The Dutch road, cyclocross and mountain bike star wants to target the Tour de France Femmes’ yellow jersey one day, but her refusal to specialise may be her greatest competitive advantage.
Kristof Ramon, Cor Vos
We’re living through an era of almost absurd talent in cycling. The sport has not in recent memory had such a deep pool of relentlessly competitive athletes. So much so that the language we use to describe greatness has started to feel worn out. “Generational talent” used to mean something rare; now, with riders like Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Lorena Wiebes, Demi Vollering, Tadej Pogačar, and Mathieu van der Poel – to name a few – redefining the limits of the sport every season, the phrase barely lands.
But every now and then, the weight of the term is brought back into focus as a rider joins the increasingly deep but elite pool of superstars. Puck Pieterse is one of the latest athletes to earn the accolade. At just 23, she already has an impressive palmarès that spans three disciplines: road, cyclocross, and cross-country mountain biking and dwarfs what many successful athletes achieve in an entire career.
Six XCO World Cup wins. Seven World Cup short track victories. Seven cyclocross World Cups. An U23 cyclocross World Championship and one elite XC world title. Add a Tour de France Femmes stage, La Flèche Wallonne, and a podium at Liége-Bastonge-Liége, and her versatility is clear.
Puck Pieterse’s evolution of instinct
Flèche Wallonne is the perfect entryway into Classics stardom for a rider who is unquestionably destined to shine there.
In a brief window of calm between her mountain bike and cyclocross seasons, I spoke with Pieterse to understand the person behind the results. We covered how she manages to stay motivated in an almost endless season, what she thinks about the future of cyclocross, and where she sees her future. What emerged wasn’t the meticulously engineered mindset you might expect from someone combining three disciplines at the highest level, in just a single season, but something far more intriguing, and far more human.
How does she juggle three disciplines?
What becomes immediately clear, looking at how Pieterse races across the calendar, is that genuine time off is rare. By the time January arrives, she’s already deep into her cyclocross season, before pivoting to the road come the end of February for the Spring Classics. She’ll then weave in some cross-country World Cups after the Classics before a second stint on the road for the Tour, and ending her season back on the mountain bike.
Pieterse manages a full Spring Classics campaign and the Tour de France Femmes, with all of the European rounds of the XC World Cup series.
It’s a relentless approach and a demanding one. Yet when I asked how she stays motivated, she shrugged off the intensity. “It is actually OK for me,” she said, “because cyclocross is a winter sport, it doesn’t interfere with the road or mountain bike.” Pieterse structures her year in blocks, each with its own build phase. The downside isn’t a season that borders on being too busy, she said. “The sad thing is that I have to start later in cyclocross.” Where other athletes crave the off-season in the closing weeks of racing, Pieterse instead remains hungry for more.
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