“We are gonna get bigger. We know that”: Modern Adventure already thinking beyond its breakthrough debut season

Modern Adventure Pro Cycling was supposed to spend its first season learning how to survive at the professional level. Instead, George Hincapie's ambitious American project has already produced results that have forced its founders to reconsider how quickly the team can progress towards its long-term Tour de France dream.

The newly established ProTeam has competed on some of cycling's biggest stages in its debut campaign, including Paris-Roubaix, while also collecting victories and high-level results across Europe. Ben Oliver's breakthrough Tour de Wallonie performance, where he won two stages, the overall classification and the points jersey, has been particularly significant for a team that entered 2026 with development and exposure arguably more important than immediate results.

The speed of that progress has surprised even the people responsible for building the project. General manager George Hincapie and performance director Bobby Julich are now faced with an unusual problem for a first-year team: how to use unexpectedly strong results without allowing them to distort a development process that was designed to take several years.

“It’s been a crazy ride,” Julich said in words to Cycling Weekly. “All of a sudden it came to fruition, and we’re like, ‘Man, we’ve got to put a team together’.”

The team's debut was always intended to be about more than results. Hincapie wanted to create a sustainable American professional project capable of developing riders while gradually establishing itself on the international calendar. The initial ambition was deliberately long-term, with the Tour de France positioned as the destination.

That philosophy quickly collided with the opportunities available to a new ProTeam. Modern Adventure received invitations to a wide range of races, and its first challenge became managing an unexpectedly ambitious programme. “We really had to slow down and start saying, ‘Okay, we actually can’t do all of this stuff’,” Hincapie explained.

The decision to become more selective produced some of the team's most important moments. Paris-Roubaix was one of them. An invitation to the Hell of the North represented an opportunity far beyond what might normally be expected from a team in its first season, but the performance exceeded even Hincapie and Julich's hopes.

“We went to Paris-Roubaix, and we had eight guys take the start,” Julich recalled. “We only had one non-finisher. I would have been happy if one guy would have finished within the time limit.”

The team subsequently continued to establish itself across the international calendar. Modern Adventure collected top-ten stage results at the Tour of Türkiye, a podium at the Arctic Race of Norway and fourth place at Classic Grand Besançon Doubs before Oliver's Tour de Wallonie breakthrough provided the clearest evidence yet that the project could compete for significant results.

“We were way more advanced than I would have ever imagined for the first year of the team,” Hincapie said. “I’m happy, overwhelmed, with how well it’s gone.”

Modern Adventure does not intend to stand still after its encouraging debut. Hincapie expects the 2027 roster to grow to around 24 or 25 riders, with two to four new signings brought in to complement the existing group.

The emphasis, however, will not simply be on adding more talent. The founders want riders who can bring experience and help the younger members of the team take another step forward.

“Now that we know how everybody works well together, we’re gonna probably bring on two to four new guys for the team,” Hincapie said. “Just trying to build on what we’ve started already, just bringing in a bit more experience, and start focusing more on results. Let’s continue to build that foundation, and let’s continue to support these kids as well as we can. We are gonna get bigger. We know that.”

The financial side of that growth could ultimately determine how quickly the team can move. Modern Adventure has a long-term objective of reaching the Tour de France, but becoming a WorldTour organisation would require a significant increase in budget, depth and UCI points.

For now, Julich believes a wildcard invitation to a Grand Tour would be a more realistic first step than WorldTour promotion. “We don’t have the budget of the WorldTour team, so we don’t have the depth of the WorldTour teams. That’s gonna come. So I would think that if there was a Grand Tour in our future, we would have to be a wild card.”