Yon-Hin is excited for the next stage of his Cycling dream
By Thomas Conway
Things are spinning along nicely for Daniel Yon Hin. The 21-year-old Nenagh man is journeying through the early stages of his cycling career with the minimum of fuss, taking each race as it comes, slowly clocking up the kilometres, pedal by pedal, step by step. When we last spoke to the Dublin-born athlete more than eighteen months ago, he had just joined Zappy Racing, a semi-professional cycling outfit based in the north of Italy.
Daniel enjoyed his time zipping up and down the Dolomites and traversing the Tuscan Hills, but he’s now moved on to a new stage in his career. Last month he signed for Arbo Miko, another semi-professional team based in Austria. It was a bold move, an audacious leap into the unknown, but Yon Hin remains confident that it was a good decision. Miko are a well-established, elite grouping with a reputation for advancing the careers of younger riders. Daniel will fly out to the continent at the start of May, looking to embrace a new challenge and further develop himself as a rider.
“They’re a good team,” Daniel revealed.
“I did one race for them already last season, just to get a feel for the team and the atmosphere, get to know all the managers and the staff and the other cyclists, and that whole experience went very well. They seem like a good team, and I was basically ready to jump on board.”
Speaking to Daniel, it’s clear that he’s ambitious. He comes across as an enthusiastic rider with a self-ingrained belief that he can one day ride as a fully-fledged professional. But for the moment he’s performing a balancing act.
Earlier this year he availed of a sports scholarship with Technological University Dublin. He’s living in Ranelagh, studying law, gradually acclimatising to the mountains of books which he’s obliged to read while at the same time exploring Dublin, the city in which he was born and lived until the age of five.
Legal studies are never easy. The work is word heavy, full of verbose text and archaic concepts, but Yon Hin is embracing it. After all, this is life now - cycling, study. Each is as important as the other. He values his education and wants to advance it as far as possible alongside his cycling career. None of which is easy, but he’s learning to adapt.
“I’m enjoying it so far,” he said of college life.
“I guess there’s just a lot of learning to it, a lot of reading, but I’m enjoying it on the whole. I’m getting used to it I think, which is good!”
Yon Hin has evolved as a person during the eighteen months since we last spoke to him, but he has also evolved as a rider. He travelled to Italy as a fresh-faced nineteen-year-old, straight out of school, looking to forge a career in one of the most arduous and physically agonising sports on the planet. It was never going to be easy, but Daniel learned a vast amount during his stint with Zappy.
He’s still in the process of discovering what type of cyclist he is, where his speciality lies. And in time that should reveal himself. For now, he regards himself as a bit of an all-rounder, a rider who can do a bit of this and a bit of that and potentially light up the tarmac on a sprint to the line.
“I’m kind of figuring it out at the moment, what kind of rider I am,” he admitted.
“But I have a fairly good idea. I’d say I’m a relatively good all-rounder, I have a good punch, so I’m suited to short, steep climbs. And I’d say I’d have a decent enough sprint as well. So, I guess you could call me a “puncher”, though it depends. I think I’ll evolve the more experienced I become.”
Sports-centric
Hailing from a family of five, the Nenagh man was always sports-centric. His mother, Deirdre, was a keen athlete in her youth, so the sporting gene clearly permeated through to the next generation. Cycling isn’t the only game in town for Yon Hin - he admits to being a devout Arsenal fan, but as the years have passed, his interest in biking has only grown. He’s now a fanatic - studiously following the big races, reading about the big riders, looking to emulate the elite in whatever way he can.
In terms of individuals at the top of the sport, he has his favourites, including two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar, the Slovenian who jumped on the scene in 2020 and took the cycling world by storm.
There’s homegrown inspiration there too, namely Eddie Dunbar, Ireland’s top professional now that Dan Martin and Nicholas Roche have both retired. Yon Hin himself is close to Dunbar, and is an inspiration of sorts, or certainly someone whom Yon Hin can look up to.
“In terms of who I admire, I’d have to say Tadej Pogacar,” Daniel said.
“He just has so much flair on the bike, so much energy. And he seems like a nice guy as well, a good character. So, he’s definitely up there as one of my favourites.
“Then in terms of the Irish riders, I’d have to single out Eddie Dunbar. You know, I really like Eddie, I’ve met a good few times. I actually rode with him down in Kanturk when I was a youth rider so I kind of got to know him.”
