{"id":475368,"date":"2026-03-14T14:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/475368\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T14:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T14:35:10","slug":"mathieu-van-der-poel-explains-why-he-refuses-to-follow-the-narrow-handlebar-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/475368\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathieu van der Poel explains why he refuses to follow the narrow handlebar trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> is no cycling Luddite, but the Classics rider and eight-time cyclo-cross World Champion refuses to follow the trend for narrow, aerodynamic handlebars and turned-in brake lever hoods.<\/p>\n

“I just use the handlebars I’ve used all my life,” the Alpecin-Premier Tech leader, whose bars stand out in the peloton due to their width and retro look, explained to Cyclingnews at Tirreno-Adriatico.<\/p>\n

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“They don’t seem wider to me. I think they look wider because so many other riders have gone narrower.”<\/p>\n

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Most riders use handlebars that are close to the new 400mm outside-to-outside minimum width enforced by the UCI<\/a>, with a 10 degrees inward tilt and a minimum width of 280mm between the brake levers.<\/p>\n

The UCI officials do not need to use their special measuring device on van der Poel’s bike. His handlebars and levers are clearly legal.<\/p>\n

According to Cyclingnews’ contact at Canyon, he uses the CP0049 Pro Pace cockpit. This uses a modular system that enables a width adjustment, which the Canyon website states ranges from 350mm to 400mm (centre to centre at the hoods), via drops that can be detached from the central ‘T Bar’ stem.<\/p>\n

However, Cyclingnews has measured Van der Poel’s handlebars in the past at 420mm centre-to-centre, seen here on his custom Canyon Aeroad at the Tour de France,<\/a> suggesting he may be running a custom-made, wider variant of this already pro-focused component.<\/p>\n

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In the pits at Tirreno-Adriatico<\/a>, a helpful Alpecin-Premier Tech team mechanic grabbed his tape measure to confirm the current width of Van der Poel’s handlebars for Cyclingnews, confirming a measurement of 450mm outside-to-outside. This is paired with almost no lever turn-in.<\/p>\n

In contrast, teammate and team sprinter Jasper Philipsen uses bars that measure 410mm.<\/p>\n

As a result of his steadfastness, Van der Poel likely has a slightly worse aerodynamic position on the bike and so needs a few more watts compared to his rivals, but that does not seem to be a problem for him.<\/p>\n

Van der Poel attacked on the gravel stage of Tirreno-Adriatico on Tuesday and won the sprint to the line<\/a>, beating Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). He then won the sprint on stage 4<\/a> on Thursday against rival Wout van Aert and the eternally aero Filippo Ganna.<\/p>\n

“Maybe I lose a little bit of aerodynamic advantage, but I like to have the power when I stand on the pedals,” he told Cyclingnews.<\/p>\n

“I’m used to the size, and so for now I’m sticking to wide bars.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mathieu van der Poel is no cycling Luddite, but the Classics rider and eight-time cyclo-cross World Champion refuses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-475368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}