Meyer is now back from leading his Grona group and is busy brewing.
We should be discussing his running career but instead we are talking coffee.
The wine is delicious. It describes a part of Meyer’s character that is integral to his burgeoning new career in trail running.
Meyer likes to “jack out” on new things and so he’s brewing fast inside the first two coffee shops he owns and runs with his wife in Groningen. He was still racing professionally when they founded the business in 2015.
He quit cycling a year later, aged just 31, in a sport where riders can continue into their forties. Despite a year to run on a lucrative professional contract, coffee and entrepreneurship were his new obsessions.
“In cycling it got to the point where I started to feel like I was doing the same races, and getting a lot more comfortable,” he said afterwards.
“I felt like I wasn’t growing anymore. At the same time, with coffee, everything was so new and young and there was so much room for me to grow and grow.”
Speaking now, he adds: “I think it’s a Buddhist concept that you just had more of a child’s mind in your life.” A child’s mind is full of curiosity; This has not yet been enforced as to what you can and cannot do.
“As a child, your imagination is: ‘I want to go to the moon’.” But most people probably choose something easier, you know?
“But I just have a mentality to be a little bit silly first and then, just go for it.”
“Sometimes being naive helps you take those steps and then you find roadblocks as you go.”
The mayor’s ongoing roadblocks were twofold.
His first problem was injuries. In cardiac terms, he was in incredible shape to transplant, with a large capacity to absorb oxygen, lytic and pain.
But his body was developed for the demands that were now placed on different muscle groups. The impact of the single-hitting mud in his new game caused Meyer to break down on several occasions.
“When I started running, most of my life was spent in endurance sports. The cardio side of things is very transferable,” he says. “But from a muscular point of view, it was terrible. I started with a lot of injuries. It took me a long time to adjust.
“Road cyclists are just weak to be honest.”
He also struggled to cope when the trails weren’t following forward.
Mayer’s entrepreneurship has expanded to sustainable clothing brands. He says his co-founder – an English businessman named Tom Austin, with no professional sporting pedigree – will “break” him on their training runs if the terrain is right.
“I’d go running on the flats and people would just leave me,” Meyer says.
“We were doing a 10km time trial and Tom was beating me by 40 seconds.
“Tom was fit, but I’m definitely fit. But he was knocking me flat. I felt I had a lot to learn.”
In general, Meyer leans toward learning.
“I was reading and reading and reading about sports, watching YouTube videos and whatever else I could,” he says.
“I just want to absorb as much information as I can about this new thing.”
Meyer coaches himself and is studying for his coaching badge. While he has discovered that there is common ground between his new sport and cycling physically, there is less tactically.
“There’s not much about: How am I going to win today?” Meyer says of his trail running strategy.
“Essentially you need to be as fit as possible. You show up and you run your strategy. That’s how ultrarunning works.
“If you see someone and they’re struggling a bit on the descent, maybe you push a bit there – but it’s not like cycling, where you’re sitting in the bike all day.
There is less clever and still enough to be silly like a child.
“My first big race was 50 kilometers and I remember just thinking, man, I’m going to run 50 kilometers,” he remembers. “It felt crazy. Then think about walking 100 miles in the mountains – the feeling is just wild. For many people a 100 mile bike ride is a great ride.
“I didn’t cycle to win. So winning the TDS was definitely the highlight of my sporting career.
“To win … it felt more like a dream.”