“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”>
Get a free Giordana cycling jersey when you subscribe to Velo with Outside+! It’s our way of celebrating the 2024 Road World Championships in Zurich. Includes free shipping. Hurry, ends Sept. 29.
>”,”name”:”in-content-cta”,”type”:”link”}}”>Join now.
Mathieu van der Poel hinted he could take a rutted route away from road racing and the Tour de France in 2025.
The all-terrain assault wagon told Marca that his long love affaire with the mountain bike and a souring relationship with Le Tour could see him switch disciplines next summer.
“We still don’t know,” Van der Poel told Marca of his Tour de France participation.
“It depends how the season goes. I think maybe it’s a good moment to try and get back on the mountain bike, if I have time. That’s still a big objective for me,” Van der Poel said this weekend during a guest jaunt at Andalucia’s La Nucia Criterium.
Van der Poel lit up his 2021 Tour de France debut with a sensational stage win and six emotion-fueled days in the yellow jersey.
The Tour hasn’t provided MVDP the same je ne sais quoi ever since.
He was nearly anonymous at this summer’s race until he rallied late to help pilot his Alpecin-Deceunink henchman Jasper Philipsen to three stage wins.
Van der Poel – who found time to “win” a stunt race against a rally car at this weekend’s La Nucia event – suggested grand tour racing is shifting down his list of priorities.
“To say I was unhappy at the Tour this year is perhaps a little strong. But I didn’t have a good time,” Van der Poel told Marca.
“On my debut at the Tour [in 2021] I managed to pull on the yellow jersey, and my expectations were high. This year I had trouble reaching my top level at the Tour,” he said this weekend.
“I know I’m better in one-day races and I’m focusing on them.”
Yesterday Mathieu van der Poel on a bike was racing against Miguel Fuster in a rally car in La Nucia
: Erik Dekker
— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) October 27, 2024
This wasn’t the first time Van der Poel hinted he might veer off the tarmac next summer.
The 29-year-old recently acknowledged that the vert-loaded road worlds in Rwanda will be a mountain too far for his strapping 75kg frame.
He also nodded to the fact that bypassing road worlds would free time for him to stoke his cross-country mojo ahead of the XCO championships in Valais, Switzerland, which take place just weeks before their road counterpart in Kigali.
Van der Poel, Philipsen, and Alpecin-Deceunink dilemmas
Van der Poel’s recent win at the UCI gravel worlds means the MTB stripes are the only set missing from his collection of elite rainbow jerseys.
Yet the Dutch ace has a long and rocky relationship with cross-country mountain biking. Some of Van der Poel’s most recent high-profile appearances on the fat tires have ended up in the dirt.
He famously miscued a drop off a rock at the Tokyo Games in 2021, and he more recently crashed out of the cross country worlds in Glasgow last year.
Third-place in 2018 remains Van der Poel’s best result yet in the race for XCO world fame.
“I have never made a secret of the fact that I also really want that mountain bike title,” Van der Poel recently told AD. “It has become a bit difficult because road racing has taken priority.”
Alpecin-Deceuninck will be watching the Tour de France route reveal Tuesday with added interest.
A surplus of sprinter stages would be a boon for their alpha sprinter Philipsen.
Yet the Belgian speedster forged much of his grand tour success in the wheels of a monster lead out from MVDP.
Van der Poel’s absence from the Tour could significantly dent Philipsen’s competitiveness in an increasingly level sprint field.
Mathieu Van der Poel é uma máquina lançadora. O campeão mundial foi vital para a vitória de Jasper Philipsen na Etapa 10 do #TDF2024 #ciclismonaespn
pic.twitter.com/A7TsXhEuos— BikeBlz (@BikeBlz) July 9, 2024
Alpecin-Deceuninck fully supports Van der Poel’s multi-discipline ambition, and his bike sponsor Canyon can’t see enough of him on its full range of rides.
However, a sprint-heavy Tour de France could force some tricky conversations in the team’s off-season meets.
Speaking of which, Van der Poel is still uncertain about a winter of cyclocross.
“I still don’t know,” he said this weekend. “We’ve still not decided, so we’ll see.”
