How does Visma-Lease a Bike manage to get the most out of the rider every time?

As a rider, switching to Visma-Lease a Bike seems like a masterstroke to make the most of your career.

Just look at Christophe Laporte, who has evolved from an outsider (in Cofidis) to one of the best riders in the Classics.

Mathieu Jorgenson is also riding better than ever with a close win in Omloop and overall victory in Paris-Nice last weekend.

What does Visma-Lease a Bike do so much better than other teams?

“According to Matthieu Jorgenson himself, they do everything better,” says Dutch cycling columnist Theis Zonneveld.

“Last year, Jorgenson had to pay for altitude training and training camps at Movistar and had to reinvest his own salary to fix his aerodynamics.”

“At Visma-Lease a Bike, the team arranges it all for him. So it makes perfect sense for such a cyclist to take it one step further.”

Logic that also surprises Zonneveld.

“On the one hand, we can say that Visma did everything well, but on the other hand, I am sometimes surprised at how bad other teams did.”

“At Movistar (Jorgenson's former team) they will be scratching their heads now and thinking: 'Have we had enough of this boy in recent years?'

Organizing altitude training for riders as a team is of course not the only ingredient in the yellow-black recipe for success.

“Nothing was left to chance. Everything has been thought of,” says Nathan van Hooydonk, a rider with the Dutch formation until last year.

“When should you lose weight? When is the best time to do an altitude training camp? When should you take a break? These are all things the team is carefully considering.”

“Everything is monitored very carefully. I think that makes the biggest difference in the bigger picture.”

In addition to mentoring, transfer policy is also an important link in the team's success.

“Visma-Lease a Bike has been successful in recruiting riders at the right time in their careers,” says Van Hooydonk.

Zonneveld agrees: “They look for physically strong riders from other teams who they think they can get more out of.”

Laporte is the textbook example of this. “When he rode for Cofidis, the then Jumbo team saw strong traffic jams from Laporte in the time trials.”

Then Team Jumbo told Laporte: “If I had achieved that power with our team, I would have won those time trials under our guidance.”

“If you can say that to a rider and that's actually the case (Laporte has started winning time trials since his move), it naturally has a huge impact on your team and on the other riders.”

And so a new fleet of riders is eager to take to Visma-Lease a Bike.