"I have never been so strong" - Tim van Dijke aims to compete with the best at the classics

Tim van Dijke made a name for himself last spring when he went with attack of Mathieu van der Poel, Mads Pedersen and Jonathan Milan at Gent-Wevelgem. Back then he still slightly overestimated his abilities, but later top-20 results at Paris-Roubaix and La Fleche Wallonne proved it to not have been just a fluke. Goal for this campaign? To compete with the best for real.

"The last few days were good for me and my legs are good, although I haven't really been able to convert it into a result," Van Dijke tells In de Leiderstrui after Tirreno-Adriatico where 8th in a stage was his best result.

The actually good results should however come from this point onwards, at the Classics. "My coach Marc Lamberts knows me very well and together with the confidence the team has in me and the preparation I have followed, I have been able to reach this level."

Confronted with his legs and the fact that he was able to compete with men like Mathieu van der Poel and Filippo Ganna, Van Dijke smiles. "I have never been so strong. As a cyclist you live so fast, but sometimes it is good to also take a moment to think about how things are going. Then I can be very satisfied and although I have not yet achieved a striking result, it is possible. It is very cool to show myself at this level and to be able to do good work for the team."

Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe had put together a relatively young and ambitious classics lineup with leader role up for grabs. Tim can show the team he's ready for the protected role in coming weeks: "I now have to learn as much as possible from all those race situations, in order to also achieve a really good result for once."

He surprised himself a bit when he could compete with Van der Poel and Ganna in the final. "Then it's all-out, but for me it's strange to compete among all those big names. I better not look at the numbers on my Garmin too much, that wasn't normal in Strade Bianche either. I can apparently keep it up, but it still takes some getting used to riding among those guys at the important points."