Mathieu van der Poel returns to the bike after injury setback

Mathieu van der Poel has had an eventful weekend, after showing the first signs of recovery after a lengthy recovery process.

His father Adrie van der Poel stated last week that Mathieu had been told to take complete rest, "He's doing okay. He can ride again when he is pain free, but right now he's just sitting at home on the couch. There is not much he can do, he has been prescribed strict rest and he has to stick to it." Over the last few months the multi-disciplined expert has been ongoing back issues, more specifically swelling on an invertrebal disc. The issues began after his crash in the XCO Olympic race however it is unclear if that's what caused them, later he abandoned a team training camp in La Plagne but finished off the season with a win in the Antwerp Port Classic and a podium at Paris-Roubaix.

He was set to target the cyclocross World Championships in the 30th of January but his plans were cut short when during the Heusden-Zolder round of the Telenet Superprestige cup he abandoned quoting back issues.

At the same time, this sunday he was unable to make the trip to Fayetteville to defend his world champion's title in cyclocross. His compatriot Lars van der Haar almost kept the jersey in the Netherlands' shoulders, but there was little that could be done against Tom Pidcock who dominated the fast track and became world champion for the first time.

As Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld pointed out, his return to the bike was short with a 33 minute ride on training platform Zwift. However, this may be a small step in the walk that will be the Dutchman's rehabilitation journey.

Since this ride was posted, van der Poel has shared on Strava another two rides on Zwift which have totalled up to two hours of riding. Wether the Dutch prodigy will recover and make up for lost training hours in time for the classics is a risky guess, but he has in the past proven to be capable of incredible achievements. He does not yet have a racing schedule outlined, however within the next few weeks it is expected that the team will release an update on his condition.