A day after Kiel Reijnen won last year’s USA Pro Challenge stage into Aspen, his wife, Jordan, was at their home in Boulder when she received the phone call that would finally give him a shot in cycling’s big leagues.
On the line was Tim Vanderjeugd, the communications manager for the then-TrekFactory Racing team.
“‘Jordan, I need Kiel’s number,” Jordan Reijnen recalled of the request from Vanderjeugd. “He said, ‘I’ve been talking about Kiel for a while now, and the director seems interested.'”
Kiel Reijnen, who attended the University of Colorado, is now racing his first season as a WorldTour rider at 30 years old, an age that makes him a late bloomer for his sport.