Marlen Reusser is preparing to start his first season with SD Worx and is embracing the leadership struggles in a team full of talented players as an opportunity to explore different roles.

Reusser, who moved to the Dutch team after a successful season with Alé BTC Ljubljana, explained that he is not looking for obvious leadership in his negotiations with his new team.

"I had a lot of offers from teams," he said. 'But I chose this team because I wanted to learn something and play different roles. I'm not a 100 percent leader, sometimes I help the team and sometimes I try to do something for the team."

Rather than feel the pressure of running with greats like Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky, Reusser is looking forward to taking on less of the responsibility for success in 2022.

"It's not so nice to be the only leader, to have everyone's attention and have to perform every time," she said, citing the situation she often found herself in at Alley BTC Ljubljana. I think [at SD Worx] it's more fun and interesting this way."

Reusser has already turned heads in the peloton and has quickly become one of the best time triallists, winning a silver medal at the UCI Road World Championships in Switzerland last year in Belgium. She is only a very recent professional cyclist, having only started racing in 2019 and is 30 years old. Despite her impressive results, Reusser is aware that she still has a lot to learn.

"Every time I race, I learn more and more," the Swiss rider said. 'I think you can see how fast I've improved over the last three years. There are still a lot of things happening, so I can't say for sure, "I'm going to win this" or "I'm going to do that." I'm very strong and I know I can do some good things, but I just want to learn and compete first."

Reusser has shown physical strength in the peloton, but says the mental aspect of cycling is one of the steepest learning curves.

"I've learned a lot," he said. 'It's a stressful life, and there's a lot of pressure put on you and on others. So you learn to regulate yourself and understand what is stressful and what is not. You learn to read yourself."

But for 2022, Reusser seems more positive than ever about his new team.

"From what I've been through, I'm really, really happy. I'm so happy it's almost embarrassing."