“Life is a game,” Thibau Nys says. “And it’s full of snakes on every level.” I look at him quizzically. “It is,” he shoots back. In what way? “In every way. There will always be some people trying to bring you down. You just need to get over it. And them.”

At just 21-years-old, Nys is a deep thinker, and an even sharper and faster speaker. He points to the tattooed snake on his lower right forearm. “I’m really into art,” he says, “and this is my body’s art. I don’t do the drawings, but I try to find my own inspiration and create it.”

He lifts up his short sleeved jersey to reveal a selection of tattoos: an angel, a race pin, 2002 – denoting the year of his birth – and the name of the town he lives – Baal. He then hovers over the moon and two stars, the latter representing his mum, Isabelle, and his father Sven, a cycling legend. “I was born from two stars, and landed on the moon,” he says, rather poetically.

The Lidl-Trek rider comes down his arm and lands on two 3D dice. The three visible sides of one dice each show six dots. 6-6-6. It’s like the devil, I tell him. “Oh really? I didn’t know,” he says. “The meaning behind it is that you need to have luck in life, but at a certain moment you need to make your own luck. When you throw a six, it’s one part of the luck puzzle, but the other part is creating it yourself.”

This article was published in Rouleur in December 2023. You can read the full article here.