“IT’S all a bit mad isn’t it,” says Harry Tanfield when I ask him about the news. It’s a few weeks now since he was formally announced as a member of World Tour Team Katusha Alpecin, but he admits it still hasn’t fully sunk in.

The Great Ayton rider, 23, has come a long way in a relatively short time, with 2018 probably marking his coming of age. Tanfield rode this year for Katusha’s partner team Canyon Eisberg and wore the Tour de Yorkshire leader’s jersey after winning the race’s opening stage into Doncaster.

A one-day specialist as well as accomplished time trialler, he finished second behind Geraint Thomas in the national championships (ITT). He also sealed second-place finishes in MiddenBrabant Poort Omloop and Ronde van Overijssel, both 1.2-rated one-day races.

“It’s all been riding and training since the announcement,” says Tanfield. “I found out at the end of July. I knew Katusha were speaking to Canyon. I had been told they were keen, but I hadn’t actually heard from them. It wasn’t until the team manager actually rang me while I was on a training ride and then I was like ‘Oh right, they really are keen.

“He said ‘we want to offer you a place on the team, two years’.

“Everyone was amazed really, they were all dead chuffed for me.” Tanfield knows this will be a significant step up, but it’s the achievement of a long-held ambition to ride with the world’s best.

“The race programme is going to be the biggest change, it’s massive. The races will be a lot longer and a lot harder,” he says. “I need to keep the power levels up to what they were in the three weeks after the Tour de Yorkshire and I should be alright. I also need to lose some fat,” he adds with a laugh.

“Training is going to have to change quite a bit, just to be able to tolerate World Tour riding. The race programme itself will lend a lot to that, but in the run up, between now and February, the training will have to be a lot different in order to be better prepared for a season of World Tour racing as opposed to a season of domestic racing in the UK.

“This year, since Yorkshire, I have just concentrated on time trials. I have not trained to do miles, big races or stuff. That’s what the UK demands are, TTs and short one-day road races. I am not going to train for a two-week or ten-day stage race in the season for no reason.”

Tanfield is a confident lad and this comes across in his answers.

“I can’t wait to get stuck in to some big races and get that jersey on. I know my ability. If I think I can well in a race, I normally do,” he says.

“I wouldn’t want to go to a race that I didn’t want to go to, if that makes sense. Like the Tour of Britain this year, I didn’t want to go, wanted to get out of it. I know my own limits and my abilities and, as far as the Tour of Britain was concerned, I didn’t think I would have got anything out of it. I didn’t want to just be hacking around.”

Tanfield says he’s not really sure what to expect yet when he finally meets up with his new teammates. “I haven’t got a clue about the team’s plans really, I would be lying if I said I did. I will find out later in the year,” he says.

“The manager said he wanted me to come on board at the end of the season, so around October time I should have a better idea of what is expected. I will discuss with the staff and everyone involved in the team and should be in the loop by then. There will be camps at the end of the year and beginning of next and by the end of January we will be starting to race.”

In the world of cycling, there will be few that won’t have heard of Harry Tanfield now, but the rider himself plays down his 2018 achievements in trademark fashion.

“I don’t think it has been that successful, I’ve had one or two decent results. I’ve been targeting things this year rather than just being good everywhere else, which has worked out better” he says, adding “But there is more to life than just mashing pedals, you have got to have a brain as well. A combination of both has worked out for me.”