“I think it’s the best team,” Dibben says simply. “Yes, you’ve got to fight for selection, you’re a small fish in a big pond, but if you want to be the best at anything in your career, you’ve got to learn, and there’s no better place to learn than at Sky.”

He is one of three Academy graduates recruited by Brailsford this year, alongside Tao Geoghegan Hart and Owain Doull. With Hugh Carthy (Cannondale) and James Shaw (Lotto-Soudal), Britain’s class of 2016 is one of the most promising to have made the professional grade.

“I know them all really well,” Dibben says. “A couple are my age, some are a year above, some a year below. It’s good to know that the people you’ve been racing for a while are good bike riders.”

“There was pressure. It was fully results driven. From that, the whole system is one where every detail is considered.

“Even when you join the Academy at 18, you’re made aware of how important everything is. It’s not just about bike racing. It’s about the whole lifestyle. The first couple of weeks are a boot camp and you get dialed and disciplined, and that stays with you.”

What appears not to have stayed with him is the disappointment that must have followed his failure to gain selection for the Olympic Games in Rio.

One suspects this has much to do with the considerable mitigation of having broken his elbow in April, an injury suffered in a seemingly innocuous crash at ZLM Toer.

Certainly, there is little more he could have done to prove himself to selectors until that point. As February drew to a close, and with it the UCI Track World Championship in London, Dibben’s place in Rio seemed assured.

He had already gained a silver medal as part of the four-man team pursuit squad led by Bradley Wiggins, before going one better the following day to win the points race before a passionate crowd at the Olympic Velodrome in Lea Valley.

“The moment I crashed, I knew it wasn’t ideal,” he says of his mishap in the Netherlands. “Selection was already a dog fight. It was always going to be a bit of a chase. My whole plan for the year was not to be on the back foot.

“I wanted to hit the ground running, as I did with the Worlds. At the end of the day, I wasn’t selected, and that was that.”

“After the final with the Aussies at 10pm the night before, and with the way that British Cycling are, with the team pursuit being the be all and end all, you ride the rest with what you’ve got left.

“I could have not finished the points race and there would have been no pressure, but it was really good to go out and get a win for the boys. The points race is my favourite. There’s so much going on. You’re racing against everyone, and with a home crowd, it really did make a difference. It just gives you that extra boost.”

Now, Dibben is focussed on new goals, even if personal ambition must be set aside for the greater glory of Sky, and thoughts of victory will be subsumed by the more mundane realities of learning a trade.

He will spend a week with his parents in Southampton over Christmas, taking the opportunity to catch up with Pete and Andy Hargroves of Hargroves Cycles, the shop team where he made his start.

From there beckons a life among the colony of professional cyclists who have made a home in Monaco and Nice. Victories will not be expected of Dibben in 2017, but he will continue to expect much from himself. Sky’s last recruit for the coming season will not lack for discipline, determination and desire. And after two years in sun-starved Manchester, he will no longer lack for Vitamin D either.