Robert Gesink talks "final season": Giro heartbreak and what's next at Visma | Lease a Bike

Just a few more months and Robert Gesink (Visma | Lease a Bike) will officially retire from professional cycling. The Dutchman made his debut at the highest level in 2007 and is thus bidding farewell as the face of a generation, but unfortunately also as the embodiment of the high degree of bad luck in the sport. In a candid conversation with IDLProCycling.com, Gesink spoke about his most recent setback: his withdrawal on day one of the Giro.

Imagine: you enter your eighteenth and final year as a professional cyclist, work all spring towards one goal, spend three weeks on a mountain without your family, and arrive at the start in good form, only to be taken out in a ridiculous way, having to return home after day one – yes, once again.

This happened to Gesink in the 2024 Giro d'Italia. A month and a half later, in the Tour of Switzerland, he can look back on it with a smile. "Yeah, what do you think in a moment like that? It's obviously worthless. Domenico Pozzovivo fell over a water bottle and I braked, but several others behind me crashed into me. And I had nothing… I'm racing here in Switzerland in the same shorts and jersey that I crashed in there."

The law of Murphy, which has strongly affected Visma | Lease a Bike this season? Gesink didn't fully understand it either. "But yeah, I probably fell on something and there was a small spot on my hand where I had ripped off my skin. Underneath was the bone, and that was broken. So, yeah, what do you think then? The last season in style, let's put it that way."

Gesink on reasons and consequences of severe crashes

Gesink talks about it remarkably calmly and with a smile, but he wouldn't call it gallows humor. "In the end, I have a fantastic life and everything is going great. I've been through much worse things and then you know you can get through this as well. It may sound tough, but ultimately it's true. Sometimes you think: Jesus, I work so hard for this… I also talk to Wilco Kelderman about it and together with Steven Kruijswijk, we could start a group by now," referring to the other unlucky men on his team.

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At that moment, his thoughts go to Kruijswijk, who had to leave the Critérium du Dauphiné a week earlier with a broken hip. "That's actually much worse, when it's the legs. Hands, arms, the collarbone… With those, you don't lose much, but with the legs, it's different. It doesn't have to be though, Steven is looking good, but you also have to deal with the difference in length that can result from that crash."

Gesink knows, having faced a thigh bone fracture in the past. "That had many consequences, but those are things you can't change anymore. The strength difference and difference in leg length, that remains. In my case, it was quite complicated and it's going well now, but it hasn't always been easy."

"That's cycling, right?" Asking the question answers it. "Look at what happened in Switzerland again. There were also a few crashes, and then you immediately hear: Nairo Quintana broke his hand, Emanuel Buchmann his hip and collarbone. That's a lot of fuss, but what causes it? The eternal battle to be as light as possible doesn't benefit your bone density either."

7 or 8 training sessions got Gesink in good shape for the Tour of Switzerland

"I also once said: you don't want to crash in your last year, but racing with the handbrake on isn't an option either," Gesink clarifies. "Maybe that's the reason. There's only one way of racing and that's to just ride. Over the years you can become more cautious, but maybe that makes you brake earlier or something…"

Anyway, the Dutchman is back again. His resilience is something that characterizes the average professional cyclist, but especially the 38-year-old Gesink. After his crash and fracture in the Giro, he spent a few days walking, then worked his way back to the Tour of Switzerland via mountain biking and gravel biking.

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"This is the last year, so you don't want to lose too much," says Gesink. "Initially, I couldn't do much, only mountain biking. I could only do seven or eight serious training sessions on the road bike, so I'm actually very happy with how it's going. If the road is bad, like in descents, it hurts a bit," he says about his injury.

"I can hold my handlebars just fine – otherwise, I wouldn't be allowed to start – but it's a small bone that heals very slowly. But I don't really have any issues with it, so I don't have to worry about it after my career," he laughs. "In a race, when you're in a peloton, you sometimes hit a pothole, so you get a good jolt and you still feel it. It was in a brace for two weeks and in a cast before that, so my movement is still a bit restricted. But, long story short: it's going well," he reassures us.

Gesink still brimming with motivation heading towards the Vuelta

Okay, where can we expect him in the coming weeks and months? Not at the National Championships, but at a high-altitude training camp in Tignes and the Tour of Burgos and the Vuelta. The Spanish race that he will ride for the eleventh time and for which he is still highly motivated. "I want to do everything I can to be good, and that's why I started in the Tour of Switzerland, because it gives a good boost. Even in that final time trial, I push myself hard, so I can ultimately be in good form. That's the nature of the beast, right?"

And after that? Will the black hole for Gesink be a yellow-black hole? "I will still work after my career is over, but nothing is definite yet. It will probably be a combination of cycling and working with the team. There have already been talks with the team about it, they have also asked if I was interested. It would be strange to suddenly say goodbye to that, because after all these years it feels like a family on the bike," he says about the natural bond between himself and Visma | Lease a Bike, a form of loyalty that you don't often see these days.