It’s official, Milan Vader signs with Jumbo Visma and will compete in road cycling and MTB

The Dutchman Milan Vader will follow in the footsteps of other cyclists like Mathieu van der Poel or Tom Pidcock and in the coming seasons will combine the mountain bike season with the road season. At 25 years old, the current national MTB champion in the Netherlands has just officially signed with the Jumbo Visma road team.

Jumbo Visma announces the signing of Milan Vader 

Days ago, the rumor was considered true and the confirmation from the three parties involved was missing. Yesterday, it was his current team, KMC Orbea, that said goodbye to Vader, and the cyclist himself responded gratefully for these last three years in which he has established himself as one of the best mountain cyclists.

Today, it was Jumbo Visma that announced the signing, and thus Milan Vader responded as the new cyclist for the team for the coming year:

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"It's great to ride for Team Jumbo-Visma. In my opinion, it's the leading team at the moment. It's nice that it's a Dutch team because I feel a bit like I'm coming home. We've talked about the path for the next few years. Racing on the road is relatively new for me. I used to race on the road, but not much. I'm looking forward to it. I like that everything is focused on performance at Team Jumbo-Visma, I hope to learn a lot and develop as a cyclist. A big goal will be the Paris Olympic Games. I hope to win a medal in mountain biking. Team Jumbo-Visma is the perfect option to help me with that."

With these statements, he confirmed that in the coming seasons he will continue to compete in MTB despite focusing on the road. Something that was also noted by Merijn Zeeman, sports director of Team Jumbo-Visma:

"For years, Milan has been trained by Tim Heemskerk, one of our coaches. That's why we've had close contact with him. He has been on a training camp with us and did a series of tests. We got to know him very well. We see a lot of potential in him. He is extremely talented physically. Technically, he is very good on the bike. Additionally, his personality attracts us a lot. Milan is someone who is very willing to invest in himself and can work well together."

"He is explosive uphill... How quickly will he get used to riding in a peloton, a World Tour peloton? That's something we still have to see. We will also look at the MTB World Cup calendar and the accompanying championships. And how we will find a good combination."

At 25 years old, Milan Vader is the current national champion in mountain biking in his country and finished 10th in the recent World Championship in Val di Sole. In 2020, his performance in the World Cup was outstanding, and many still remember his performance at the World Championship when he was leading the race until two falls took him out of the fight for the rainbow jersey.

Vader's coach, Tim Heemskerk, is the one who made the connection with Jumbo Visma, and the cyclist was already with the World Tour team at a training camp last spring in Alicante.

Although he lacks road experience, performance test results showed that Vader has a lot to offer in this discipline. Moreover, his technique on the bike is outstanding, and the team has had good experiences with athletes coming from other disciplines, such as Slovenian Primoz Roglic, who was a ski jumper until 2011.