Modern Adventure Pro Cycling was officially announced as a ProTeam by the UCI on Wednesday, the formal confirmation coming on the heels of a "very confident" organisation that held a winter camp for all 21 riders in Greenville, South Carolina last week.
"I don't think any of us had any doubts," Joey Rosskopf, one of the three sports directors for the US team, told Cyclingnews about the UCI's announcement on 2026 teams. He said the 2026 calendar can now take a firmer shape.
"We've had a really good reception from organizers. I'd say we have roughly 75% of our races confirmed, which is a lot to go on, especially for a first-year team. A lot of race organizers have given us super positive feedback. Of course, that official license designation from the UCI was probably a missing piece for some other race organizers.
"So yeah, with that in hand, hopefully we can hear yes or no the next couple weeks and have at least the first six months of the season to work with. That's what we're hoping for, and we are most of the way there."
Alex Howes, another co-director, said that once the deadline was met with all the paperwork in October, it was just a matter of plowing ahead with planning, "We're very confident it's all good and gravy. We've done everything right to be approved and signed off, the money's in the bank, the riders are all signed.
"We're working on schedule there. It's, it's, we're trying to figure out what's gonna overlap. And we have a, like, a lot of if, then situations with the schedule, it's like, if we get into this race, then these don't happen. We've got a pretty annoying-looking spreadsheet right now."
Howes said that the third DS in the group, Ty Magner, had the best spreadsheet game in the group. With the green light on their licence, Magner confirmed it was time to move full speed ahead.
"What can I say, it's huge. Full speed ahead for sure," Magner told Cyclingnews. "The timing of this project couldn't have been better. For the riders especially, and our entire staff - this is a new book for everyone, and we can't wait to get racing."
The Factor bikes were fitted and tested at camp, riders had first sets of apparel in hand and administrative 'I's' dotted and 'T's' crossed in the Greenville gathering, the home to team co-founders George and Rich Hincapie, where the brothers also have other family businesses, Hincapie Events and Hincapie Sportswear, based.
A longer and more training-focused camp was planned for Girona, Spain, January 10-22, 2026, before the inaugural season; however, Rosskopf said this past week's gathering was likely the only time the full squad would be together.
"This is likely the only time that all 21 will be in the same place. This team has five guys from the southern hemisphere, chances are a few of them will stay at home in January," Rosskopf said about some riders racing at home in New Zealand, Colombia and South Africa for nationals.
"We have race invites trickling in, which are coming along really well. Every week, we hear about one race for next year. So it's like a trickle, and yeah, pretty good time. We've been kind of going through every rider with sit-downs, with one coach and one DS present, to talk through everyone's ideal scenario for the first six months. We haven't put names to rosters yet.
"The best case is, we get started in the Middle East, either AlUla or Oman. But we're just waiting for an answer."
The AlUla Tour, January 27-31, and the Tour of Oman, February 7-11, are both part of the UCI ProSeries calendar. Among the roster, Stefan De Bod started his 2025 season at the AlUla Tour and came away with 12th in GC for Terengganu Cycling Team, before heading home to South Africa and earning a silver medal in the time trial championships.
Paul Wright won the road race title at New Zealand Road Nationals this past season, with Ben Oliver earning two medals at the championships, a silver in the road race and bronze in the criterium. Colombian Samuel Florez swept the road race and time trial national titles. Byron Munton last competed in the South African road nationals in 2023, going fourth in the ITT; however, he won the title in 2022.
"Everyone's super excited about it [starting the season], but it's also more of a burden than most division two teams take on, trying to really fit in a couple national calendar races and be present somewhere other than just racing in France, or whatever. Americans will quickly forget about us if we don't keep showing up."
As a UCI second-tier team, Modern Adventure would typically be restricted to racing UCI stage and one-day races. Rosskopf said home races like the Tour of the Gila, Philadelphia Cycling Classic p/b Amerigas and Maryland Cycling Classic were priorities, and they hoped an exception could be made for the Redlands Bicycle Classic, April 11-13 in southern California.
"As a ProTeam, we are reaching out to double-check on Redlands. In theory, you're only supposed to do UCI races, basically. It's just a national calendar race, but it's historically part of the American development pipeline, and we all did it when we were younger. We do have plenty of young kids and American-based guys. And we want to have a presence in the US."
Rosskopf's review
Rosskopf begins a second year on the management side of the sport, working as an assistant sports director for Continental-level Project Echelon Racing. Prior to that, he had a 14-year pro career with six seasons at the WorldTour level, and won USPro national titles three times - the time trial championship in 2017 and 2018, then the road race championship in 2021.
"It's been really rewarding. I started last year just trying to say yes to anything," he said about post-retirement from racing.
"I mean, if I had a friend that ran his own construction company, and he offered me a full-time job or even an internship, I probably would have said yes and just done that for a couple years to learn something new. This was probably a better outcome.
"It was an easy way to start, go to the places I'd been for the last 10 years, see the same people, just different responsibilities. It's rewarding every time to get through a trip without anything really going wrong," he said with a laugh, but talked about not 'screwing up' someone else's career.
"These guys who have been training hard all year, they really pay. There's a lot of responsibilities. Something like a poorly planned feed zone or missing a stage start, you could really screw it up.
"Some guys use a little bit more gentle hand-holding, to be guided in the right way. I pretty much treat everybody like an adult. If you made it out of your mom's house, I think you are ready to be treated like an adult and kind of held to that standard."
Twenty of the riders are under contract for two full years, with Leo Hayter signed through 2026. Rosskopf gushed about the lineup on the squad, which carries an average age of 23.6 years for the group.
"I'm really excited about so many of them, but good results-wise, Riley Pickrell is kind of a sprinter. The few opportunities he's been given, you can really count on him to seize the day and get a result out of it. Stefan De Bod has been a professional for a long time. He's always been super reliable and versatile, and last year, had quite a few top 10s.
"The Americans, there's so much more they can get out of themselves, even the older guys. On the younger side, Sean Christian has won a couple of races this past year. And kind of a big surprise will be Ezra Caudell. He's a crazy mountain biker. It turns out he loves training, he's a big kid, and has insane power numbers. So his raw power is super exciting," Rosskopf said.
He had glowing remarks about each rider on the roster, the group having completed only one training ride before they scatter to homes around the globe to get used to their new equipment and gear before the new year.
"We have two guys that you would call climbers and two guys that you would call sprinters. Even those labels don't really need to exist, we have a ton of guys putting their hands up for Belgian-style Classics races and the same guys putting their hands up for Vuelta a Andalucia, with its 30-minute climbs. There's excitement of wanting to be involved in everything from the get-go.
"So I'm really excited about it. We have a ton of flexibility in the first two years, and everyone can try everything. On paper, you could send a lot of them to a lot of different style races, and they would all have different goals on different days. And yeah, pretty cool setup so far. It's a pretty cool setup so far."
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