"Of all the riders I've met in my career, Van der Poel is the most impressive I've ever seen" - John Degenkolb
Cycling
There is currently a generation of supertalents in cycling, riders that will make the history books - both in terms of performances, but also the palmarès they have built. John Degenkolb and Tim Wellens were asked about the most impressive rider in the peloton and they have agreed that Mathieu van der Poel is one of a kind.
Degenkolb, 'Mr. Roubaix', is far past his prime but still performs in what is his favourite race, almost cracking the Top10 this year. He recalls seeing Mathieu van der Poel's performance in the 'Hell of the North' earlier this year and what he felt regarding it. "There was nothing you could do about it today. At least in this peloton. Because you can't forget who couldn't participate. The peloton has lost quite a lot of quality in recent weeks," the German said in words to Het Laatste Nieuws.
Degenkolb, himself a winner of Paris-Roubaix, Milano-Sanremo and stages in all Grand Tours, has no reservations when stating that "of all the riders I've met in my career, Van der Poel is the most impressive I've ever seen. Not just today, everything he's touched in the past two years has turned to gold."
That can be attested by his results, including two Paris-Roubaix wins, one Tour of Flanders, one World title on the road, one in Gravel, two in Cyclocross, a Milano-Sanremo and more. It's a streak that is only not taken into consideration more because equally the sport has seen another untouchable talent such as Tadej Pogacar take to the road simultaneously.
"I don't think it's possible to do anything about it, but I'm not frustrated when I have to race against a rider like that," Wellens says of the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider, knowing the sheer talent that van der Poel holds. "I look at it with admiration. It's not like Mathieu is sitting at home on the couch and then comes to win. We also have one like that in the team, he's also at a different level," he refers to Pogacar. "Van der Poel probably works the hardest of them all. I see that with Tadej too."
Wellens complements the two, arguing that the amount of training and work put in between races really does set them apart from many others. "Everyone always talks about his super talent, but at the end of the year he always has the most kilometers, the most hours on the bike and the highest 'training stress score'. It doesn't just happen."
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Legendary moments of the 2024 cycling season: the incredible atmosphere on Montmartre during the Olympic road race in Paris. 😍🇫🇷 Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert flying up this hill was a nice bonus.pic.twitter.com/3s4c7OnhIK
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) December 28, 2024
it’s going to be interesting to see what goals and challenges will continue to inspire van der poel as a road racer. he’s a guy who can’t stand being bored. i mentioned in a comment some weeks ago that it kinda seems like he’s interested in becoming a better climber, experimenting with shedding body mass to see what might be possible. personally, i’ve always wished he would get passionate about TTs. he can obviously sustain massive watts for extended periods, and he has an almost singular ability to push beyond his limit and empty his tank to a stunning degree. additionally, he’s got a beautiful, naturally aero position when he’s on a road bike. on the rare occasions he’s felt like really making an effort — in yellow at the tour and pink at the giro — he finished 5th and 2nd, respectively. and he apparently NEVER practices that discipline, like EVER.
thank you! yes, a limit is, by definition, a limit. i made the mistake of speaking figuratively about riding beyond one’s limit, having been led astray by common cycling parlance about “limits.” e.g… A few years back, after losing a horrifically hard cx race to mvdp (in i THINK it was Namur), wout van aert said, “it has always been a great ability of mathieu to be able to ride beyond his limit. i’m capable of riding a very good finale also, but often mathieu can just go deeper than i can…” this talk of “going deep” and “riding beyond the limit” is not scientific, clearly. it’s about some riders being able to cope with a higher degree of pain and discomfort for longer than others. cycling, we all know, is a sport defined by suffering. in many, most, or even all cases, the mind quits before the body absolutely fails — and here i AM speaking scientifically. so, “riding beyond one’s limit” could be understood to literally (or even clinically?) mean having the ability to cope with pain in a way that gets you closer to your absolute physiological limit. we all know, just as humans walking around on the planet, that everyone handles pain differently. cycling is a sport for professional sufferers. but it’s still just a microcosm of the population and some will be better at it than others, and SOMEBODY is going to be the “best” at it. that IS an absolute. now, i dunno if mathieu is THAT GUY, but he certainly appears to be on the short list. thanks for the comment. checking sloppy language is worthwhile and often stimulates thought and discussion. hopefully someone else will say something a lot more interesting about what “limits” mean in cycling than i have. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
It’s one of those words everyone has a right to use in the way they feel and it is up to the reader/listener to interpret in which way it was intended. Some people or more, others less good at that but in this age many deliberately misinterpret, they (no-one in particular here) know exactly what was meant but it suits agendas to pretend otherwise. That said, limits in sport are used in a multitude of ways and so understanding context is crucial, you can pass your current limit (skill, physical, mental, performance, and improve, it’s something we all do, we have to to get from current to future level. Basically we never can attain the final limit, there is always margin for improvement but we are also always stuck at a limit until we get past it. Inthink what makes champions is that they refuse to accept their current limits and can always surprise by pushing to a new level they don’t know they’ll reach in advance. It is the nature of sport, moving the goalpost limits further and further. We have seen impossible limits come and go, eg in athletics 10s sprint 4m mile 1h semi and soon 2h marathon, 9000 decathlon. With accidents it’s different again, non-fatal ones allow us to learn where limits are or were and see if we can push them more, fatal ones embed an image of defined limits that can’t be altered.
