The Queenstown climber hoping to become a mountain G.O.A.T
When you ride for a team called Vet4Farm, it helps to be an animal on the bike. It didn’t take much for Reuben Thompson to switch into beast mode at the Tour of Southland last year, surging up The Remarkables to announce himself on the New Zealand cycling scene.
With three kilometres to go, the Queenstown teenager swung out from a select group and started slapping the pedals. He quickly charged away like an eager farm dog, leaving the chasing pack rocking and rolling like drunk cows on a cattle stop. His first victory at the famous race, in the end by 28 seconds, was inevitable.
Dressed in yellow, with the nearby ski field in the background, it was easy to see why he’s making the jump to Europe this year. Thompson has signed with French Continental team Groupama–FDJ for the next two seasons, giving him the perfect opportunity to take his cycling to the next level.
The 19-year-old had originally joined Team Monti Decenuick Quickstep, the development team for Quickstep, at the start of 2020. However, it was short-lived.
“We didn’t have our UCI licence and they were the delaying the kit, so I knew there was something going on. And then about a week out from the Road National Championships in Cambridge, we were told the team was folding and to go and find a new one, which was a bit worrying,” he explains over the phone.
Thompson managed to scramble and pick up a good deal with Spanish team Telco,m On Clima Osés, and headed off to Europe at the end of February. He lasted just ten days and two races in Spain, before flying home again, as coronavirus broke the spokes of the season.
“I was back home in mid-March, and I had a bit of a break because it had all been quite hard on the head to that point,” he says.
Thompson got in touch with his agent and told him he wanted to sign a contract as early as he could to try and sort out his future. He’d talked to FDJ in the past following his junior season in France and felt he had really good power numbers and promising results to show them. His representatives went to work, and a deal was done.
He’s since gotten to know his new team, attending a training camp in Besançon in September.
“I couldn’t believe how professional the setup was, and how well integrated it was with the World Tour team. I got to meet all the guys and do things like setting up bikes, testing, we had podiatrists and all sorts of extra stuff that should enable me to step up a lot,” he says.
The move will allow him to rub shoulders with some of the best riders in the world, including French climbing stars Thibaut Pinot and David Gaudu.
“Hopefully I’ll get to see a bit of them this year. A lot of the staff are integrated [between the teams], so I got to meet the performance coaches of the World Tour teams, and meet Thibaut’s coach,” he recalls.
Thompson will also get the chance to race at the top level in 2021, with every rider in the development team getting a crack at a World Tour event with the elite team.
“Our coaches will get sent a list of where they want our riders to race and what style of rider they’re looking for and then we’ll have the opportunity to get in there and do a job. It’s all about the development so hopefully in one-or-two-year’s time we’re ready to make the step up and it’s not a crazy change,” he says.
One barrier he’s trying to hurdle is the language one, but that’s being rectified as time goes on.
“I did three months in France in 2019 and the team provides French lessons which I’ve started. I’m nowhere near conversational yet but I’m getting there,” he says.
While the foreign language is still a work in progress, his education on the bike is rapidly improving, thanks in part to a stint in Spain last year. After returning in July, he chewed through a four-month block of chaotic racing.
“I raced for three months in France as a junior and I thought that was wild, but the number of crashes I was involved in last year and the learning that came out of how complicated all the racing was and the level was just a step up on anything I’d done before,” he says.
After putting in a lot of work through the winter, focusing on building his base and eating up plenty of kilometres, Thompson took aim at the Tour of Southland. His preparation was hardly ideal; he battled on a trainer for two weeks in an Auckland hotel room while completing mandatory quarantine. Significantly though, he was mentally ready to launch an assault, after dealing with some regret from his climb up Coronet Peak the year before.
“I really, really wanted to win at home in Queenstown, so I was super hungry to do the job up The Remarkables. I knew I was capable of it, and that yellow jersey is the first yellow jersey I’ve ever worn as a cyclist,” he recalls.
Unfortunately for Thompson, the unforgiving southern crosswinds quickly blew it off his shoulders the next day. But not before he’d created one of the highlights of the race. A self-proclaimed “skinny guy”, it’s in the mountains where he wants to make his mark in the future.
“You never really get the opportunity to show yourself as a climber in New Zealand. The Tour of Southland is probably the hilliest race in the country and that has one 20-minute climb to finish. The stuff I’ve got to do in Europe, that’s three 30–40-minute climbs in one stage,” he explains.
This week’s Road National Championships in Cambridge is another chance to show off his climbing prowess. While it’s got nothing on some of the lung-searing courses in Europe, the 174km circuit features four laps of the French Pass/Te Miro Loop, with over 2000 metres of climbing. Thompson will be riding in tandem with Kiwi team-mate Laurence Pithie, who’s also signed on at Groupama-FDJ. The pair came through the ranks at Team Skoda-Fruzio and are set to live together overseas this year.
Thompson is hoping to use that combination to his advantage. The road race often turns into a slugfest between some of the country’s World Tour pros, with George Bennett and Shane Archbold duelling it out last year. With Pithie alongside him, Thompson is out to ruffle a few feathers.
“Ultimately I just want the jersey to be within FDJ. I think between Laurence and I, we have our bases pretty well covered. He goes really well in a kick, and then we can sort of play the cards. I can try and get away on the climbs and if it comes back together, I can work for him. It’s quite exciting,” he says.
Just hours after finishing up in Cambridge, he’ll be off overseas to start the next adventure. Thompson’s hoping to take part in the big Under-23 races like the Baby Giro and Ronde de l’Isard, with his main ambitions in the future centering around the Grand Tours.
For now, there’s a national title to win. After winning his first yellow jersey last year, Thompson’s hoping to add the white New Zealand one to his collection this weekend.
