Inside the Development program: creating the future stars of pro cycling

Since 2017 Team dsm-firmenich PostNL have been running one of the most successful Development programs in cycling. Over the years, 21 riders have been promoted to the WorldTour, which will become 22 in 2025 – a number to be really proud of.  

 

But why is our approach with our Development program so successful? To get a clear and extensive answer to that question, we sat down with those responsible within Team dsm-firmenich PostNL. Hold on tight because this is going to be a bumpy ride! 

Talent recruitment 

The story starts with talent recruitment, something which is managed by Scouting Coordinator Hans Timmermans. It can be helpful to briefly explain what is meant by talent recruitment before delving deeper into talent scouting.  

Hans: “The process is actually quite comprehensive. There are five main aspects, including riders’ physical and mental maturity, technical and tactical racing skills, and finally the degree to which their personality matches with the top-level sport mentality of Team dsm-firmenich PostNL. In the end, it’s a puzzle we try to solve with as much precision as we can”. 

Looking for the future winners and trying to estimate riders’ potential, the results of the riders are less important. The team deploys an extensive process to find and evaluate possible interesting riders, where Team dsm-firmenich PostNL’s innovative nature comes in handy. Here, the expertise of Data Expert Sjors Groot is of great importance. 

“I work closely with Hans and Iwan Spekenbrink (CEO Team dsm-firmenich PostNL, red.). They come to me with access to Training Peaks accounts from riders we’re interested in, and they ask me to have a look at the data. I then make an analysis of their performances and send those reports to Hans and Iwan to provide their considerations with data-driven insights. Sometimes, riders also directly connect to me via their agents or their teams, but those are mostly juniors”, said Sjors.  

Following the completion of all analysis, Sjors attempts to make a precise forecast of the rider’s future progress. “When projecting someone’s future, several different factors are taken into consideration. However, we can gain a sense of the rider’s current situation and use it to infer some predictions for the future.” 

According to Hans, one of these factors is maturity. “Juniors are still young and it’s normal that there is a difference in their way of living,” he says. “While some juniors still live like youngsters, others are starting to appreciate the professional cycling lifestyle.” Therefore, recruiting younger talents with the right mentality might be more challenging than recruiting experienced riders. “But it’s still crucial to understand the rider’s personality, even for older riders.” 

Starting the journey 

Once recruited, talents are well taken care of by the team’s responsible coach Bennie Lambregts, who is working in cycling for almost 25 years. Next to the experienced Bennie are race coaches Joey van Rhee and former team rider Asbjørn Kragh Andersen; together they are also personal coaches to riders in the Development program.  

As ultimately responsible coach, Bennie also writes out the race program for the riders and is lifestyle coach at the Keep Challenging Center too, where he makes sure everything runs optimally. 

“The goal for us as coaches of the Development program is to instill teamwork in the boys”, says Bennie. “As individual riders you can no longer achieve anything in this sport, it just has to be teamwork. This includes the right behaviour in so many different directions. The riders must have the same motivation both during and outside the races. It’s good to see we have many talents in this group, so hats off to our scouting department”. 

Besides the coaches, talented riders joining the Development program are also supported by a whole team of experts, such as a trainer, nutritionist, and an aerodynamics expert, who together collaborate to get the most out of their development. They have contact on a regular basis with the riders to make sure they understand what tasks are asked from them to undertake, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL Trainer Steve Benton explains. 

“When riders join the Development program, they can be aged around 17 and 20, and there are different levels of maturity, experiences. We have to make sure that every rider is comfortable and confident to follow the important things on their training program and know how to go through the more difficult and easier sessions. It’s really important to give feedback to all the experts and some need a little bit more help with that, which is totally understandable.” 

As trainers of the Development program, they aim for a more general development from the riders, avoiding specialisation. The team want to provide the training platform and environment to keep on developing in all areas, as some parts of a rider don’t come through at a younger age, such as fatigue resistance, power, and a better endurance. 

“If we have a junior time trial champion who comes to our Development program, he is obviously good at time trialing. Does it mean we spend extra hours on him being a time trialist? No, it doesn’t. What we want to do is to make him a more rounded bike rider, so the emphasis will be on all areas. We don’t look for a top result of the riders at the start of the season, it’s about the best possible development.” 

Developing on and off the bike  

 As a team all of our daily business is about performance, our Keep Challenging way, to perform to the best that we can be. However, results are not the main goal within our Development program. As team, we also want to develop riders off the bike, to bring them value and qualities that are important for the future.   

“When junior riders come in, the first thing they think about is the result, while we always say: work on the basics first and prepare your mind for a long process in which you have to take steps slowly. That is really a mindset that we have been aiming for from the start. Becoming a professional cyclist is really a profession that you have to learn. In that respect, this is a bit like the University of Applied Sciences; you have to develop in the coming years to progress in your career to earn a professional contract. It is really hard work, and not only on the bike, but especially the behaviour and mindset that that person must have”, Bennie argues.  

