The7-Eleven Cycling Team, later theMotorola Cycling Team, was a professional cycling team founded in the U.S. in 1981 byJim Ochowicz, a former U.S. Olympic cyclist. The team lasted 16 years, under the sponsorship of7-Eleven through 1990 and thenMotorola from 1990 through 1996. From 1989 to 1996 it rode onEddy Merckx bikes.

7-Eleven was formed as an amateur cycling team in 1981 by Ochowicz, a 29-year-old former Olympic cyclist from the U.S., who was married to Olympic speed skating gold medalistSheila Young. Ochowicz had managed the U.S. national speed-skating team and was friends withEric andBeth Heiden, who were both excellent cyclists as well as champion speed skaters.^[1] He managed to get sponsorship from the Southland Corporation, owners of the7-Eleven convenience-store chain, and bicycle manufacturerSchwinn to form an amateur team. Of the seven men on the inaugural 7-Eleven-Schwinn team racing in 1981, Eric Heiden (who swept the gold medals in speed skating in the1980 Winter Olympics) was the captain and the best known. The other Americans wereJeff Bradley, Greg Demgen, Bradley Davies,Tom Schuler,Danny Van Haute andRoger Young (Ochowicz's brother-in-law). They were joined byCanadianRon Hayman. Although Schwinn dropped out as a co-sponsor in 1982, 7-Eleven added a women's team withRebecca Twigg, among others, as well as more male riders, includingDavis Phinney,Ron Kiefel and CanadianAlex Stieda.^[2] The all-amateur 7-Eleven team was featured in the 1985 movieAmerican Flyers, starringKevin Costner. The 1986 Cycling Media Guide published for the1986 World Championships lists Jeff Bradley, Chris Carmichael, Alexi Grewal, Eric Heiden,Ron Kiefel, Davis Phinney,Bob Roll, Tom Schuler,Doug Shapiro and Alex Stieda with an additional group of amateur men on the team includingFrankie Andreu,Curt Harnett,David Lettieri, Robert Mathis,Leonard "Harvey" Nitz and Russell Scott.

Southland continued its commitment by sponsoring the cycling venue at the1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where nine Americans won cycling medals. The other (especially equipment) sponsors of the team includedDescente, Huffy,Campagnolo, andTag Heuer. Often, those sponsors elected not to continue after their initial contracts were completed.

In 1985, Ochowitz changed the men's team's status to professional and askedMike Neel to be thedirecteur sportif in Europe.^[3] The team went to Europe with an initial roster of members including Olympic gold medalistsAlexi Grewal and Heiden, Olympic bronze medalists Phinney and Kiefel, Bradley, Schuler, Hayman, Stieda, andChris Carmichael. When the team received an invitation to the1985 Giro d'Italia, one of theGrand Tours of Europe, a young American cyclist based in Europe namedAndrew Hampsten was added to the team under a 30-day contract for the race. After both Kiefel and Hampsten stunningly won stages during the Giro, becoming the first American stage winners ever at a Grand Tour, 7-Eleven was invited to the1986 Tour de France and became one of the major cycling teams for the next decade, under the sponsorship of Southland through 1990 and then Motorola through 1996. Ochowicz disbanded the team after the 1996 season, when Motorola decided to discontinue sponsorship.^[4]

While it was not the first professional cycling team in the U.S., 7-Eleven was responsible for an overall increase in bike racing interest in the U.S. The team claimed a win in a Grand Tour, whenAndrew Hampsten won thegeneral classification as well as themountains classification at the1988 Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy). It also claimed a handful of world championship medals and US championships, as well asTour de France and Giro stage wins and one more Grand Tour podium (Hampsten's third in the1989 Giro d'Italia). It was the second U.S. team to ride the Giro d'Italia (1985) (theGianni Motta team was the first in 1984) and in the Tour de France (1986), where two Canadian riders on the team held the yellow jersey on different occasions (Alex Stieda in 1986 andSteve Bauer in 1990). Its Tour de France stage winners included Phinney,Jeff Pierce, Hampsten,Sean Yates andDag Otto Lauritzen from Norway. In 1989Brian Walton won the pro-am Milk Race (Tour of Britain).As of 2009, Team 7-Eleven is the only cycling team to have been inducted into theUnited States Bicycling Hall of Fame.

During2025 Liège–Bastogne–Liège Norwegian cycling teamUno-X Mobility raced in 7-Eleven jerseys. Both Uno-X and 7-Eleven are owned byReitan conglomerate.^[5]

Three bike manufacturers sponsored the team throughout the years:Schwinn from 1981 to 1984,Murray from 1985 to 1986,Huffy from 1987 to 1988, although the team bikes from 1985 to 1988 were primarily built byBen Serotta. FinallyEddy Merckx sponsored the team from 1989 through their ultimate cessation in 1996. For Eddy Merckx, sponsoring the American team had a special meaning.Eddy Merckx said:^[6]

"I had a special relationship with the 7-Eleven team. They were happy to have somebody with my racing and frame-building experience. For me [it] remains a great memory. I was happy I could make them more successful in Europe, and to see the positive influence they had on the US as a whole. If I had do it over, I would make the same choice straight away."

During Motorola's sponsorship of the team in the 1990s, the riders began communicating with the team cars through the use of two-way radios built by Motorola.^[7] The radios were slowly adopted through the rest of the professional peloton, becoming standard equipment by 2002.^[8] Acceptance of these radios was hastened by the success in the Tour de France of former Motorola riderLance Armstrong, who continued to use a race radio when he joined theU.S. Postal Service cycling team.^[7]

• Drake, Geoff (2012).Team 7-Eleven: How an Unsung Band of American Cyclists Took on the World—and Won. Boulder, CO: VeloPress.ISBN 978-1-934030-92-9. Archived fromthe original on 22 February 2015. Retrieved27 February 2015.
• Fotheringham, William (15 May 2020)."Motorola Cycling Team".Prendas Ciclismo. Retrieved31 July 2020.
• Guinness, Rupert (1997).Tales from the Toolbox: Inside a Professional Cycling Team. Boulder, CO: VeloPress.ISBN 978-1-884737-39-8. Retrieved5 November 2013.

• 1986 Tour de France Profile of 7/11 Team
• Inside Cycling with John Wilcockson: The boys from 7-Eleven and the debut of American pro road racing (VeloNews)
• Inside Cycling with John Wilcockson: The “premature” Tour of America, and a Phinney first (VeloNews)

• Defunct cycling teams based in the United States
• 7-Eleven
• Cycling teams established in 1981
• Cycling teams disestablished in 1996
• 1981 establishments in the United States
• 1996 disestablishments in the United States

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Infobox cycling team articles using param (disbanded)