Deep dive into the 2024-25 Baloise Trek Lions with Sven Nys!

The Baloise Trek Lions had perhaps their best ever top-to-bottom season in 2023-24. In total, the team racked up 74 podium finishes, which included 24 wins across nine different riders, and a pair of silver medals at World Championships.

In any given week, veterans like Lucinda Brand and Lars van der Haar, or young, spritely stars like Thibau Nys, Shirin van Anrooij and Pim Ronhaar were viable World Cup winners, each complementing the others’ skill sets so well that Baloise Trek was seemingly ever-present at the front of every race it entered, no matter the course or conditions.

The team is largely running back the same roster for 2024-25, with only Joris Nieuwenhuis moving on. The Lions are hoping that another year of maturity and strength for their riders can collectively make up for the loss of the strong Dutch rider.

Sometimes repeating success can be even harder than achieving it in the first place, however. With expectations comes pressure. The competition will be even more focused on trying to keep the Lions off the podium. And for riders like Nys, Van Anrooij and Brand, there is also the matter of managing their fatigue coming off strong road seasons with Lidl-Trek.

What’s certain is that this team is going to be a blast to watch. Team manager Sven Nys places a big emphasis on camaraderie within the squad. Team training camp in Belgium late this month will be a chance for the riders to get together and learn from each other. Last season, the team did a brilliant job selflessly working together to win some of the biggest races of the year. And this year, they’ll also be riding gorgeous new green and blue paint schemes on their Trek Boones. 

The Race Shop spoke with Sven Nys to get his take on the 2024-25 Baloise Trek roster. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

You’ve lost Joris Nieuwenhuis, but otherwise this looks like the same team that had a lot of success last season. Is the team doing anything differently to build on that success?

Sven Nys: We saw during last cyclocross season that we have a great team with results from all of the riders, not just one leader. And we had a really young team outside of Lucinda [Brand] and Lars [van der Haar], with Thibau [Nys], Pim Ronhaar, David Haverdings, Fleur Moors. All those riders are a little bit more experienced, and I think that’s going to help us again to start the season really well. 

We’re always looking forward a bit to how they are going to go from the road season to the cyclocross season, if they have recovered well from those races, and making sure that we take enough time to recover from those races and prepare for the season. 

It seems like everything is going pretty good. Bikes are ready. The riders are step by step, going into the field again. So there are not a lot of changes for the moment. Only Joris, but I think we are strong enough to make up for it.

How do you make sure you’re stronger this season? Repeating success can be even harder than having it in the first place.

Nys: Recovery is most important. For example, see Shirin [van Anrooij] and Thibau, they went really fast during the road season, and had great results in the spring classics. With Shirin, she was second in the Tour of Flanders. Then a little bit later, Lucinda and Thibau started, also on a really high level. 

So that’s completely different than what you see with Lars van der Haar, Pim Ronhaar and all the other riders, because they started the season a little bit later. We went to a training camp with them in Spain to bring them together, create a great atmosphere, and talk about the program that we created in summer to prepare them for the cyclocross season. And now we are coming together again in the field with a training camp at the end of September to make sure they are connected with each other, and that we feel that they want to help each other, that they have fun together. That’s the first step to building up a great season.

And now next steps are coming in the next few weeks. We’re communicating with riders to help them make a good road program, so that they can recover after the cyclocross season, both physically and from all the stress and all the races that they’ve done.

You’ve talked about Shirin and Thibau and all the success they had on the road. They’re ready to be two of the best riders in the world. So what are their ambitions in cyclocross this year?

Nys: So when you talk about Shirin and Thibau, there is a difference. Shirin is already riding the Tour de France and big stage races. She was selected for World Championships on the road. 

For Thibau, he is building step by step every year, going to bigger races. And what we did this year is create a bigger road season for him than in 2023, with goals to win stages in every stage race he has done. And he did that.

The goal for this cyclocross season with Shirin is to make sure she can also go really fast in the spring classics again on the road. That means that she’s going to have a short cyclocross season, starting in September and ending at World Championships in France in 2025. 

For Thibau it’s different. His goal is to be one of the big guys in cyclocross this season from the beginning of the season. The difference between Thibau and all the other cyclocross riders is that he’s looking for the races that suit him really well. So he’s not going to do all of them, because then you’re talking about 35-40 races. With all the races he’s done on the road, and what’s coming in 2025, we are aiming for 22-24 races this season. But that’s almost every weekend. In December, he’s going to skip a weekend to go to Lidl-Trek training camp again.

We need to think a little bit more about saving some energy for what’s coming next for both riders. With all the other cyclocross riders, we can say, ‘No, no, this is the moment, we’re gonna do everything we can to have a great season. Every race that you are going to start.’ With Thibau and Shirin, it’s thinking about, ‘OK, what’s coming? Let’s talk together with Lidl-Trek and decide what is a good season in cyclocross and what is a good season on the road.’

Lars and Lucinda are the two veteran riders yet again. Both are coming off top-notch seasons. How have they been so good at being so consistent for so long, and how do they keep improving?

Nys: Because they made all the mistakes when they were young [laughs]. 

