“Then that dream suddenly exists again”: does Wout Poels still have a unique shot at one last cycling wish?

Five years at Vacansoleil, one season at Quick-Step, five years at Sky, five seasons at Bahrain, and then twelve months at XDS Astana: it is a huge amount of experience Poels brings to the Unibet Rose Rockets. Is the circle—starting at Vacansoleil and now ending at the Rockets—almost complete?

“It’s definitely a lot bigger than Vacansoleil, but you also can’t compare this team with some of the WorldTour teams I rode for,” said Poels. “They operate with completely different budgets, and then you’re automatically talking about very different staffing numbers. But you know that too. If you don’t expect that, you’ll get a nasty surprise.”

He has had to adjust more than once in recent months. “Since January I’ve moved back from Monaco to the Netherlands, and it’s going well actually. You do have to get used to the weather, but we’ve also had a bit of bad luck this winter. I don’t think there has been this much snow every winter in recent years, but hey—doing a week on the rollers isn’t a problem.”

“You do miss the mountains and the slightly milder climate for a moment,” Poels added, “but it’s especially nice to live close to the family again.” The Dutchman is back in his home region. “And I still know the local loops from earlier—like what I call the ‘tourist road’ near the German border. A very long stretch with few junctions, so if you need to do blocks you can really smash it there. But yes, it’s still very different from, say, the Madone.”

At the Unibet Rose Rockets, Poels is joining a developing team as a 38-year-old, and he wants to do his part. “There are so many young riders, so it’s also fun that they still want to learn certain things from you,” he said. “What it was like riding with Chris Froome, but also smaller, practical things. With some riders I honestly wonder if they’ve even seen me on TV with Froome at the time—they’re so young,” he laughed.

He not only wants to contribute with experience, but also—very much—on a sporting level. “I just want to have a good year. Normally it’s my last year, and stopping with a good feeling is the most important thing. And I do hope I can still win a race, because then I’ll have won a race with every team I’ve ridden for. A nice statistic, right?”

Something else that is new for Poels is the Unibet Rose Rockets’ media approach, although he already has experience in that “world” through the In Koers podcast—together with Dylan van Baarle and AD journalist Marijn Abbenhuijs. It has been quiet on that front for a while, though. “Normally the podcast will continue, but it’s on pause for now. We need to talk about that again soon,” Poels laughed.

At his new team he was already “hired” for the announcement of the new kit, which went viral on social media. “I was allowed to do it and I thought: oh nice!” said the Limburg rider. “But then I heard the plan and suddenly I wasn’t completely sure anymore. Ah well—afterwards it turned out to be fun.” Poels, as ever, was ready to laugh at himself.

How has Poels looked at the Tietema project from the outside over the past years? “You know what it is? As a rider you’re busy with yourself,” he explained. “Last year I was focused on trying to win a stage in the Giro. You do see them pop up every now and then and you follow it a bit, but it’s not like—as a rider at another team—you track everything they do in detail.”

Poels brought it up himself: that Giro stage. After the team missed out on a Tour de France wildcard, the chance of riding La Corsa Rosa suddenly feels more realistic. “If we ride the Giro, then that dream suddenly exists again,” he said. “If that’s the case, maybe I should push for it once more—because then I would really want to go to the Giro.” To be continued…