🎥 Van der Poel doesn't just make others suffer, he's cooked himself after brutal training: "Kitchen reopened"

Far from it. Van der Poel is back in training and currently grinding through a tough schedule in Spain. And, as usual, fans get to follow along on social media. Thanks to training partner Freddy Ovett, everyone gets a glimpse into just how intense those sessions really are.

And it’s clear: Van der Poel isn’t just dishing out the pain, he’s feeling it too. On Ovett’s Instagram reel, MVDP commented “Kitchen reopened,” referring to how both of them looked post-ride: absolutely cooked. Ovett replied with, “A painful but high-quality kitchen!”

Text continues below.

On Sunday, Ovett. likely alongside Van der Poel, rode a 200-kilometer route through the Calpe region, between Alicante and Valencia. With nearly 3,000 meters of elevation, the duo completed the ride in six hours. Ovett titled the ride on Strava “Double parkup.” Van der Poel, for his part, hasn’t used Strava in quite some time.

Still, that 200 km ride averaging over 33 km/h might not have even been their toughest workout in recent days. On Friday, May 9, the two were reportedly wrecked after an intense VO₂ max session. “Hello darkness (VO2) my old friend,” Ovett titled that ride, a nod to Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence.

Van der Poel is in Spain preparing for the Tour start in Brittany as well as for his first mountain bike races later this year.