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The original was posted on /r/peloton by /u/PelotonMod on 2024-09-28 08:01:08+00:00.

Hi r/peloton, you probably already know me but my name is Thymen Arensman. I am a Dutch pro cyclist for Ineos Grenadiers. Straight after a bike bag trip from Andorra to the Netherlands and before the Italian autumn classics I would like to get in touch with you via this subreddit! I think this could be a great way for me to connect with fans! Inspired by Harry Sweeny I hope to do a little bit the same and I hope more pro cyclists will follow! I’ll start my time here with a QnA with the mods, they had some great questions! And maybe later we could do an AmA or something else you would like, please let me know! It’s also a new experience for me but something I am looking forward to as I like this reddit community!

Hello dear users, and welcome to a very special post!

A few weeks ago the one and only Thymen Arensman reached out to us, to see if we could create something for the subreddit together. We reacted very positively, of course. We chatted back and forth, exchanged our ideas on what to post, and settled on a few dates. We also made sure to verify him via X, so you know we’ve got the real Arensman here today.

We settled on the following; next Sunday, October 6th, Thymen will join us for an AMA, and you can start thinking up your questions today! You can read Thymen’s own words at the start of this post; we’re as excited as he is for him to get to meet the reddit community, and we’re sure Sweeny will be honored to hear he inspired more young cyclists to interact with us!

To inspire you for next week, we’ve already asked Thymen a couple of questions ourselves, which we desperately hoped were interesting to a guy who’s already answered thousands of questions from cycling journalists. Here’s what he had to say:

Our QnA with Arensman

Let’s start with the basics: you’re Dutch, and you’re good at climbing. How and when did you realize that this was a talent of yours, and how do you develop it as a junior rider in a flat country?

Good question as we indeed don’t have mountains to train climbing in the Netherlands. I think in the end it’s just down to genetics. I am quite tall but also relatively light, you can’t really train this. But I started cycling from a very young age as both my parents were cyclists. They were both quite alright cyclists, nothing special. My dad was a good amateur but my mum was really talented, but just didn’t really like training and preferred working, haha! So I think I just got the right genes and was lucky. Already from the very first categories I was competitive. But my parents always prioritised having fun for me. And I always liked cyclocross more than the road, so I did that a lot. My training was basically only riding 12k to high school and back. With on Tuesday or Wednesday a small evening race with my dad. Maybe all the headwind helped me with climbing, haha! I think only when I was second year junior it started to become a little bit more serious and I did some racing in other countries than the Netherlands and Belgium. There I found out I was quite alright going uphill. When I joined SEG Racing, trained a little bit more professionally and became 2nd in L’Avenir and 3rd in Roubaix as my first year U23 I thought; ah maybe I could be an okay cyclist!

Staying in the younger categories: you were 2nd in the Tour of Avenir 2018, which was a ridiculously strong year looking back: Almeida, Vlasov, Dunbar, Gall, McNulty and even Vingegaard were all competing, and Pogacar himself was the winner. Did you realize at the time that that startlist was special, and how did this result impact your career from that moment on? Did it change your mentality or riding style?

Yes, L’Avenir 2018 was special. But as I just described I wasn’t really focused on cycling as I was also studying history at the university. So I didn’t really know all my competitors and was just really happy to be selected by the Dutch federation. Becoming 2nd was really special as a first year U23. But this result impacted my career quite a bit it, more than I would have wanted. Of course there were a lot of worldtour teams trying to sign me but with my management (and team), SEG, we decided that I wanted to keep studying for a few years. So that’s why we decided to sign with Team Sunweb, but to only turn pro in August 2020, as I didn’t feel ready for the world tour. But with the result in L’Avenir came also quite some expectations from the cycling world. Something I never even considered, I was just an 18 year old studying history. That was quite hard in 2019, where I had a few really hard crashes, with those expectations and my study. The result in L’Avenir was definitely a really nice result but in hindsight I could have done without. It would have been nice to progress on my own pace and do my studies. But sometimes it is what it is and I am also happy with how I am doing now!

Nowadays you’re very much a GC rider. In fact, in the past two years you’ve only finished a single one-day race; I think maybe only Vingegaard does less. Do you miss any part of one-day racing? Do you think you’ll have any personal or team goals in one-day races in the future? Is something like starting Paris-Roubaix on your cycling bucketlist?

It’s quite simple, to be honest. I am just better at stage races than one day races. My fatigue resistance is quite good and I recover fast. So that are not things that are useful for one day races. But I still like them! But so far I just focused more on GC’s. We don’t have special plans for one day races. But of course I would like to do something like Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix in the future! I was already 3rd in Paris-Roubaix U23!

You’ve already started in 5 Vuelta a España’s, and you’re not even out of the Young Rider category: are you trying to set some sort of record? If not, why so many Vuelta’s? Are there benefits to having many starts in a single race, even if the route changes?

Haha, no I am definitely not trying to set a record. It’s just the plan of the team. DSM and Ineos now sent me every year to the Vuelta. That’s sometimes how things go. I don’t think there is a big benefit in doing the same race every year if the route changes every year. Especially a grand tour, so many things can happen.

Back in 2022 you scored some very important UCI points for Team DSM in the WorldTour Promotion/Relegation rankings, with your 2nd place in the Tour of Poland and 5th place in the Vuelta. How did this ranking influence you and the team in those months? And have you ever even thought about UCI points again since joining INEOS?

The UCI ranking didn’t influence me at all. I never thought about it in 2022, I just did my best for the team. I also never heard anything about it from the team of felt any pressure, maybe there was a bit of stress at the management but I never experienced it. I also never heard that I scored a lot of points or whatever, so yeah. The only time I think about UCI ranking when I see it on Reddit, haha!

So much for the career insights, we also asked a couple shorter questions:

If you had to ride for a ProTeam or Continental Team for a year, which one would you like to join and why?

I think a year at Tour de Tietema would be cool. I can do without all the social media but just to ride in a Dutch team and maybe help the Dutch continental and pro continental scene in that way would be nice! Just to help Dutch cycling as every year there are less and less children starting cycling in the Netherlands.

Which riders do you think would perform better in a 4-week Grand Tour than a 3-week one? Do you think you would yourself?

First of all, I don’t think a 4 week grand tour is needed haha! 3 is more than enough and is already so demanding for a human body. It’s a good question, I think it just depends on someone’s shape. If you’re in good shape you can also be good in week 4 as you are suffering less than the others in the previous 3 weeks. But yeah, perhaps it would suit me as normally my watts don’t drop during the race. But it could be for anyone that is in good shape and healthy.

If you could pick three riders, active or retired, to go in a breakaway with, who would you pick?

Well, Jens Voigt was the breakaway king wasn’t he? So maybe I would pick him. I would also pick Pippo Ganna, huge power and a huge body to seek shelter from the wind haha! Last one maybe Taco van der Hoorn. Good friend of mine and another breakaway specialist of course! That could be a nice group.

If you had a great lead-out and really tried, how high do you think you could finish in a mass sprint? Let’s say it’s a Vuelta sprint, so the level is not too high.

Good question. I think it’s a lot about positioning, for me the risk is normally just not worth it. If I have the most amazing leadout ever, have no fear at all and can just hold the wheel perhaps I can get top 10, top 5 if I am super lucky. I could never win, not even in the Vuelta or with the best leadout ever. But the main thing is; having no fear, haha!

Which riders have you learned the most from in your career? What sort of advice did you get from your older teammates?

For sure Romain Bardet, Martijn Tusveld, Chad Haga and Geraint Thoma…

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