Mick and Tim van Dijke will leave Team Visma | Lease a Bike in 2025 after progressing via the Dutch side’s Development team. As it turned out, the butterfly effect that began their path to Red Bull – BORA – Hansgrohe can be traced back to Wout van Aert’s Spring crash.
Back at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tim and Mick van Dijke were there to help Van Aert when their leader crashed hard, ending his spring season before even getting a shot at the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix. Instead, those possibilities were left to the rest of the Visma squad, including both Van Dijke brothers, who shone at Paris-Roubaix, finishing in the top 20.
“Our dream is to win a cobbled classic one day. Preferably Flanders or Roubaix. But that’s a dream, and lots of people have that dream. It became a reality when I crossed the line in Roubaix in eighth place. That was such a fantastic experience,” explains Tim on the De Rode Lantaarn podcast. “If that (Van Aert’s crash ed.) hadn’t happened, we would never have shown what we managed to show this year. That’s something that opened my eyes.”
“In Roubaix, the camera captures it all,” adds Mick in total agreement. “I could follow Mathieu van der Poel, Jasper Philipsen, and Mads Pedersen in the Forest of Arenberg. Now we were riding in the finale in Roubaix with those guys and managed to follow these four guys in the forest. That was brilliant, and quite a few teams noticed it.”
Not just the Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe team called for the Van Dijke brothers’ signature. “We were able to make a nice choice because we were in the spotlight,” they explain, expressing how they come as a package deal. “That was the main reason for leaving. At Visma, we were also a bit in each other’s way. Tim and I always fought for the last spot; that was just difficult.”
So, how did their eventual suitors convince them? “They didn’t want us simply for the classics, but we shown that we can be a lead-out for sprinters. We also provided excellent treatment for Matteo Jorgenson in Paris-Nice. They observed it as well. Of course, that’s what you want in a grand tour: guys who can drop off climbers,” they say “We all wanted to look at our options. For us, it was straightforward: we would only leave if we improved athletically. That leaves only a small group of teams anyway.”
