Despite his stage win at last year's Vuelta a España, Sepp Kuss remains unnoticed.

This is good news for Jumbo Visma, given that Tom Dumoulin and Steven Kruijswijk are off the road and Primoš Roglic has yet to make his season debut. Indeed, Cousse's performance on his first attempt on Mont Ventoux on stage 3 of the Tour de la Provence confirmed his inexperience.

But even for veteran announcer Daniel Mangueas, Cousse was an unknown quantity in his first race of the season, and although he came alive with attacks in the last few kilometers, he was little more than a "jumbo rider" for most of the climb.

Just moments after Nairo Quintana rose from the saddle and launched his decisive attack, Cus and the Colombian cleared Mont Ventoux alone. But as Quintana moved ahead, Cus hesitated, looked around, and chose to let the leader of Arkea Samsic go.

"I felt good, but not good enough to go with Quintana," Kuss said. But I don't regret it. （I waited a little bit [for the others], but it was a pretty big effort and I definitely paid the price for it.

"But I felt better in the last 5km and it felt like home at the altitude I was used to. Besides, I want to fight and fall, not just keep up."

The former mountain biker from Durango, who now splits his time between Girona and Andorra, has embraced the European scene and enjoys "getting out of my comfort zone."

Perhaps that's a good thing, given how dependent Jumbovisma is on Cus, who is set to ride with Roglic, Dumoulin, and Kruijswijk in the 2020 Tour, and whose sick bay is filled until spring.

So far, Kus is enjoying his European experience.

"It's pretty unique for me to be able to race on an iconic climb like Ventoux," he said. I'm still very inexperienced, but in every race I've made mistakes, but I've gained something more and learned more. I'm still a work in progress."