It was around 10:30pm, one night in mid-July, when Lucas Towers got a phone call that would catapult his career to the next level.
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 – he’d have to fend for himself.
“I 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,” he says.
“I answered it and George Hincapie told me he had a place for me on his team,” the now 22-year-old remembers. “It was a surreal experience. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions because you’re relaxing and getting ready to go to bed, and all of a sudden you’ve got the best news of your life.
“Luckily I wasn’t asleep already – that was the good thing. I didn’t sleep probably for another few hours, but it was definitely worth it.”
On 1st January, Towers will turn pro for the first time in his career with Modern Adventure Pro Cycling, 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’ll race against some of the sport’s biggest names. He’s one of three Brits on the 21-rider roster, alongside Leo Hayter, Mark Stewart, and a majority of North Americans.
As he speaks to Cycling Weekly, Towers is in South Africa at his family’s 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.
“It flashed up on my newsfeed, and it was something that interested and excited me,” Towers says. “A 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’d love to have a chat and speak about any opportunities that there may be.”
“[Howes] kind of, I guess, backed me, and was basically one of the main reasons I signed… I was a fan of his when I was watching the EF videos of him and Lachlan Morton, but I didn’t know him personally at all.”
Howes, it turned out, had been following Towers’s progress, too.
Supported by the Rayner Foundation, 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’Aosta, a key under-23 race previously won by WorldTour pros Lenny Martinez and Pavel Sivakov.
“I’m really happy I went down that route,” Towers says of his time in Spain. “The racing is a very high standard, but not the same standard as UCI racing. That means that every race you line up for, you’re racing for the win, and always at the front of races. You’re having to make tactical decisions and learn how to win races, rather than just hanging on and suffering to get round.
“Obviously that will change now. I’m having to take a step-up and ride against some of the best riders in the world, but I feel like I’ve developed into a good, all-round cyclist.”
Lucas (right) with his father, Jonny, and sister, Alice.
(Image credit: Richard Butcher)
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, is a former British national road champion, who will join EF Education-Oatly from Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto next year.
“Until the age of 15, I was really serious on playing football, so I didn’t take cycling too seriously,” Towers remembers. “It 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.”
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 – “that was the key to kickstart my pathway,” he says.
Although Towers’s new team is US-registered, he will continue to live in Spain next year, this time in Girona, where Modern Adventure will be based.
How is he feeling about turning pro? “To be honest, I feel ready for it,” he says. “We’re a brand new team, with quite a few inexperienced riders, but also a lot of older, mature, more experienced riders, so it’s a nice balance. I think we’re an ambitious team and the team wants to win races, so to be a part of that, for me, is something that motivates me.”
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 – a UCI 1.1 event.
From there, the Brit says, when he’s not in a support role, the medium-mountain, lumpy courses will suit him best.
“[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,” he says. “I just love racing, whatever it is.”
