A year ago, admits Sean Flynn, he was somewhat apprehensive about how he’d fare racing alongside the world’s best bike riders week in, week out.

A year on, however, and with 12 months of professional racing in his legs, the Edinburgh man is reflecting on a season that’s proven that not only can he keep up with the world’s best, he can, on his day, beat more than a few of them.

As part of Team DSM, Flynn has transformed himself from, at the start of the year, a young rider with considerable potential to now, as the year comes to a close, as a rider who has a grand tour stage win to his name and who can legitimately say he can cope with everything the brutal world of road cycling can throw at him.

Flynn’s year has been notable for several reasons.

Solid performances in the first half of 2023 in the likes of Strade Bianche, the Tour of Norway and the Tour of Switzerland suggested the 23-year-old was settling into the realm of professional cycling relatively comfortably but it was his grand tour debut that really put Flynn’s name on the cycling map.

As part of Team DSM’s squad for the third grand tour of the year, the Vuelta a España, alongside the likes of Tour de France stage winner Romain Bardet, Flynn showed what he was really made of.

Grand tours have the ability to break even the strongest and most talented of riders but Flynn was nowhere near capitulating under the strain of the three-week race.

The Vuelta began in the best way possible for the Scot, with Flynn and his DSM teammates winning the opening stage, the team time trial.

It was a dream start for the Edinburgh man who would once dash home from school to watch the end of each stage of a race he was now riding. And reflecting on the race a few months on, he admits that even as the weeks progressed, the novelty of riding a grand tour never wore off.

“I remember when I was younger rushing home to catch the end of the stages and so to come full circle and have ridden it is amazing,” he says. 

“It did feel very cool and very surreal. It’s hard to get the balance between enjoying the excitement but also not getting too caught up in it all.

“It’s a rare thing to get to grand tour level and so I was really grateful I was in that position and I really wanted to make the most of it.”

Make the most of it he did.

Within the first week of the Vuelta, he’d bagged that team time trial win as well as a top ten stage finish and in the fortnight after, managed another two top twenty stage finishes, ultimately securing a final placing of 116th in the general classification and 31st in the youth classification.

With such an impressive showing, it’s hardly surprising Flynn pinpoints those three weeks in Spain as the highlight of his year and reflecting on the race, he admits he took himself somewhat by surprise by coping with the demands of one of the most brutal challenges in global sport with relative ease.

“The Vuelta was a real stand-out for me this year, especially the team time trial win,” he says.

“The length of the race was something I was both nervous and excited about.

“Ever since I began watching cycling, I wondered how on earth the riders could keep racing for that long. It’s one of those things that until you’re in it, you can’t fully understand what it feels like. 

“But actually, I got into a nice rhythm and I liked the structure of knowing what I was doing every day. I was actually enjoying it. You almost go into autopilot and just get through each stage without thinking too much about it.”

Flynn’s performance in the Vuelta, unsurprisingly, brought with it a considerable confidence boost, with his final races of the season garnering yet more impressive results, including 32ndplace in the European Championships and a top-20 place in the Coppa Agostoni - Giro delle Brianze.

And so his season as a whole, and in particular the Vuelta, means Flynn ends 2023 in a far stronger place mentally than he began it.

“The year has gone really well – maybe even better than I expected because I was stepping into the unknown a little bit,” the Girona-based Scot reflected.

The big difference in the pros is the strength in depth – everyone is a very, very good rider. That’s something I had to remind myself any time I was finding it hard, that everyone is such a strong rider.

“It was a big confidence boost knowing I can cope over the three weeks of a grand tour – it was a big challenge but I showed it wasn’t too much for my body and that’ll give me confidence when I hopefully do another one in the future.”

Flynn will remain with team DSM, now named Team dsm-firmenich PostNL for the 2024 season and is optimistic he can take the lessons imparted this year into 2024, resulting in even stronger performances.

With the team schedule for next season yet to be finalised, Flynn’s exact movements are yet to be decided upon but there’s more than a few races on which he has his sights set already.

“I’m looking to the Classics in the spring – they’re some of my favourite races and even this year they went quite well for me so I’d like to give them another crack now I’ve got another year of racing in my legs.

“And it’d be really nice to do another grand tour.

“So I’m looking forward to finding out exactly what I’ll be riding next year.”