“The best example is Jonas Vingegaard’s famous time trial in 2023” - Visma coach pushes back against narrative modern cycling is all about numbers and data

Modern cycling is often framed as a sport ruled by numbers, where power meters dictate decisions and riders are reduced to outputs and thresholds. For Mathieu Heijboer, that picture misses something fundamental.

The Team Visma | Lease a Bike coach, who works closely with both Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard, insists that while data is essential, it cannot be allowed to define how riders perform in decisive moments.

“You’re not working with robots, you’re working with people,” he said on the In de Waaier podcast. “Based on a lot of historical data, you can assume that a rider can produce 350 watts for 20 minutes. But you hope that one day it’s 360 watts.”

That tension between expectation and possibility sits at the core of Visma’s approach. Data builds the framework, but it is the rider’s ability to interpret how they feel in the moment that ultimately determines the outcome.

“The best example is Jonas’s famous time trial in 2023,” Heijboer explained. “He decided the Tour that day. He looked at his power meter once and thought: this isn’t right, I’m going far too hard. But he felt good and just kept going. That comes from the guidance we give, where we say: ride the time trial on feel, but still think.”

That moment came on stage 16 of the 2023 Tour de France, a 22.4km test from Passy to Combloux that reshaped the race. Vingegaard began the day with just 10 seconds in hand over Tadej Pogacar, but ended it 1 minute and 38 seconds faster than his rival, turning a tight general classification battle into a decisive advantage.

The scale of the ride went beyond the final margin. Vingegaard was fastest at every intermediate check, not just on the closing climb, delivering a complete performance across technical sections, descents and the steep rise to Combloux. Pogacar still finished comfortably ahead of the rest of the field, which only reinforced how exceptional the gap between the two had been.

Heijboer’s point is not that the numbers were wrong. It is that Vingegaard’s willingness to trust how he felt, even when it appeared to contradict the data, allowed him to fully exploit a rare day where his level exceeded expectation.

That philosophy extends beyond a single race. Heijboer is clear that locking a rider into one predicted output carries its own risks. “Then I know it will either be disappointing, or he won’t get the maximum out of himself,” he said. “We also coach riders to go by feel. They even train without a power meter. You go into those training blocks based on a feeling, and then you learn what corresponds to that.”

For a team often associated with marginal gains and meticulous preparation, the emphasis on instinct may seem counterintuitive. In reality, it reflects a more complete approach. Data is used to inform decisions, guide training and refine performance over time, but not to restrict what a rider can do in the moment. “We only use the data as a background tool to learn from and to do things better in the future,” Heijboer added.

The broader narrative that modern cycling has become a sport defined purely by numbers is an easy one to tell. Vingegaard’s time trial in 2023 offers a more complicated answer. It was a performance built on preparation and precision, but ultimately decided by a rider willing to push beyond what the numbers suggested was possible.