{"id":353766,"date":"2025-12-17T11:23:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/353766\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:23:10","slug":"george-hincapie-told-me-he-had-a-place-for-me-british-cyclist-lucas-towers-on-turning-pro-with-new-us-team-modern-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/353766\/","title":{"rendered":"‘George Hincapie told me he had a place for me’ \u2013 British cyclist Lucas Towers on turning pro with new US team Modern Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was around 10:30pm, one night in mid-July, when Lucas Towers<\/a> got a phone call that would catapult his career to the next level.<\/p>\n

Twenty-one at the time, the Brit had only a handful of races left on his calendar with his Spanish team, Caja Rural-Alea, his home for the last three seasons. Come the end of the year, however, and his under-23-level days would be up \u2013 he\u2019d have to fend for himself.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI always believed it was possible to become professional, but, I guess, as the years tick on, you start to become older, and you realise those chances are reducing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Then came that night in July. Towers was on his way to bed when the phone rang. The call was from an unknown number in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cI answered it and George Hincapie<\/a> told me he had a place for me on his team,\u201d the now 22-year-old remembers. \u201cIt was a surreal experience. It\u2019s a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions because you\u2019re relaxing and getting ready to go to bed, and all of a sudden you\u2019ve got the best news of your life.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily I wasn’t asleep already \u2013 that was the good thing. I didn\u2019t sleep probably for another few hours, but it was definitely worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On 1st January, Towers will turn pro for the first time in his career with Modern Adventure Pro Cycling<\/a>, the new US ProTeam launched and managed by former pro Hincapie. His contract will keep him with the squad for at least two years, in which he\u2019ll race against some of the sport\u2019s biggest names. He\u2019s one of three Brits on the 21-rider roster<\/a>, alongside Leo Hayter<\/a>, Mark Stewart<\/a>, and a majority of North Americans.<\/p>\n

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As he speaks to Cycling Weekly, Towers is in South Africa at his family\u2019s second home. Earlier this month, he travelled to Greenville, South Carolina, where he met up with his new team. The first time he heard of Modern Adventure, he explains, was around the end of May, when he came across a press release announcing the new project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt flashed up on my newsfeed, and it was something that interested and excited me,\u201d Towers says. \u201cA couple of weeks later, I was followed on Instagram by one of the DSs [Alex Howes], and I sent him a message and said I\u2019d love to have a chat and speak about any opportunities that there may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[Howes] kind of, I guess, backed me, and was basically one of the main reasons I signed\u2026 I was a fan of his when I was watching the EF videos of him and Lachlan Morton<\/a>, but I didn\u2019t know him personally at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Howes, it turned out, had been following Towers\u2019s progress, too.<\/p>\n

Supported by the Rayner Foundation<\/a>, a charity that gives young British cyclists the means to pursue careers in Europe, Towers has lived and raced in Spain since he was 18. Over the last two seasons, riding for Caja Rural-Alea, he won four national races, and last year placed fourth on a stage of the Giro della Valle d\u2019Aosta, a key under-23 race previously won by WorldTour pros Lenny Martinez and Pavel Sivakov.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really happy I went down that route,\u201d Towers says of his time in Spain. \u201cThe racing is a very high standard, but not the same standard as UCI racing. That means that every race you line up for, you\u2019re racing for the win, and always at the front of races. You\u2019re having to make tactical decisions and learn how to win races, rather than just hanging on and suffering to get round.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously that will change now. I\u2019m having to take a step-up and ride against some of the best riders in the world, but I feel like I\u2019ve developed into a good, all-round cyclist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Alice,\n<\/p>\n

Lucas (right) with his father, Jonny, and sister, Alice.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Richard Butcher)<\/p>\n

Towers was three years old when he first rode a bike. Brought up in Derbyshire, he comes from a family with racing pedigree; his father, Jonny, was a motorcyclist, and his older sister, Alice<\/a>, is a former British national road champion, who will join EF Education-Oatly from Canyon<\/a>-SRAM zondacrypto next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil the age of 15, I was really serious on playing football, so I didn\u2019t take cycling too seriously,\u201d Towers remembers. \u201cIt was just something I did on the weekends, riding to the cafe with my dad and sister. When I was 15, I started to get the bug for it a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon, bigger ambitions began to take root. The teenager went from competing in regional races to national-level ones, and then intrepidly moved overseas, joining Spanish outfit Previley Maglia Coforma Bembibre in his junior days \u2013 \u201cthat was the key to kickstart my pathway,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Although Towers\u2019s new team is US-registered, he will continue to live in Spain next year, this time in Girona, where Modern Adventure will be based.<\/p>\n

How is he feeling about turning pro? \u201cTo be honest, I feel ready for it,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re a brand new team, with quite a few inexperienced riders, but also a lot of older, mature, more experienced riders, so it\u2019s a nice balance. I think we\u2019re an ambitious team and the team wants to win races, so to be a part of that, for me, is something that motivates me.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a first camp with his new team-mates next month, Towers’s season opener will come at the Vuelta a Murcia in the middle of February. It will be the highest-level race he has ever done \u2013 a UCI<\/a> 1.1 event.<\/p>\n

From there, the Brit says, when he’s not in a support role, the medium-mountain, lumpy courses will suit him best.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I just want] to find my feet, get used to the new level, see what I can do, see how I can help out the leaders of the team, do a good job, and go from there,\u201d he says. \u201cI just love racing, whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was around 10:30pm, one night in mid-July, when Lucas Towers got a phone call that would catapult…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-353766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}