Visma | Lease a Bike under review: proud, disappointed... which emotion should prevail for the yellow-black team?
CyclingFriday, 29 November 2024 at 12:16
The 2024 cycling season ended about a month ago, and preparations for 2025 have already started, but IDLProCycling.com still has to review some teams. These include Visma | Lease a Bike, which can reflect on a year in which many things happened—good things, but also less fortunate moments.
One-day races 2024: Visma | Lease a Bike
Visma | Lease a Bike has not won the Tour of Flanders and/or Paris-Roubaix so far, which was declared the main goal of the first months of 2024. After all, in 2023, the team won pretty much all the major Flemish races except the Tour of Flanders and Roubaix, so the gaps had to be filled.
In late February, this preseason started in equally impressive style: Jan Tratnik won the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad after a team masterclass, and one day later, Wout van Aert managed to dominate Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne spectacularly. Then, the spring squad boldly decided to skip Strade Bianche, Paris-Nice/Tirreno-Adriatico, and Milan-Sanremo in favor of altitude training for the big goals.
Upon returning to the E3 Saxo Classic, trouble began: Per Strand Hagenes, Dylan van Baarle, Wout van Aert, and Jan Tratnik crashed, but Van Aert did show his top level. The following Wednesday in Dwars door Vlaanderen, things went completely wrong, with the severe crash of leader Van Aert still on everyone's mind. Matteo Jorgenson was able to win the race, but the team could not take victory in Flanders and Roubaix, partly because Jorgenson and Van Baarle were absent there due to illness.
In the hilly classics, Tiesj Benoot saved the day with a third-place finish in the Amstel Gold Race. The team had nice wins in the BEMER Cyclassics Hamburg (Olav Kooij) and Paris-Tours with Laporte in the fall.
Read more below the photo.
(Grand) rounds 2024: Visma | Lease a Bike
The same thing that was true for the classics also applied to the Visma | Lease a Bike stage races in 2024. Bart Lemmen started the season on a high by riding well at Tour Down Under. Then, in March, the team was the first team to succeed in winning Paris-Nice (Jorgenson) and Tirreno-Adriatico (Jonas Vingegaard) in one season. As a result, by mid-March, the win counter already stood at 15, which was already almost half of the final total of 32.
Things went thoroughly wrong for the classic squad at the end of March, followed by the terrible crash at the Tour of the Basque Country in April. One of the biggest casualties there was Vingegaard, who ended up in a Basque hospital with many injuries and thus also immediately became a big question mark for the Tour de France.
While the team was plagued by illness and injury in the Giro (but won a stage with Olav Kooij), it gradually became clear that Vingegaard would be able to compete in the Tour. The Dane eventually started as the defending champion in Florence and, for a long time, seemed ready for a duel with Tadej Pogacar, but - despite the presence of top form - eventually ended up finishing second. However, a second place still felt a bit like victory over himself. That other leader, Van Aert, ultimately concluded the Tour without a win.
In that Tour, the Belgian also got ready for the Vuelta, where he started like a rocket with three wins and wearing the mountains and points jersey. However, fate struck again on day sixteen for Van Aert, who could not continue after a crash on his knee and thus had to say goodbye to his jerseys in the ambulance. Due to the defending champion Sepp Kuss's lack of top form, the Vuelta ended badly for the team despite Robert Gesink's retirement.
Read more below the photo.
Final rating 2024 Visma | Lease a Bike
Overall, Visma | Lease a Bike may speak - especially given the circumstances - of another good year. The unmatchable 2023 turned out to be unmatchable indeed, but despite long absences and bad luck for the strong riders, the team still managed to collect quite a few excellent results. Therefore, our (former) editorial board members conclude with a 6.8 as a final rating.
Transfers 2024/2025: Visma | Lease a Bike
Visma | Lease a Bike made several changes during the past transfer period. To begin with, Robert Gesink's contract with the team ended, and the same goes for sports director Merijn Zeeman. The departure of the coach moving to AZ naturally marks the end of an era.
Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe also acquired Jan Tratnik and the Van Dijke brothers from the team, while Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla), Johannes Staune-Mittet (Decathlon AG2R), and Milan Vader (Q36.5) joined other teams to compete more for their own success.
