Van der Poel, van Aert and Pidcock will be back on the ‘cross circuit soon

Mathieu van der Poel will be the last of the so-called “big three” to start his cyclocross season. Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock will start their ‘cross season the first week of December, whereas MvdP will start a few weeks later, according to Het Nieuwsblad.

After the long road season ended for van der Poel, the Dutchman took 3 weeks off his bike. His Alpecin-Fenix has decided that van der Poel should build up slowly to the cyclocross season, and limit his races to less than a dozen events. Although ‘cross is his specialty, the team is also hoping to prepare him to finish the Tour de France next year.

Van der Poel’s ProTeam Alpecin-Fenix will receive automatic WorldTour race spots again in 2022

Van der Poel heads to Spain for a road training camp with his team next week, and will then focus on training for cyclocross. It is expected he will then jump into his first UCI World Cup in Rucphen, The Netherlands, Dec. 18.

It will most likely be a week later before we see van Aert and MvdP square off, however, as the Belgian will also be going on a team training camp mid-December.

This year the Dutch and Belgian rivals dominated the road scene. At the Tour de France, van der Poel took his first yellow jersey and Wout van Aert won multiple stages, including the famous Mont Ventoux stage.

Wout Van Aert conquers Tour de France’s double climb of Ventoux