Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1063250
CYCLE NEWS RIDER OF THE YEAR AND FIM MXGP WORLD CHAMPION JEFFREY HERLINGS P76 Feature lastly Italy. By the time of the Motocross of Nations at RedBud (where Herlings owned his class for the third year in a row) rival factory teams were using terms like "beating Jeffrey" rather than "winning GPs" when talking of 2019. The benchmark had been well and truly set. Before the story was finished the two most common questions in MXGP were: "How do we stop Herlings?" and, "How does he do it?" "He works so hard," offered Tureluren in a response to the "Personally I could not handle what he does; I would be sick ev- ery week," said Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's Thomas Covington. "He just does motos day after day, week after week. He goes home and cycles and is then back in the gym in the morning, I remember racing Zwarte Cross [Dutch Championship] and we had qualifying on Saturday and on his way home that day he stopped at a practice track and did another moto and yet more starts. The next morning I saw he was on the rowing machine, the season, he was like 'yeah, come with me and do what I do.' So I did it for one week and it was really good for me for a short pe- riod of time, but there is no way I could keep that up all year. Maybe it's because he has done it for so long that he has a tolerance to it." Herlings is the most envied and arguably one of the most well- known riders in MXGP but not one of the most public. He is a moderate social media user (non- existent on Twitter) and he keeps to himself at the circuits. The veil of protection and support of his "I think, next year, we can expect the same Jeffrey again. He is still hungry and eager to win. Some guys do have that big goal and then they take a step back or fall into that hole, but I don't think that will happen with him." – Dirk Gruebel latter. "He has a very strong com- mitment and desire to win. I've never see anyone else like that." "He is never satisfied and if there is something to be im- proved then we go riding again and we test. He has a good eye for lines and is not scared to go for something," asserts Gruebel. turned up and won both motos and the Dutch title, and then went home again. I was like 'woah.' "I was sitting eating my dinner and looking at Instagram stories and he was out practicing starts somewhere and I thought 'what am I doing?!' I did ride a little bit with Jeffrey. At one point during team cannot be understated in the elixir that was mixed in 2018. "I've been working with the same group for a very long time and we all know our jobs and what to do and what to expect from each other," he says. "Yeah, we all have different and difficult times, personal issues and mo- ments when the motivation or results are not there. The dynamic of a team sometimes means it is tough to keep all faces in the right direction with the same goal. At the end of the day, I know I can re- ally count on the group I have and they can count on me." At Imola for the Grand Prix of Italy and the 2018 finale, Herlings was already running the #1 with #84 side plates. The #1 had not been seen in the premier class Herlings is hugely popular within the MXGP world but likes to keep to himself at the races and isn't a huge social media junkie.