Despite being 29 and an experienced French pro, Steven Tronet’s first ever WorldTour race came at Paris-Nice last week. The current French champion, riding for a new team this year (Fortuneo-Vital Concept), is relishing his chance to compete with the best in the sport.

“The salary was small, obviously, so you’d look to pad it out by riding criteriums and winning primes to gain money. That made it easier to get to the end of the month, but in any case, I reckon it’s better to ride your bike than to work in real life,” Tronet told Cyclingnews about racing at Continental level. “I still think cycling’s a nice life, you know? So I felt the longer I could stay a bike rider, the better.”

Tronet spoke about turning pro very early and how his career has slowly progressed and the wins have got bigger and bigger.

“I turned professional very young at Roubaix, when I was only 20 years old. When you’re in a small team it can be difficult to win races against big riders and big teams, because collectively you’re less strong,” Tronet said.

“On top of that, when I was a young rider, I didn’t do a lot of things well. But eventually I started winning ‘.2’ races and I progressed a bit. Then I started winning ‘.1’ races and I progressed a bit more. I arrived at the French Championships last year really at the very top of my form and I tried to do my maximum to win the race and, well, it worked out.”

He says he opted to join his new team from Auber 93 as they gave him the best chance of winning races at a higher level while being able to ride for himself.

“I wanted a team where I’d have a chance to try to win races and get my own results. I think Fortuneo was the team that offered me the best solution to try to keep winning races,” he said. “If I’d gone to a bigger team, I would have been a helper for a big sprinter.”

He has two big objectives for 2016: try and do well on home roads at the Four Days of Dinkirk and then try and make Fortuneo’s Tour de France team.

“The Four Days of Dunkirk is a big race for me personally: it’s in my back yard,” he said. “The French championship has harder course this year but I’m a puncheur-sprinter. Sure, there are 3,000 metres of climbing, but it’s all on short, steep climbs, and I like a hard race like that, with more of a selection.”