That’s also the case for Steve, who thinks riders should focus on the basics – commitment and teamwork. In the long term, building that trust with the experts and investing into the process is crucial.   

“They should understand it’s not only them working on their own, they are part of a team and with that they commit to working with the expert, being honest, giving regular feedback, being diligent and – it’s an overused word – but being professional in terms of working hard. If you communicate well, even when things become difficult, that’s where we can give the best possible support. That’s why the commitment to how we work is the most important thing.” 

Becoming the new rising star of the WorldTour 

After riders have had chance to develop themselves thoroughly and the team believe they are ready, the goal is their promotion to the Men’s program – to ride on the highest level of cycling. So far 21 riders (soon to be 22 in 2025) have made this step. But what’s needed to step up? 

Obviously, riders should have made a step in their physical development, which is monitored by our trainers and data-experts. The team have an extensive database of performance figures that demonstrate at exactly what level the best riders perform at. In all the years the team has been operating – which obviously goes back several years in different guises – with certain baselines and limits, and have a fair idea where a rider will be able to excel or do well in certain races. Or in general, a WorldTour level.  

“Training and their output are only one part of the story”, Steve explains. “That’s where the perspective of the coaches and experts come into play. We can have riders with very good numbers, but if we as trainers have improvements in the way of working, that becomes almost more important. We know we can help them to become better, which means they will operate better in a race environment with the team. So, it’s never only about the numbers.” 

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL Coach Bennie agrees on that: “Of course, riders have to take a step in the physical area and these values are all monitored by our experts, but what we as coaches look at is mainly the behaviour: this means that they must be able to collaborate with all the team’s experts and invest in these partnerships. As coaches, we write evaluations of Team Camps and races in which we describe the extent to which a rider has made progress in his aspects such as his behaviour. We also get feedback from the experts when someone works well together.” 

Delivering cyclists to the pro peloton 

As mentioned,, the Development program was established in 2017 and has already delivered tens of talented riders. Bennie has been involved throughout all these years and is happy to see riders stepping up and showing themselves in the WorldTour.  

“You always start from scratch with a rider who comes from the juniors and then you start working on the culture we have within the team. We are now of course seeing very nice things from riders such as Casper van Uden, Oscar Onley and Tobias Lund Andresen, who were in the first group of the Development program and, in our opinion, can become the culture bearers for our team. Ultimately, they still have to prove that, but it is just very rewarding to see those guys now taking steps at WorldTour level.” 

 We caught up with Oscar Onley, who stepped up to the Men’s program in 2023 and won his first pro race this year, in the Tour Down Under atop of Willunga Hill. 

“The Development program slowly introduced me to the WorldTour. You have the same recourses as the Men’s program, but there is obviously less pressure and not really a focus on results. For me personally, this also gave me a lot of life experience, as I also experienced moving abroad and living by myself. I really enjoyed this time because you have the freedom of living on your own, whilst always amongst the rest of the team, so I never felt lonely”, Oscar states. 

 Oscar now lives in the climb-packed Spain, but during his time in the Development program, he stayed in the team’s Keep Challenging Center, which provides riders with a professional environment in the Province of Limburg; a great training area and central location for travel to races with seven airports within relatively close distance. From here it’s relatively close by to do recons of some of the biggest classics and Monuments. 

 “The training area is really nice as it’s located in the Limburg region with some nice climbs, or the Ardennes for the longer rides in Belgium and Germany. I think it’s a big advantage to be around other teammates too. Within the Development program there is a big age range. So when I came to the team, straight from the juniors, there were also riders with four years’ experience who I learned a lot from.” 

“I wasn’t getting any results straight away, so it would have been quite easy to say it was too much effort for the team and them ultimately give up on me. But they definitely didn’t do that…they put a lot of confidence in me, making sure that staying there worked out. Most days there were trainers and coaches around the Keep Challenging Center, and I could easily catch up with them.” 

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL – a bright future 

If it is up to Bennie and Steve, the future of the team looks good, and we’ll see many more riders from the Development program stepping up and becoming the newest stars of pro cycling.  

“If we keep calm and continue to develop like this, we will really show our roots again in the future and the team will continue to compete amongst the very best at WorldTour level in the coming years. We are all working hard for that and are confident in it”, Bennie concludes. 

This year, the consistent hard work in the team’s Development program truly paid off. 18 of the 22 wins in 2024 were achieved by recruits from the Development Team dsm-firmenich PostNL, and they delivered even more outstanding performances. Riders such as Casper van Uden, Max Poole, Oscar Onley, Tobias Lund Andresen, and Pavel Bittner secured their first professional victories this year and also impressed with strong rides at the WorldTour level. Everyone at the team is proud of the work done behind the scenes to prepare these young riders for the men’s program, seeing them succeed at the highest level of cycling. The team is highly motivated to build on this success in the future.