Dr Mike Posthumus may not be a name that you’re familiar with, but if you watch World Cup XCO racing, you will be familiar with this South African’s work. Posthumus is the Performance Director of the Specialized Factory Racing team, which dominated the first half of the 2025 XCO World Cup season. We asked him some questions…
By Sean Badenhorst | All images: Michal Cerveny
Before we get into the questions and answers, we need to fully appreciate the phenomenal success that Posthumus has helped deliver. The Specialized Factory Racing men’s team completely dominated the first half of the 2025 UCI World Cup Series. Here’s a reminder of the team’s results:
Included in those results are two top-three finishes in XCO races, five top-two finishes in XCC races, five successive XCC victories by Blevins and four wins out of five XCO races. All truly remarkable and historic achievements by one team showing impressive dominance.
Not surprisingly, as we head into the final four rounds of the 2025 UCI World Cup after a short break, Specialized Factory Racing men’s team racers occupy the following positions:
XCO World Cup Series after six rounds:
1 Christopher Blevins
2 Martin Vidaurre
3 Victor Koretzky
XCC World Cup Series after six rounds:
1 Christopher Blevins
2 Victor Koretzky
XCO World Rankings as of mid-August 2025:
1 Victor Koretzky
2 Christopher Blevins
8 Martin Vidaurre
That’s impressive! Impressive in terms of performance, consistency and depth. And all under the leadership of Posthumus, who made some time to answer a few questions:
What is your job title with Specialized Factory Racing and what do you do for the team?
My official job title is Performance Director. However, because mountain bike teams are much smaller than road teams, every staff member contributes across multiple areas, especially when we’re on the road. One of the key ingredients to our success has been the willingness of our staff to pitch in wherever needed. In my specific role, I oversee all aspects related to rider performance – including training, nutrition, recovery, and travel logistics – to ensure our athletes are in the best possible condition to perform.
How long have you been associated with the team and how did your role with the team come about?
I started with the team in 2022. At the end of 2021, under the lead of Manager Benno Willeit, the team recognised the importance of a dedicated performance department and lead. In fact, we were one of the first teams to fully integrate such a role within mountain biking. After a few meetings I started assisting in the role for the 2022 season. Initially, the role was quite limited in scope, but as trust developed and the value of a structured performance approach became clear, the role has expanded significantly year by year.
Give us a short summary of your official qualifications in the Sport Science segment?
I began my academic journey with a BSc in Chemical, Molecular, and Cellular Sciences, followed by a Medical Honours degree in Exercise Science. I then completed a PhD in Exercise Science in 2009. Since then, my career has included both academic and applied roles – from academic research to leading the High Performance Centre at the University of Cape Town and the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, to coaching and consulting as an applied sports scientist. I’ve been working closely with cyclists since 2010. More recently, to better support the performance nutrition needs of the athletes I work with, I completed a master’s-level diploma in Performance Nutrition.
Do you personally coach all of Specialized Factory Racing team members?
I do not personally coach all our riders. Instead, we’ve developed “performance pods” around each athlete to ensure they have all the support they need. Each pod is tailored to the rider’s individual requirements, combining our team’s expertise with their own trusted support network. My role within these pods varies – for some athletes, I act as their personal coach; for others, I contribute as a physiologist or provide performance nutrition guidance. This flexible structure is one of our greatest strengths, ensuring every athlete feels fully supported and has access to the right expertise. It’s an approach that has worked extremely well for us over the past season.
You are currently coaching Chris Blevins, what do you put his success down to?
I count myself lucky to have been alongside Chris as he’s raised himself to the top of the sport. He’s an exceptional human being and athlete. His success has been very much a joint effort, with a lot of valuable input from himself. He’s surrounded by strong support – from a caring family to excellent work with Matt, his strength coach. I also credit much of his success to the time he’s invested in his mental game, particularly through hours of meditation practice. From a training perspective, we’ve kept things simple, focusing on the fundamentals and on exactly what he needs to do to win.
The men’s team has been dominant in the first half of the 2025 UCI World Cup Series. No other team has been this dominant in the past. What do you feel are the key reasons for this?
This season really feels like the perfect storm – in the best way possible. We’ve worked hard to build this mix of riders: those with the experience to know exactly what it takes to win, raw young talent hungry to prove themselves, and a team culture that makes everyone feel supported. The trust within the group is huge, and you can see how much they enjoy racing for and against each other.
What’s been special this year is the way they’ve been pushing one another – not in a cutthroat way, but in a way that lifts everyone up. When one rider raises the bar, the others naturally follow. The results speak for themselves: Victor, Chris, and Martin have all stood on the top step of a World Cup already this season, and I know Adrien will be there soon. For me, that’s the outcome of an environment where talent, hard work, and peer-driven motivation all come together.
