You are an all-round rider (crit-cx-road).
How do you combine these disciplines?
Which of them gives you more motivation?

I ride track, gravel, offroad and road on three types of bikes: single speed, fixed gear and gravel racer. Sometimes in winter i ride cx  and a couple of times a year i race a criterium.

I don’t believe in specializing in one thing. It’s boring and actually it will not make you any better. Training schedules are the same. It’s not helping and its not inspiring. It will just make you pelotonfutter. None of these give me more motivation. Rather all of them shape me as a rider and makes me better in the ultimate racing experience…

You come from a country like the Netherlands, where the bike culture is an integral part of of the nation itself.
This has influenced your approach to cycling?

I get this question a lot. But because in The Netherlands we use bikes to go shopping close to home, or ride to work (Even on mid- to long range for school kids and higher educated people) it does not inspire a lot of people and also not me to ride like i do. I rather take the bikemessenger approach to things: Ride everywhere… i train on the same bike i do my shopping on and i take that bike to the bar too. Cyclist in Holland do not take their racingbike to the shop a lot. Althought recent culture with messenger influence has changed that a bit. Racing bikes and conversions are more widespread now. But to answer your question: No. I have my own approach and my own influences.

 The criterium race are constantly growing free from the UCI circuit.
Do you think that the original spirit of these competitions will be the same or will there be any changes?

The original spirit just got stronger over the years! Riders will be faster, and bikes need to be redesigned, but other than a growing audience and some twitching to the format, i do not believe anything large will change. We race and then hang out.

How are you tied to them?

 I am an independent self employed rider. I do not belong to any sponsor. A sponsor supports me and in return i show their stuff. However, Bombtrack is using my almost 25 years of biking experience and knowledge to develope bikes together with Olaf Wit and as a test rider. Sometimes i do a fun thing like riding Transalp off road on a gravelgrinder, which i initially helped to develope, seems that the bike is also good for commuting or long distance travel or a pretty fast solo Paris-Roubaix challenge.