Bart Lemmen after first real altitude camp with Visma Lease a Bike: "Putting down power has never felt this easy"

We don’t remember exactly where it was, but in the fall of 2024, Lemmen talked about how curious he was to see what a proper Grand Tour build-up could do for him. His Tour de France appearance last year only came together at the very last minute, after Sepp Kuss had to pull out.

For the Giro, Lemmen wrapped up an altitude camp on Tenerife, but of course it remains to be seen how that will play out over the next three weeks. “We’ll only know the real answer three weeks from now. The altitude camp went well and in many ways, my prep has been more solid than it was ahead of last year’s Tour.”

For Lemmen, being able to prep properly for the Giro has been a relief after a turbulent spring. “I had a bit of bad luck earlier in the year. At Paris–Nice the weather was brutal, and no one rides well in that—except maybe Pedersen. I ended up getting sick, and right after that came Catalunya. I crashed there, and we just said: this isn’t working, you’re not fit, time to go home.”

“I’ve always known I struggle a bit in the rain,” Lemmen admitted. “That day when the stage got neutralized, I was absolutely freezing. After that, I never really felt like myself again and it dragged on the rest of the week. Sure, it could get cold and wet in the Giro too, but at least Paris–Nice taught me a few things. I feel more prepared now for whatever might come.”

Pulling the plug in Catalunya turned out to be the right call. “I was able to recover well and then we headed straight into altitude training. I got in some solid, hard work there, and the numbers are looking good—maybe even better than before. But of course, good data isn’t a guarantee for success.”

So what’s the difference this time? “It just feels easier to ride hard than ever before. That might be the effect of last year’s Tour, but also just the whole season racing at WorldTour level. Take Montréal, for example one of the toughest one-day races out there and I was still there deep into the final.”

“In July 2023 I already did an altitude camp with my wife, but that’s nothing like doing it with the team,” Lemmen said. “This time it was three full weeks of training, eating, sleeping, recovering, and repeating. We had a good time and it was a great group.”

The first part of the camp included Simon Yates and Steven Kruijswijk, with Wilco Kelderman joining for the final nine days. “We were able to get in some really good prep for the Giro.”

“It worked out really well for me,” Lemmen concluded after his first full altitude block with Visma Lease a Bike. “I’ve heard the stories—altitude camps aren’t exactly exciting—but that monk-like lifestyle is actually something I enjoy as an athlete. And it’s not that bad either. We stop for coffee, go for a walk now and then, and everyone finds their own rhythm.”

Alright, enough about the past. What can we expect from Bart Lemmen in the upcoming Giro d’Italia? “The plan is to do the same thing I did in the Tour: put all my energy into helping the team get the best possible result,” he says. “We’ve got three leaders, and I can contribute equally to all of them. That could even mean getting up the road myself, like I did in the Tour last year, but that’s definitely not the main focus. I’ll take it day by day and do what the team needs—sometimes that’s with 100 kilometers to go, other times it’s inside the final three.”

Lemmen knows that the finishing touch will likely come from the team’s big names: Simon Yates, Wout van Aert, and Olav Kooij. “We’ve got a great group. That’s always the case, but especially with the guys we’ve brought here. We know each other well and you can feel that everyone’s really up for it.”

Yates is the designated GC guy on paper, though he’s kept a low profile so far this season. Lemmen trained with him at altitude and liked what he saw. “My impression of Simon is that he’s a really nice, easy-going guy. During the altitude camp I got a good sense of who he is. You almost forget sometimes that he’s been one of the top riders of the past decade. He’s an insanely strong rider, and I really hope he can show that here.”

Lemmen ready to go deep in the mountains: ‘I’m actually looking forward to that final week’ In the mountains, Lemmen will be able to support the team alongside Kelderman and Kruijswijk. “I’m really looking forward to the final week,” he says. “At first I thought my engine wouldn’t hold up that long, that I’d run out of gas by then. But in the Tour, that turned out to be when I was at my best. And now my base is even stronger. I don’t want to throw around words like ‘a journey of discovery,’ but I do hope it’s heading that same direction again.”

When asked about expectations, Lemmen is realistic. “Let’s be honest—last year I rolled a six in almost every race,” he says with a grin, referencing how he kept exceeding his own expectations. “It felt like every time, I surprised myself again. Of course, it’s part of the sport that you sometimes go through a dip, which I might have had a little bit this spring. But even that wasn’t too bad. Now we’ve got three big weeks ahead, and anything can happen. Just because you trained well doesn’t mean success is guaranteed.”