After nine years with Jumbo-Visma, former National champion Timo Roosen moved to another Dutch team, the Team DSM-firmenich PostNL. There he is given an important role in Fabio Jakobsen's sprint train as well as a guarantee to ride a Grand Tour after six long years, he confims to WielerFlits.
What is it like to change environment after such long period? "It's kind of a breath of fresh air. I still had a very good time at Jumbo-Visma, so in that respect it is not very different. But it's good, I think, to have something different for once. Gather new people around you with new insights. Everything is slightly different with this team than with Jumbo-Visma."
"I'm the man before the lead-out man. We call that the positioner. We have now given that role a name, which makes communicating with everyone a little easier. It is difficult to determine which kilometers from the finish this will ideally be. The best thing would of course be if we could ride the lead-out within about two hundred meters of the finish."
Roosen rode his last Grand Tour in 2018. Was that one of the reasons to switch colours for next years? "That did play a role. With this team I also get a bit of security, with a slightly longer contract. Grand tours again on my program and a role that is more ambitious, I mean, than the one I had at Jumbo-Visma."