Simon Geschke

 

- 

I’ve spent my professional career on this team.

I was a stagiaire for Milram, but when the Gerolsteiner team folded [at the end of 2008] Milram took a lot of riders and they told me early I wouldn’t get a contract. Through a friend of a friend I sent the Skil-Shimano manager, Iwan Spekenbrink, my CV and he got in touch. They saw my results, that I’d had a good Tour de l’Avenir and Giro delle Regioni and they were really interested. Looking back, it was a good match. I met Iwan at the World Championships and one week later I signed.

When I started, the team was really, really small.

There was no bus like the other teams, only a camper, but for me, coming from the amateurs, it was already pretty special.

In 2009 I did the Tour de France as a neo-pro.

The team got a wildcard for the Tour and my longest race before then had been the Tour de l’Avenir. I didn’t do Paris-Nice or the Dauphiné because we didn’t have a wildcard. In fact my only WorldTour-level races before were Flèche-Wallonne and Liège.