Dylan van Baarle reaping benefits of atypical Classics preparation: ‘It’s nice to feel that freshness now’

Ahead of the E3 Saxo Classic, he spoke to Marijn Abbenhuijs and Wout Poels on the In Koers podcast. “I hope I’m in good shape. Training went well over the past week, so I’m curious,” Van Baarle said. He had been training in Andorra, together with Robert Gesink and Koen Bouwman. “They already had a training camp planned as well, so we did some really nice rides together.”

His fiancée Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was able to join him too, which only added to the relaxed feel of the camp. “That was really nice as well, that I got to spend a bit more time with Pauline. We try to enjoy that as much as possible. My mum also came over for a few days, which was good. I watched Paris-Nice from the sofa, while they were grinding through the rain there.”

That made for a sharp contrast for the Dutchman. He saw the team-mates with whom he is expected to share the podium in the cobbled Classics battling through freezing temperatures and pouring rain at Paris-Nice, while he was up in Andorra. It had been meant to be a cold-weather training block, but conditions in the Pyrenees turned out to be perfectly fine. Van Baarle was certainly not complaining.

Van Baarle believes that different approach could pay off exactly when it matters most. “You do notice that, when you haven’t done Paris-Nice or Tirreno and haven’t been squeezed dry there. You are still entering a bit of a new phase of the season. It’s nice to feel that freshness at this point.” On Friday, he rode the E3 Saxo Classic and finished 36th.

It may have been a relatively anonymous result, but Van Baarle still feels he can compete for top honours in the races to come. So what would leave him satisfied? “That depends on how I raced. If you were able to really race and you finish ninth, you can be happy with that. It would be nice to take the form — or at least the way I raced — from Kuurne with me into the next races.”

Van Baarle will not line up in In Flanders Fields on Sunday, but he is scheduled to return at Dwars door Vlaanderen, the race he won in 2021. After that, all focus shifts to the Tour of Flanders on Sunday. Van Baarle finished second in Flanders’ Finest in 2022, having already taken fourth place there five years earlier.

He will once again prepare for that race in a very specific way. The Dutchman has never been afraid of a long training ride shortly before a major target. “Normally I’d do around six hours, 180 kilometres. Now I do that a day earlier. For Flanders, that means Thursday. After Dwars door Vlaanderen it won’t be six hours, but it will be a bit longer. Active recovery.”