From interviewing friends to racing pros: how does a cycling journalist remain objective when he is also racing?

Over the past few weeks, IDLProCycling.com editor Jesper Rasch interviewed several former teammates of his, from his time at SEG Racing Academy. Many different stories were covered, but the question remains... Who is Rasch himself? After all, you don't randomly end up riding for the prestigious SEG for three years. Meanwhile, he still rides at a continental level. How does he combine being a cyclist with writing about the sport? And how does he adhere to journalistic core values like objectivity? Time to ask the man himself.

Rasch rode for SEG between 2018 and 2021, alongside Ide Schelling, Daan Hoole and Jordi Meeus, among others. In the series 'The SEG Racing years of', he looks back with them on their years at the now-defunct team. Light-hearted anecdotes about a dartboard, absurd glasses and drawn-on mustaches are interspersed with serious stories about lead-outs, dreams of going pro, and leadership roles within the team.

Schelling and co turn pro, but Rasch does not, doesn't that create jealousy?

The most enjoyable interview in the series, according to Rasch, was the one with Dries De Pooter. "Right from my first meeting with him back in 2021, I thought: I could write a book about this guy. We had so many laughs because of him. The article really became a beautiful reflection of Dries as a person. I had personally never experienced a rider, let alone a new rider, bringing a dartboard to training camp and spending hours playing darts in the hallway. Nobody does that, but Dries does. I also enjoyed talking to him because everyone is now familiar with Meeus, Schelling and Hoole. Far fewer people know Dries De Pooter. That makes an interview like that extra fun."

De Pooter now rides for Intermarché, Meeus for BORA-hansgrohe, Schelling for Astana, and Hoole for Lidl-Trek. All at the highest level. Rasch, in turn, rides for ABLOC (called Parkhotel Valkenburg starting from 2024), a continental team. Isn't there a bit of jealousy there? "I have thought about it myself and reflected on what I thought of that situation, but actually, the conclusion is: no. At SEG, of course, everyone has the same goal: to become a pro. That's how I saw it too, but during those years, I got to know myself better. I was fast at the finish, but I could barely keep up with the sprint in a lot of the races because I couldn't climb."

And so, in 2021, his last year at SEG, Rasch had to settle for a fourth place in the Omloop der Kempen and an eighth place in the Ster van Zwolle. As a pure sprinter, he secured a spot with ABLOC, where he began to win. In 2022, this was at UCI.2 level, in the Polish races Dookoła Mazowsza and Puchar MON. In 2023, he followed this up with victories in the Tour du Loir et Cher and the Tour of Poyang Lake. Shortly thereafter, he achieved the biggest victory of his career.

Rasch beats pro riders in Tour of Hainan

Because, at that point, ABLOC is invited to the Tour of Hainan, a UCI.PRO race - two levels higher than UCI.2. Rasch struggles in the mountains, but in the final stage, he always stays close to the peloton. Winning seems unrealistic, with competitors including Nicolas Dalla Valle (sixth in a mass sprint in the 2023 Giro) of Corratec and Itamar Einhorn (seventh in a mass sprint in the 2022 Vuelta) of Israel-Premier Tech still in the peloton. Rasch does the impossible and beats them both. With a primal scream, the victorious Dutchman crosses the finish line.

Does this improvement mean Rasch wants to follow in the footsteps of his former teammates? "Yes and no. Not necessarily in any case. I race to win. I love that feeling. I am now with a team where I have a program with many international races where I know: I am competing for the victory. I don't want to lose that feeling, although it would of course also be very cool to end up with a Pro Continental team."

How does a cycling journalist remain objective when they themselves are also racing?

Rasch's situation brings us to an interesting point of friction. Journalists are expected to be independent and objective - and rightly so. But how can you report independently and objectively on a cyclist when you yourself have encounters with such a rider in your own race? "It's a tricky thing, yes, but something that I have actually never encountered so far. If something happens in the sprint in a race, then it is my duty to let that go when I get off the bike. I am aware of that."

"When I started as an editor for IDLProCycling.com, I was barely racing in professional races and I certainly wasn’t competing for the win. At that time, it was important to me that this platform actually does not write about the continental circuit. I thought it would not be right to write as a journalist about my teammates, employer and competitors. I wouldn't have been able to maintain an objective role in that case. Fortunately, I haven’t had that problem yet at IDLProCycling.com. In fact, now it actually only holds advantages."

Unlike the other editors of this website, Rasch can experience how races are raced from the saddle . For instance, he caught the wheel of Chris Froome in the Tour of Hainan, saw how no team managed to set up a sprint train in the ZLM Tour, and witnessed Israelis winning four out of six mass sprints in Polish .2 races. "At the end of the season, I suddenly thought: wow, I could have done much more with these insights. Who knows, maybe next year there will be a new column: IDL in the race or something. We'll see!"