They have a lot of experience. They know that, OK, sometimes things happen, like a crash, like becoming sick, these are things that they cannot control. But if everything is OK, they know what they need to do to have good results in cyclocross. 

And what I feel with Lucinda is that she had a really great road season, better than the previous year. She did an amazing Tour de France. She recovered after the Tour de France for a few weeks on a really high level. I’m convinced that the moment she steps on the bike again, and that happens this week, she’ll already be in really good basic condition, and that she’s going to step up directly to be really good in cyclocross again. So I’m really motivated and looking forward to seeing Lucinda again.

Lars is not always motivated to have good results on the road, but he knows that he needs the road — the speed and the distance — to become a good cyclocross rider. So he’s doing that, helping the team, and he was also a stage winner with the young guys. But for him, the results on the road are not as important. He’s preparing for the cyclocross season. 

And you see him today at cyclocross training: Focus. He’s preparing all the details to be ready at the first race of the season. 

And so with those riders you know what you have, you know what you can expect. They know themselves really well, and that gives a relaxed feeling to the team. For the young guys that are there, if they make a mistake or have bad results, there is no pressure on them, because Lars and Lucinda are there.

Pim Ronhaar is a fascinating rider. He didn’t do the same road program as Thibau, but his ambitions are probably just as big in cyclocross. How can he take himself to the next level?

Nys: The potential for Pim Ronhaar is becoming one of the three best cyclocross riders in the peloton. That’s what I see. That’s what I feel with his engine, with his mental strength and in the technique he has. 

He’s young. He learned a lot in the last few years about himself, about the riders who he needs to race with. And for the summer season, we are looking more now at what’s the best situation for him, whether that’s a Continental program, or maybe stepping up to the World Tour and trying to have results there. 

He was a stagiaire with Lidl-Trek last month, but he became sick near the end, so he needs to recover a little bit right now. But I’m convinced, and I expect, that he can be at the top three in the world for cyclocross.

What’s he like mentally as a competitor? Does he have a focus like Lars? Is he more loose?

Nys: His character is not the same as Lars. Lars is much more structured, looking at things 3-5, months ahead of time. Thibau and Pim, for example, they say a week before they need to do something, ‘Oh, yeah, shit, maybe I need to book a flight because I have a race in Spain.’ [Laughs]

So it’s completely different, and we need to help them make plans ahead of time, which also helps with bringing the stress level down. 

So it’s different than with Lars, but once Pim is in a race, he’s focused as hell, and he can go really over the limit to have great results. He’s a really good runner when the weather becomes really bad. When he needs to use his power coming out of his back in the saddle with a big gear, then Pim Ronhaar is at his best.

The team has a couple of really exciting young riders in Fleur Moors and Seppe Van Den Boer. What are you excited to see from them this season?

Nys: With Fleur, I think she has the potential to become Belgium’s No. 1 cyclocross rider. And that’s not gonna take long. It’s going to happen really quickly I feel. And I saw it already in the road season. 

That was her first year at the World Tour level. She had the chance to race with young riders not only on the highest level, but also some smaller races without pressure. She was one of the girls who battled with Lotte Kopecky at national championships in Belgium at just 18 years old. That’s amazing.

We’re going to help her become one of the leading ladies in cyclocross in the next few years. I’m convinced that we can do that.

And with Seppe, he is learning. He is looking to Thibau and to Lars and saying, ‘Oh, that’s a huge step up for me.’ He needs to handle the pressure a little bit. He is maybe a little bit nervous, and puts the pressure on himself from the team.

But for himself, he won two stages on the road in stage races. He’s really fast, explosive, and strong. So in the U23 category, I expect him to be one of the guys who is always selected for World Cups, and to be one of the riders for European and World Championships, battling for the podium. 

I think he learned a lot last year. He’s one year older right now, and he’s ready to do that.

How do you support riders like that? And what is the benefit of having a big team around them?

Nys: They just see what the older riders are doing. And we have riders like Lars and Thibau who are really good at talking with those young guys just before the race, going to the U23 guys and saying, ‘Hey, I did the recon of the lap, and I just saw these things. Maybe you can add some pressure in your tire. I can help you also with finding the good lines. Let’s ride together a little bit.’ And that helps the young riders become a little bit more relaxed. 

If you can work with and have the support of Thibau and Lars and Lucinda with those young riders, that’s amazing, and that’s what they feel also helps them.

Lastly, I’m curious about David Haverdings. I think he’s a rider who some fans may not know as well. Why might he be ready to surprise people this year?

Nys: I’m really looking forward to David Haverdings. He had a really bad summer season last year, and we saw that in the cyclocross season, physically and at times also mentally. 

Now he has recovered after the cyclocross season, and he’s been training really well. He’s working really well with the coach we connected with him. He had a good summer season. He won a stage in a stage race. I saw him today in cyclocross. He’s really excited to start. He’s looking sharp. He’s happy. And as a junior, he was one of the guys who was winning almost all the races, and I think he needs to become one of those U23 guys that’s always battling for the victory. And that’s the skill he has, and I hope we’re gonna see that this year.