Mathieu Heijboer is today one of the most important coaches at Visma-Lease a Bike regarding bike setup. However, his journey hasn’t always been like this, and Heijboer credits Primoz Roglic for helping him build his reputation within the team.
Handlebar that nobody else had
“Primoz was about to start winning Grand Tours, so we said we had to customize the cockpit,” recalls Heijboer in a conversation with his boss at Visma-Lease a Bike, the sports director Merijn Zeeman, in the latter’s podcast called Gamechangers.
“With those custom-made time trial handlebars, it became lighter and more aerodynamic. So I thought: if this doesn’t work, I failed. It was daring, so we made a handlebar that nobody else had.”
Fortunately for Heijboer, the modifications made to Roglic’s time trial bike and the Visma team proved incredibly effective. As a consequence, in the following years, Heijboer’s status experienced exponential growth within the team, as Zeeman illustrates with an anecdote.
“In seven years, Mathieu managed to come so far that Richard Plugge and commercial manager Sander Kruis visit Mathieu for the first time when they receive offers from new sponsors,” Zeeman laughs. “Nine out of ten are dismissed even before making an offer,” Merijn Zeeman concludes.