Boy van Poppel is the next road rider to turn his attention to cyclo-cross to dive into the field. The Trek rider will be lining up at the home races in Boxtel and Surhuisterveen, at the Azencross in Loenhout (Bpost Bank Trofee) and at the Superprestige race in Diegem. "It is mainly for fun," he tells Wielerflits in an interview.

"I have not done cyclo-cross for five years,” the oldest of the Van Poppel brothers continues. "Back then I did my cyclo-cross season (winter of 2009-2010, ed.). I ended it in a really bad way. I was a fourth-year U23 rider, a year of terrible memories. I did a lot, but I did not make any progresss I was Dutch champion and rode near the back of the field in my red, white and blue jersey at the race in Loenhout. I was ashamed. Now I know why as I was suffering from glandular fever. Back then I did not know. A few years later I was struck again. The doctors said it was not the first time that I had the disease so that should also have been the case.”

Van Poppel will get busy after Christmas where he will do the races in Diegem (December 27), Loenhout (December 29) and Surhuisterveen (January 2) in quick succession. 

"But I will debut at a national race in Boxtel, the Rabobank Veldrit, on December 20 (last year Maurits Lammertink won the race ahead of Dylan Groenewegen, ed.). I want to test the material a bit and see how it goes. Everywhere I will start quite far back so it will be difficult to achieve a result. I also don’t know how good I am so I'll just have to wait and see. Maybe I can try different materials this year and then do more races next year. This winter I also wanted to participate in the Dutch championships but that is held on January 10. On that day we will leave with the team for the Tour Down Under. "

27-year-old Van Poppel was Dutch cyclo-cross champion five times in the junior categories and even once the best in the world (with the juniors in 2006). But the lead-out man is not trying to get great results.

"Whenever I watch a cross race, I am excited. Now I have the chance to get some cross bikes from Trek. So then I thought: ’Now I also want to a few races. I do this because I really like it and also partly in preparation for the road season. However, I’ve received the bikes just before I went to training camp in Spain. So I have not even able to ride them. That's why I hate a bit of it because I will not really have a good preparation. But I will just enjoy that I can do a few crosses again. And hopefully it is not my last year back in the field. "

In addition to the fun and the desire to erase the memory from his last cross winer, Van Poppel has another goal. 

"At training camps in the winter you always ride do very long and pretty quiet rides. You do make a lot of hours, but that is mostly to build your base. If I do a couple of crosses in a row, I will ride in the red zone for about an hour. I think I've missed a bit the last road season. It was not like I sucked but sometimes I missed a bit in those brief moments that you have to ride very fast. In the crosses, I can build more explosiveness, so to speak. I'm really searching for that and I'm wondering if it comes back by doing cyclo-cross."

Van Poppel will not do the Worlds as he will not be able to fulfill the requirement of two top 16 resulst in World Cup races.