DESTINY’S CHILD

We use the phrase ‘animating the race’ quite a bit in cycling journalism, to describe a kind of stirring, a moment of excitement, rather like uncorking a bottle of champagne or whacking a wasp nest with a broomstick. Beneath the surface of the term lurks the implication that a bike race is often static, something that requires a certain activation, a tension needing release. In the modern day peloton, that’s perhaps more true than not. For years, we have seen the increased professionalisation of cycling. Once a sport of individual glory, now it’s more a game of brinkmanship and marginal gains backed by technological, nutritional, and tactical arms races. Cyclists ride to control the race for their leaders, who often wait in the wings for hundreds of kilometres until their decisive moment arrives and they are delivered neatly on the doorstep of others.

Mathieu van der Poel does not ride bikes like that. Mathieu van der Poel is the broomstick holder to the peloton’s proverbial wasp nest. He’s a chaos agent in the lull of the processional punching of timecards. Sometimes his signature moves - long-range digs at the start of a sprint that force the others to chase, daring solo breakaways in one-day races, attacking often for what seems to be the hell of it - don’t always fit the tacticians’ bill; but they are always spectacular, and when they pay off, especially so.

There are plenty of exciting riders in