In return, the Dutch formation added experience to the selection. Simon Yates brings a top GC rider to the team, while Victor Campenaerts returns as an experienced WorldTour rider to support the leaders. And Olav Kooij gets Dan McLay, someone who has earned his stripes, as lead-out.
In addition, Visma | Lease a Bike transferred four major talents to the WorldTour team: Matthew Brennan, Menno Huising, Jorgen Nordhagen, and Tijmen Graat. They also acquired U23 world champion Niklas Behrens from Lidl-Trek's development team and snatched Axel Zingle from Cofidis.
Incoming: Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla), Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny), Axel Zingle (Cofidis), Dan McLay (Arkéa - B&B Hotels), Niklas Behrens (Lidl-Trek training team), Matthew Brennan, Menno Huising, Jorgen Nordhagen and Tijmen Graat (Visma | Lease a Bike Development Team)
(Provisional) outgoing: Jan Tratnik, Mick van Dijke, Tim van Dijke (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla), Johannes Staune-Mittet (Decathlon AG2R), Milan Vader (Q36.5) and Robert Gesink (retired)
Ones to watch 2025: Visma | Lease a Bike
Visma | Lease a Bike begins the next cycling year with another interesting selection. First of all, it is exciting to see how leaders such as Van Aert, Vingegaard, Laporte, Van Baarle, and Kruijswijk will put the unlucky year of 2024 behind them, but also in the background, the team has a lot of names that could break through.
This includes the four talents from the U23 team and some men who are now starting their year x for the team. Think of Per Strand Hagenes, Cian Uijtdebroeks, and Ben Tulett, who could easily follow the Jorgenson route.
From a Dutch perspective, seeing how Olav Kooij's career develops will also be interesting. The sprinter has now won a stage in a grand tour and has also shown himself several times in the classics, but what is his next step and plan for 2025?
Selection Visma | Lease a Bike 2025
- Edoard Affini
- Niklas Behrens
- Tiesj Benoot
- Matthew Brennan
- Victor Campenaerts
- Thomas Gloag
- Tijmen Graat
- Per Strand Hagenes
- Menno Huising
- Matteo Jorgenson
- Wilco Kelderman
- Olav Kooij
- Steven Kruijswijk
- Sepp Kuss
- Christophe Laporte
- Bart Lemmen
- Dan McLay
- Jorgen Nordhagen
- Ben Tulett
- Cian Uijtdebroeks
- Attila Valter
- Wout van Aert
- Dylan van Baarle
- Loe van Belle
- Tosh Van der Sande
- Julien Vermote
- Jonas Vingegaard
- Simon Yates
- Axel Zingle
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Latest Comments
- Talk is cheap! Next year barring crashes with a healthy team... all well be on track! Some need to talk to make a headline!mootman27-11-2024
- I do not see this event listed on HBO Max Sports Online? Can anyone confirm? Thanks!
MrYuck23-11-2024 - It seemed that he was focusing forward at the time of the crash, after seeing a quick video snippet. But one thing I think he should focus on more intently is breaking a bad habit he has, right now. And that is his constant looking over his shoulders. He does that so much, that I am very sure it is not good for him. Simply watch videos of the greats of CX and you will see very little of that constant looking over their shoulders. That is a behavior that betrays a bit of insecurity on his part. He shouldn't be so concerned, incessantly, about what is over his shoulder. He needn't worry they didn't all disappear. He neds to keep his focus more ahead of himself, and he needs to pay a bit more attention to himself, in a confident manner. It is very frustrating to watch, because it is apparent that he has a lot of potential, and is in much better shape thwan many of his competitors, but the mental game needs to be sharpened more, because that part of strategy plays a huge part in the final results
reemmo022-11-2024 - hahahaha love this shit! I didnt even watched the race, but reading all the gossip articles of how stupid this is!Zatoichi19-11-2024
- Van Aert is really handsome. He can influence me all day! Ditto for Philipsen. Why do you think many of us love cycling?: to see heroic attempts at climbing mountains at high altitudes or to watch speedsters sprint for the finish line or to watch a human being ride at break neck speed down a tricky descent? No, it's all about their lean physiques and muscular legs. (apologies for objectifying these dedicated and amazing athletes).BarwonHeadsUp25-10-2024