"If that doesn't work, I have failed" - Mathieu Heijboer cites designing Primoz Roglic a custom time-trial bike as what boosted his Team Visma | Lease a Bike profile

Nowadays, Mathieu Heijboer is one of the most prominent coaching figures within the Team Visma | Lease a Bike set-up. That wasn't always the case though and Heijboer credits Primoz Roglic as helping him build his profile in the team.

"Primoz was about to start winning Grand Tours, so we said we had to personalize the cockpit," Heijboer recalls in conversation with his fellow Team Visma | Lease a Bike member, Merijn Zeeman on the latter's podcast, Gamechangers. "With those custom-made time trial handlebars it became lighter and more aerodynamic. I then felt: if that doesn't work, I have failed. That was uncompromising, on my initiative we made a handlebar that no one else had."

Thankfully for Heijboer, Roglic and the entire Visma team, his tinkering with the time-trial bike proved incredibly successful. As a result, Heijboer's profile has grown exponentially within the team in the years since, as Zeeman explains with an anecdote.

"In seven years, Mathieu has managed to get it so far that Richard Plugge and commercial manager Sander Kruis first visit Mathieu when they receive offers from new sponsors," Zeeman laughs. "Nine out of 10 are then shot down before they can even make an offer."