<\/p>\n \u201cI was fortunate enough to have him and the other directors vouch for me. Now I don\u2019t have to work over summer and can just rip into the racing.\u201d<\/p>\n Oliver\u2019s victory meant something beyond getting those first wins on the board.<\/p>\n Modern Adventure built its first-season roster by searching out riders who didn\u2019t fit cycling\u2019s usual script, with prospects who arrived late or veterans who never got the call-up to a WorldTour team.<\/p>\n Hincapie worked his contacts to secure invites into races most first-year teams never see. The staff did the hard yards to turn a roster of outsiders into a racing unit.<\/p>\n \u201cComing into the start of the year, you didn\u2019t want to be the laughingstock of the peloton,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cThe team has certainly trusted in the riders, chucking us somewhat in the deep end.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal was to prove the team deserved to be at the start line \u2014 and ideally win a few races.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of riders came up to us during the week and said how well we were riding,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cWe\u2019ve shown as a team that you don\u2019t have to be in Europe for years and years to be competitive. There\u2019s a lot of talented bike riders coming from all parts of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The Tour of Slovenia is next, followed by a short break and a run of late-summer races across Northern Europe and North America.<\/p>\n The team\u2019s Wallonie celebration was a lot less glamorous than the victory deserved.<\/p>\n There was no beer-soaked all-nighter. There were planes to catch.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the logistics guy planned podium celebrations into that one,\u201d Oliver joked.<\/p>\n Right after Oliver posed for photos on the final podium, the team packed onto a bus, headed for Brussels Airport, and checked into airport hotels in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n A few days later, he managed a more fitting celebration with a steak dinner with friends.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a full-time pro almost makes my whole cycling career worthwhile,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/ben-oliver-modern-adventure-american-cycling-team\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ben-oliver-tour-de-wallonie-2026.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated June 11, 2026 10:02AM Ben Oliver spent years stacking honey boxes around New Zealand, packing warehouse orders, and trying to keep a cycling career alive. Now he\u2019s winning European stage races. Oliver won two stages and the overall title at the 2026 Tour de Wallonie, delivering the first European […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1984653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1984653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1984653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1984653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1984653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tour de Wallonie 2026: How it unfolded<\/h2>\n
![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2279267602-720x480.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Losing and winning yellow<\/h2>\n
Ben Oliver\u2019s road to Wallonie<\/h2>\n
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From mountain biking to Europe<\/h2>\n
Hincapie\u2019s team called at exactly the right time<\/h2>\n
![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/oliver-wallonie-2026-720x721.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Modern Adventure: Built for the overlooked<\/h2>\n
Finally time to celebrate<\/h2>\n
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