Group rides or solo? Former coach of Mathieu van der Poel gives tips on how to get the most out of your training
Cycling
Kristof de Kegel, sports scientist and coach at Alpecin-Deceuninck and former trainer of Mathieu van der Poel, has shared valuable insights on effective training strategies for cyclists. Speaking to Het Nieuwsblad, de Kegel emphasised the importance of balancing group rides with solo training to maximise performance.
"Cycling a lot in a group is nice, but it is often not a productive training. You can compare it to electric cycling. You do grind out a lot of kilometers, but the quality of the training is low. You cycle neatly in the wheel all the time, feel little resistance from wind, for example, and end your training with an average of 130 to 140 watts," he explained.
De Kegel highlighted the risks of developing a false sense of fitness from consistently training in a group setting. "You will have a false positive feeling about your condition if you always train with groups. Unless that peloton is cycling above your level, but doing that systematically is not good either," he said.
To achieve meaningful progress, de Kegel recommends incorporating solo training sessions into a cyclist’s routine. "That is why it is often best to do your training alone regularly, at least if you want to complete your schedule," he advised.
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- He is nowhere near Sepp’s level. Sepp has won a GT, a TdF stage, multiple Vuelta stages. Almeida has indeed won almost nothing so far. Wasting talent while riding as a domestique won’t make him a champion.
UltimateOpportunist11-02-2025 - Tadej is in his grand tour years, we might see him win two a year for the next three years, if he can achieve that he will win all three at some point, this will cement him as the best pro cyclist of all time, winning like this in the modern era. It's a big ask but he can do it, he's shown he has what it takes.awp11-02-2025
- He probably struck it off this years’ list after the recon ;-)Mistermaumau10-02-2025
- I think the guy has a problem, hasn’t won even a small tour since 2021. Always up there but something’s always missing when it matters. Perhaps he’s more like Kuss than assumed, not impossible knowing the Portuguese.Mistermaumau10-02-2025
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James2631810-02-2025 - And I believe that Pogacar will dominate Flandersvappaxbipmv10-02-2025
- He’ll get good money wherever he goes so I don’t think that will be an issue. His UAE contract is for this year and next so even without ending/changing contract, he could be on the market soon enough.mobk10-02-2025
- Everything else is unimportant except the money. He may not achieve a GT win but he will get the moneyabstractengineer10-02-2025
- It has deteriorated in the same fashion many things do, first the US, then UK, then some large EU countries, then it generalises world-wide, screen content probably plays some responsibility as does the ratio of individualism towards collectivism. But, it wouldn’t be a problem if all these authorities would learn to adapt. They do, slowly in many domains like drug smuggling (studying traffickers psychology) but not in others like child abuse (refusing to focus on more likely perpetrators) and unfortunately, public safety has never been a priority (except short-term symbolically after big accidents, terrorist attacks, etc.) and cycling races are considered a low ranking level of public safety, hardly surprising as mediatically any accident is easy to blame on someone else because it’s quite easy to manipulate a storyline when the media itself is not interested in getting to the bottom of things.Mistermaumau10-02-2025
- Kind if predictable that he’s doing this on one of the days before if you ask me.Mistermaumau10-02-2025