Dylan van Baarle rode for three seasons with Visma | Lease a Bike, but partly due to injuries, his potential didn't always come through during that period. Van Baarle won his first classic for the team with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, but illness and crashes meant he never played a key role in the classics. That has to change at his new team, Soudal Quick-Step.
"I made the decision to leave before Soudal Quick-Step even came into the picture," he explains to cycling journalist Daniel Benson. "So much has happened over the past two years, and I felt I needed that change. I think I've found the right place here. When I looked at the options with my management, what I wanted to achieve, and where I wanted to go, there were a few possibilities. I had a good connection and a good conversation with Jurgen (Foré, the CEO of Soudal-Quick-Step). It felt like the right step for me at this point in my career."
Dylan van Baarle| Year | Team |
|---|---|
| 2027 | |
| 2026 | |
| 2025 | |
| 2024 | |
| 2023 |
Why Van Baarle wanted to leave one of the most successful teams in the world is hard for him to explain. "I think it was more of a gut feeling... I felt like I couldn’t reach the level I wanted, and sometimes you have to trust your gut. If you feel this isn’t the place where you can excel or be 100 percent yourself, then you have to make a choice."
"The reason it didn’t work out at Visma | Lease a Bike is due to many factors. But in the end, I wanted to have my own way of racing, as I was used to, and be 100 percent ready for the races. I never really felt like I could be 100 percent in form for the big races. I felt the intensity didn’t work in the right way. But ultimately, if they think they get the best out of riders that way, that’s their prerogative. It works for many guys, but not for everyone."
Together with Jasper Stuyven and Paul Magnier, Van Baarle will compete at Soudal-Quick-Step against greats like Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar in the classics. "With them at the start, it will always be super hard to achieve that, but on the other hand, Mathieu was also there when I won Paris-Roubaix. I know it’s possible. He was in a slightly different form then than now, but I think we just need to seize the opportunities when they come. It will be very difficult, but Jasper is also a very smart rider and I have a good sense for races, but first I need to get back to my old level."
