PUTRAJAYA — Riley Pickrell and Modern Adventure Pro Cycling closed Le Tour de Langkawi on a high in Putrajaya on Sunday, turning a season of lead-out building into consistent sprint results at the eight-day Malaysian ProTour race with one stage win, three second places from four sprint contests and a fifth place from the group after the break took the top four spots.
Pickrell was quick to credit his teammates for the run, which included his first win of the season on stage 6 and the sixth victory of the year for the first-year ProTeam. "If I have consistency, it means my teammates are always dropping me off in a good position where I can sprint to a top three," Pickrell told Cyclingnews after the finale in Putrajaya. "So this week I can really only say thanks to my team because they're the reason why it's so consistent."
"We didn't have this kind of consistency at the beginning of this year because we had never worked with each other before," Pickrell explained. "We didn't have the processes. We have spent so many hours post-race being pretty critical on where we've made mistakes in these lead outs and how to read the race better. So now when we're exposed to those situations again and again, we know what the other rider wants out of it and how to adjust accordingly." He added: "I'm super excited for next year. Most of us here are going into offseason now but we definitely finished the season on a high and I think all the guys are really eager to already get started for next season."
Sports director Alex Howes said the progress was clear even before the breakthrough, noting ahead of the stage 6 win: "We're figuring stuff out as a team so honestly, we're just happy to be in a position where we get to have this conversation about beating a team like Astana. They're a good team and we have got a lot of respect for them, but I think we can get around them." After the win, XDS Astana tried to hand chase responsibility to Modern Adventure, a sign of newfound respect. "We kind of went into this season kind of being like 'we're just gonna be like the little shit team that nobody respects and it's gonna be really hard to do anything' whereas I really feel like by the end of this season we have a lot of respect," Pickrell said. "I think that says a lot for what we've accomplished this year and the trajectory we are on is really impressive."