So why do it? Cycling is universally recognised as one of the most painstaking, gruelling, energy-sapping, muscle-wasting disciplines in the sporting world. Whether you’re climbing Alpine hills or sprinting along the Champs Élysées, the physical strain is absolutely immense. In truth, it’s a form of addiction. Pain becomes almost necessary, a pre-condition for the ecstasy of shooting down a mountain side with the wind in your face or exploding across the line in a grandstand sprint finish.
As Yon Hin explains, suffering is part of cycling, an intrinsic element of the sport that ultimately separates the best from the rest. But it’s all about repetition - keep those wheels revolving and gradually the endurance will come, gradually the load will lessen. Preparation is essential.
“Once you build up the miles, the distances get easier, it becomes almost second nature,” he said of the physical demands.
“I mean, look, in the build-up to big races you’ll do big training weeks to prepare yourself, to prepare the body. And that’s all you can do really, when it comes to those really big race days. If you come into them prepared then you’ve got as much of a chance as anybody else, so it really is all about preparation.
“But I won’t lie, it’s definitely gruelling, it’s tough work, especially in those long hard stage races - when you’re a few days in and there’s fatigue in the legs. But you have to cope with that. You have to be ready for it. You get used to it!”
Yon Hin trains hard. He is meticulous in his training methods, employing a three-pronged approach which entails everything from hill running to lung-bursting sprints on the bike. Structure is all important, but so too is tailoring the regime to suit the individual in question. Yon Hin knows what works for him and shapes his training diary accordingly.
“Training varies for everyone,” he added.
“For me what I found works is to have three phases; build it up with off season work, running, hiking, gym work. Then phase two is to build back on the bike again, get out for as many spins as possible, get that endurance back in the legs. And then the third phase is focused on intensity. Getting the intensity levels up to prepare for the real racing.”
Major racing
Like any rider, the summer is his focus. That’s when the season swings into full gear and the major racing takes place, but there are a number of early season races which Daniel has chosen to focus on. Rás Mumhan, scheduled for Easter, is one such example. So too is Rás Tailteann, Ireland’s flagship cycling tour, set to begin in late May with its second leg coming through North Tipperary and roads Daniel will be familiar with.
Once he moves abroad and joins his Arbo Miko teammates in Austria, the schedule becomes intense. From a team perspective, the upper Austria Tour ranks among the most important, and Yon Hin wants to leave his stamp on the continent by putting in a creditable performance in races like that one. In terms of where he’s at in the overall cycling ladder, Daniel describes himself as a semi-professional. He isn’t quite at the top yet, but he’s racing at an elite level and frequently shares the peloton with high-calibre, fully-fledged professional riders.
“So, fifty per-cent of the races that I’ll be in competing in would consist of other guys like me, other semi-pros,” Daniel revealed.
“But the other fifty per-cent would include higher level riders, tour card professionals. So, we’ll be mixing with pro teams, and that’s obviously beneficial in terms of our own development.”
Short term, his goals are relatively straightforward; leave his mark on the continent with some impactful performances at the major races and hope to pick up some precious UCI ranking points in the process.
He also has his eyes on the Irish national championships, and he isn’t downplaying his ambitions. He finished fifth in the road race last year but feels he merited a higher position. This time, a podium finish would be acceptable, but he wants to win, and he isn’t afraid to acknowledge that.
Of course, his list of objectives extends beyond cycling. He’s already on route to a law degree in TU Dublin and intends to maintain focus on his studies for as long as his course demands. His mother is pushing the educational agenda, but deep down Daniel knows and acknowledges the importance of his studies. He’s committed to TU Dublin, and they’re committed to him as well.
Because Yon Hin is there on a sports scholarship, endless resources are made available to him, from dieticians to physios and much more. The Nenagh athlete can’t praise the college enough. They’ve been “exceptional”, helping him to navigate college life whilst at the same time training as an elite athlete.
Down the road, does he see himself emblazoned with a yellow jersey while zooming down the Champs Élysées? Maybe, because anything is possible. For him, the prospect of becoming a professional cyclist is tantalising, but if he keeps his cool, avoids injury, and stays on a steady career trajectory, then it’s very much within reach. However, he refuses to get caught dreaming about the future when there’s so much work to be done in the present. For now, it’s all about clocking up the kilometres, building friendships, and enjoying the ride.
“Look, in the back of mind it’s always there - that is the main goal, to go fully professional and cycle in the Tour. By my attitude is to take it step by step, race by race, try to do my best this season and then see where next year brings me. That’s the approach I take. I don’t want to look too far into the future,” Daniel concluded.