He is only 23 years old but he is already one of the stars of Ducth cycling and the new Team LottoNL-Jumbo team. In 2014 Wilco Kelderman had a big breakthrough as a stage race rider as he finished 7th in the Giro d'Italia and 4th in the Criterium du Dauphiné where he beat the subsequent Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali. He missed the Tour but in 2015 it will be his big goal. "I don't mind that people have big expectations for me. That's not a problem for me," he tells Wielerflits in an interview.

After the orange of Rabobank and the green of Belkin, Kelderman will ride in yellow and blanck in 2015. Those are the colours of Team LottoNL-Jumbo, the combined cycling and skating team which was officially presented last Thursday. A beautiful project, he says. 

"It's an honor to part of this. This is really a Dutch team, with Dutch sponsors. That's different from Belkin. Hopefully this appeals to many people. A bit like in the time with Rabobank when the team seemed to be one for the entire country."

As opposed to many of his teammates, Kelderman is actually a great skater. Or at least, he was.

"For four or five years, I did skating at a reasonable level in regional competitions. That went pretty well. But when the other guys started to grow and I remained a little guy, I could no longer compete with them. Then I turned my attention to cycling. Whether I will sometimes train with the skaters? Maybe. But I have not skated for a year or two. The last time I did it, I had to get used to that slippery ice again. I still prefer to ride my bike."

That Kelderman feels good on his bike is now a well-known fact for the entire world. In 2014, the Dutchman showed that he can already compete with the best GC riders in the world despite his young age.

"I have had a super season," he says. "The beginning of the year was not what I really wanted but the Giro made up for it. And in the Dauphiné, I crossed a new line."

In the Giro, he finished 7th and in the Dauphiné he was fourth. In the latter race, he was just 43 seconds behind winner Andrew Talansky and finished ahed of riders like Romain Bardet and Vincenzo Nibali who went on to dominate the Tour.

"In the final stage of the Dauphiné, I attacked with Nibali and I was able to drop him," he says proudly. That left Kelderman with mixed feelings during the Tour. "You can't avoid asking: would I have been able to do it there too? Of course I know that the Tour is a very different race from the Dauphiné but I would have loved to be at the Tour. It is really the biggest race in the world, much bigger than the Giro. This year I noticed that difference."

Unless something crazy happens, Kelderman will make his Tour de France debut in 2015.

"It is tremendously special, especially with the start in Utrecht. That's near my house in Veenendaal. I have been looking forward to it for two years." 

Although it will be his first Tour, the expectations for Kelderman are big.

"I do not mind it, I do not have a problem with that. I will always try to make a realistic expectation for myself and tell the media about it. And if it fails, I will be criticisized. But I don't car. I will do it better another time."

Kelderman learned how to deal with adversity in the last months of this season. H was full of ambition at the start of the Vuelta, but came up short. 

"That was difficult, I was hoping for more. I was fourteenth which in itself is not so bad. But in some mountain stages, I lost five minutes. The you are not really there."

Kelderman now has an explanation for his below-par performance in Spain. 

"My preparation was not good enough and it had been a long and tough season. Of course I am only young, sometimes people forget that." 

Kelderman has now put the disappointment of the Vuelta behind. This month he has been on a two-week holiday in California and has slowly set his sights on 2015

"The next two weeks I will still be going easy. I will only ride my bike when I want to and will do what I like to do. In mid-November I will start the preparastions for next season."

Kelderman already has a rough idea about his schedule.

"I will probably do the Walloon classics and Paris-Nice."

And then it's onto the start of the Tour in Utrecht. Kelderman can't wait.