Just like speed limits on the road. It is impossible to exceed them.
i know what you mean about willful misinterpretation, but it’s better for my peace of mind to just proceed as if everyone is being completely sincere.
You mean apart from: Equaling XC WC record Remaining Monuments A respectable number of TDF stages XCO WC Besting XC WC record Olympic gold Maybe in that order, maybe all of them :-)
yeah, i mean, i’ll bring this back to mathieu, which is where it started in this instance. now i realize there are MANY, MANY fans who dislike mvdp (and probably not ALL of them are belgians, but…) and scream and shout whenever van der poel crosses a finish line and completely COLLAPSES in a heap on the ground. they yell “FAKER!” “DRAMA QUEEN!” “DESPERATE FOR ATTENTION!” i can’t make ANY of that jibe with how i’ve seen this guy behave over the last 10+ years. i tend to take it at face value. the guy has a considerable engine and gas tank, and in some cases (amstel gold 2019, et al) he needs to and is willing to empty that tank in a way few others can or will. again, SOMEBODY has to be the best at this, because SOMEBODY is the best at EVERYTHING. mathieu is REALLY GOOD at doing THAT.
Two in cyclocross? More like a couple of months away from equalling the most ever.
Ok, missed that, kind of weird he felt it was important to specify when it’s only a personal opinion he’s totally entitled to having.
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- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025
- I disagree. If you have lower weight, you will bounce more at the same speed, meaning that you will spend more time in the air and shorter time on the ground, as a consequence, when you are on the ground you have to produce more force for the same speedvappaxbipmv04-04-2025
- That’s not quite true, even steep climbs and sudden gradient changes can be considered as remaining tangential to the wheel whereas the occasional dip between cobbles a wheel drops into cannot, as such riding over cobbles can become like a permanent surmounting of small obstacles that hit back into your wheel slowing you drastically if you don’t have the right rhythm to “fly” on the mounds, here again the greater the momentum the less these obstacles reduce your speed. But, it is but one factor, you cannot decide on this alone. Like with natural surface ripple formation on desert tracks used by vehicles, there is an optimal speed range to efficiently pass over such surfaces, too fast or slow and your car gets shaken to pieces from the “harmonics” in the vibrations caused. Pretty sure the same applies to riding on cobbles.Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- I am saying I have an open mind at the moment for your cobbles theory but cannot agree with your wind statement (and by extrapolation sprinting since that implies speeds where wind is by far the limiting factor). Had you argued all things not being equal I could have agreed with you but if we thus assume 2 objets of the same size and speed but with differing weights, it is completely obvious that the lighter one will suffer faster in the wind. Extrapolate to the extreme, drop stuff off cliffs or just remember your momentum equations to verify. Now, obviously in real life we have to assume riders of different weights won’t have the same wind hitting surface but you cannot generalise at all then as you can have very unaerodynamic light riders and very aerodynamic heavy ones because it isn’t weight that defines CdA, Teslas have an incredible CdA and are ridiculously heavy, and someone like Harry Levreyssen is a Tesla in cycling.Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- When Roglic beat Geraint Thomas on the last day's TT at the Giro, I remember just how unbelievably emotional his team was. One guy, I forget who, German rider I think, was interviewed and was nearly speechless with a really drawn out "fuuuuuuuuuck it's incredible" comment. And then something even more amazing happened. Geraint Thomas came through the ranks of the Jumbo Visma riders and congratulated them all. True, honest, sincere, sportsmanlike, and celebratory of what had been achieved. Here he was, getting second, and he meant it. And cycling these days is like that, as you say - the way Pogacar hugged Matthews in Quebec, the way Matthews congratulated Pogacar in Montreal, on and on they honor and respect each other. It's pretty great.RidesHills04-04-2025
- Not sure exactly what you are saying, but if you're implying that being heavier is helpful if you're going against the wind or sprinting, then no, it isn't. Ceteris paribus (all else held equal) being a lighter cyclist is always better, save downhill. The reason why heavier cyclists do relatively better than lighter ones on flatter courses is because they will have to have a higher power than the lighter cyclist in order to have any chance at all against them, and flatter courses mean that the lighter cyclist has nowhere to display the better power to weight ratio, meaning that significant ratio is power to CdA, which is usually an advantage to the heavier cyclist.acem8204-04-2025
- Going over bumps is equivalent to going over many small climbs. Lower weight is always a good thing (ceteris paribus) except when going downhill, and even then it's not that advantageous if the downhill is at all technical.acem8204-04-2025