Exceeding Expectations at the AlUla Tour
Fourth place on GC, second on the final mountain stage, a cohesive and professional team display from start to finish. And all in Modern Adventure Pro Cycling’s first race on the road. AlUla Tour couldn’t have gone much better.
The team came to the race with the goal of being in the mix and showing what the guys could do, but it’s fair to say the results - not just the stage and GC standings - exceeded expectations and set a hugely exciting tone for what is to come this year.
Modern Adventure Pro Cycling DS, Alex Howes said after the final stage: “These guys have been pushing wind all week for this result. To see a team that didn’t exist properly five days ago come here and figure it out and gel, and cap it off with an exclamation mark has just been a true privilege to be around, honestly. This result today, with Byron in second and Stefan coming fourth on GC, exceeded our expectations by quite a lot.
“We were hoping to get a top five on a stage and maybe squeeze our way into the top ten. These guys came in with real authority and just showed the world what they’re all about.”
The five-day AlUla Tour saw the team line up against WorldTour competition across a range of stage profiles that offered opportunities for both the sprinters and the climbers alike. Throw into the mix crosswinds, and the race had a bit of everything.
From stage one, the team set out its stall racing from the front and going all in for back-to-back sprint finishes with Riley Pickrell, the first of which saw the guys just miss the front split in the wind, before a second opportunity on day two was derailed by a late crash. But motivation wasn’t deterred, and on the first climbing test of the race, with attention focused on Byron Munton and Stefan De Bod for the finish, the guys showed they had the legs, both placing in the top 15, and built belief for Saturday’s queen stage.
Stage 4 was one final sprint test, and this time Riley got a shot at the finish after a big team effort to get him in position heading into a very fast finish, crossing in ninth for the team’s first top 10 of the race.
Then came stage 5. The queen stage to the Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid. With the break back in the fold, Byron set off the front over the final climb of the day as the race splintered behind. Stefan rode close behind in the chasing group, and Bryon held strong for a hard-fought second place on the stage, with Stefan a close seventh behind, rocketing him up to fourth on GC, just four seconds off the podium. Job done, mission accomplished and then some.
Team DS, Joey Rosskopf added: “I don’t think we could have planned for a better first outing with the team. The commitment from everyone was incredible, every single day. To have a group like this who respects each other and is always honest, and buys in whatever the plan is - they do whatever they say they’re going to do. If it’s first into a corner, they do it. We saw it dozens of times this week, and it's incredible.
“It would discredit them to say it was unexpected, but it kind of was. Everyone can have a plan, but it’s harder to carry it out in real life, but these guys have done it on all five stages. It's incredible.”
Performance Director, Bobby Julich, concluded: “This started as an idea on a bike ride last February, and then all of a sudden in April it was like, wait, we’ve got to start building a team here, how do we do that? None of us knew, but we stuck to it, piece by piece, it came together honestly from the heavens, with the staff, the DS group did an amazing job picking the riders. We were able to hire a performance scientist and a performance coach. I cannot tell you how much we worked at this, but we never thought that we would already get a podium in a mountain top finish in the AlUla Tour.
“Thank you to the ASO for inviting us to our first race. Thank you to all of our sponsors, thank you to our management. It’s been a lot of fun but if we can build off this at every race that we go to, we’re going to have a lot of fun and win some races.”
Next up, the team heads to the seven-stage UAE Tour in mid-February, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling’s WorldTour debut. With realistic expectations but a bucket load of confidence taken from this first showing on the roads of Saudi Arabia.