The carb-abundance shift in recent years has been quite pronounced in endurance bicycle racing disciplines. Has there been a similar shift in the more explosive, shorter duration XCO discipline?
Nutrition in cycling has evolved in recent years, with far greater understanding of the exact carbohydrate requirements both on and off the bike. That said, I don’t think the MTB discipline – at least at the professional level – was ever shy about carbohydrate intake during racing. What has changed is that riders are now more deliberate and conscious about meeting their needs.
Where I think the biggest shift has occurred is among recreational riders. It’s taken a few years for the message to filter through, but more amateur riders are now adopting the same principles and fuelling strategies that have long been common in the pro ranks.
Your team members – both male and female – have exceptional mountain bike handling skills. How much of a difference do you feel this makes from a performance perspective?
It makes a huge difference. At this level, it’s very hard to be competitive without the necessary technical skills. It’s not just about gaining time on the descents – being more skilled also means you can ride more efficiently, stay relaxed, and recover better on technical sections, which ultimately pays off later in the race.
Last year your team members weren’t all choosing to race on the Epic 8. Some were still on the Epic World Cup. I may be wrong here, but it seems as if they have all only been racing the Epic 8 this year. Do you feel this latest model has played a role in the team’s 2025 success?
We’re extremely fortunate to have access to two bikes that are both incredibly fast and capable. In XCC and XCO racing, we’re not allowed to use different bikes for each event on the same weekend – we have to choose one that can do it all. That can sometimes be a tough decision, but most riders tend to lean toward the bike they’ve been riding and racing most often, simply because switching between bikes takes some adjustment.
Last year, we identified that the Epic World Cup was going to be the optimal bike for the Paris Olympic course. That meant riders spent more time training and racing on it to build comfort and familiarity. This year, however, when it came to committing to one bike for the entire season across all XCO courses, the Epic 8 is just so hard to beat – unbelievably light, yet incredibly capable. Without question, it’s been one of the key factors in our success this year.
As a Sports Scientist, which area do you feel still has room for improvement when it comes to XCO racing in general?
For me, the constant challenge – and the biggest area for ongoing improvement – is finding ways to get athletes performing at their highest level more consistently across an entire season. A World Cup season is long and demanding, starting in April and running right through to October. Staying at the top and winning throughout that stretch is incredibly hard, especially because the sport demands both very high-intensity efforts and a strong endurance base.
The balance is tricky: focus too much on intensity and endurance can drop off; focus too much on endurance and you lose some of that top-end speed. That’s where smart, highly individualised periodisation becomes critical, tailored to each rider’s unique physiology. I think we’re on the verge of seeing rapid progress here, particularly as sports scientists begin using machine learning models to accelerate and fine-tune this process for each athlete.
Not sure how in touch you are with the domestic racing in SA currently, but if you are, do you feel that there are any young South African XCO racers that have world-class potential?
As a country with a relatively small pool of young mountain bike riders, we’ve done incredibly well at producing top XCO World Cup athletes – from the late Burry Stander, to Alan Hatherley winning Worlds in 2024, to Candice Lill, and now Luke Moir beginning to make his mark. We can be proud of these riders, but their success also shows that we could be producing even more if we had a larger talent pool.
The School Series has done an excellent job getting big numbers of kids onto bikes, which is a fantastic foundation. But we now need to see those same kids riding more technically demanding XCO tracks. At a young age, technical skill development is far more important than heavy training. These skills are what will allow them to be competitive on the world stage.
Once that base is in place, we need to create a clear, sustainable pathway for our most talented juniors to race internationally. The riders I’ve mentioned all reached the top largely through their own channels and personal investment. If we want more athletes making that leap, our federation must play a bigger role in building and supporting that pathway. And given the funding limitations, this will likely need strong private backing and partnerships.
Many young XCO racers in South Africa are either being coached or advised to get a coach to improve. What do you recommend the parents look for when considering investing in a coach for their child?
If your kid is new to mountain biking, a qualified skills coach can do wonders and will actually help them enjoy their riding even more. During the initial years it should be all about enjoying the sport and enjoying the pleasures of riding a bike. Depending on the child’s training age (how many years they have been training), a coach to help them with their physical training may or may not be advised. My advice is always to try to delay getting a coach for as long as possible. Rather focus on enjoyment. Start off by including some fun “races” or “sprints” within rides once or twice a week. This is ideally done with a club or school team as part of a group.
Follow the success of the team on Instagram: Mike Posthumus and Specialized Factory Racing
