Jac Johann Steyn keeps things going for the professional team at EF Education Nippo. (Photo: EF Education Nippo)

Jac Johann Steyn is a senior mechanic with the EF Education Nippo professional cycling team.

He quickly built a reputation within the World Tour peloton as a reliable and talented pro rider with tools in hand.

In his youth, Steyn was an extremely competitive cyclist.

In high school he won South African titles in the time trial and track disciplines and was a young half marathon mountain bike champion. However, the lure of the technical challenges of cycling led him to give up his racing career to help the best cyclists in the world to do their best.

Ride24 met Steyn during his December vacation, back home in Pretoria.

Why switch from competitive cycling to a supporting role in cycling?

Cycling has become extremely expensive, and if you want to make a name for yourself from South Africa, you have to race in Europe. Since I started riding I have always worked on my bikes, and even from a young age I have helped out at events like the epic of Cape Town.

I always wanted to know what was going on with my bike. And how to solve the problem if there is a problem.

Bikes interested me, and after school I went to Cape Epic to work on bikes, then helped the Drapac team on the Boland Tour. This was followed by an opportunity to join the Douglas Ryders Dimension Data team and I spent two years in Europe with them.

People noticed this and then out of the blue I got an email from the management of my current team. I was invited to Girona for an interview, and in 2018 I started with the team that was running under the Cannondale Drapac banner at the time.