Unfortunately that’s the nature of being a cycling fan these days, isn’t it? Surprised you’re the first to express such doubts.
Look up Sepp Kuss on strava. He uploads all of his training with power data. While he is logging absolutely tons of miles, a lot of his sessions have what look like horrific under/over sets, plenty of 40/20s and other high intensity training.
MVDP is not the only rider who places emphasis on high power intervals, and the difference in his training is likely quite nuanced compared to other pros. He is just a phenom at the top of his game.
People have always liked to believe there are special people out there, in the very old days it was Heroes and Fate, now it’s Genetics.
I don’t think we understand human biology enough to know completely, but I’m not willing to throw my hands up and call it Fate just yet. Could it be PEDs? Possibly. Could it be any other factor we aren’t taking into account? Possibly.
I don’t watch much bike racing so this is a total noob opinion and I’ll probably get slapped to the gutter 
Van der Poel is a pro rider, who won a bike race. He simply did his job. The other riders did their job to a lesser degree. Yes, I’ve watched the footage and it was one hell of a finish but for me, it starts and finishes with the fact he’s a pro, doing what he’s paid to do.
If a Cat 1/2 amateur finished their race in this fashion, I’d be far more impressed. That Cat 1/2 is probably having to hold down a full time job whilst training to be monster. That gets my respect in spades.
To a certain degree that’s what happened, and why it’s such a big deal. He’s a first year road pro, with a pro conti team, and he destroyed the in the final 10k. He not only bridged the gap which was huge, he dragged a whole bunch of people with him, and then lead himself out for a sprint win. Hide the results and give a text description of his tactics, and nobody in their right mind would say he did it right, it worked out for him because he was fit / determined / focused, and that’s pretty crazy in general, let alone from someone in his position.
I do think his training echo’s a lot of what the TR team says, shorter intense training gives major benefits, and then as the OP says ride ride ride to get those endurance systems. It’ll be interesting if there’s any shift in training for the classics and other 1 day races as a result of this. Granted it’s a couple of races that don’t all have top competition, so hard to judge anything based off of that, but him, alaphilippe, and van aert have all had a lot of success, so there might be something to this cyclocross stuff!
The same exists in running. It actually exists in restaurants as well… confusion between quality and quantity.
It’s pretty well documented how each physiological characteristics that support sports performance have a genetic component, and a level of trainability. The average person, even if taken at a young age and fully trained and developed, will not end up as a 5W/kg cyclist.
There have been a bunch of books that downplay the role of genetics… Outliers, Bounce: The Myth of Talent etc… all the 10,000 hour rule stuff. These are all good books and are great at improving motivation to train, but should really be taken with a grain of salt. David Epstein’s The Sports Gene gives a better perspective. If you haven’t read it, I’d definitely recommend it.
It’s also well documented that taking some PEDs have a greater performance benefit for some people than others.
One part of of me wants to beleive he’s a genetic mutant, especially given his palmares, and yet another part of me can’t help think that there’s something fishy, especially given his palmares!
Maybe it’s something I heard on a documentay about drug cheats a few years ago which suggested athletes may be taking PEDs well before they turn professional knowing that the benefits remain for many many years. I can think of one well known cyclist who was still reaping the benefits of his shady past up until the tail end of last year. Joseph doesn’t seem to have the same spark so far this year 
- He won one… a big one, but count it… one road race, right?
- The fashion was impressive, but it’s still just one win AFAIK.
Well, if you’re counting that day, yes, he only won one road race.
If you go back 4 days, then you can count Brabantse Pijl, so that’s 2 major races in four days that he won.
Three weeks earlier he won Dwars door Vlaanderen, which is another classic. In the time in between he was 4th in Gent-Wevelgem and 4th in the Tour of Flanders, as well as winning in Denain I believe.
So three major wins in 3.5 weeks, as well as a bunch of other results. As far as I know, the only race where he didn’t have a major result was Nokere, which he crashed in the final 200 meters.
Those details aside: I certainly don’t think that this in itself is worth re-evaluating what kind of training we should be doing. Instead, it’s a clear demonstration of what true absolute talent and/or genetics is.
There are 2 separate questions here - one about training, and one about how exceptional VdP is.
I don’t think we know enough about the training that VdP does to know how different it is from other pro riders. If all we are basing this on is the cyclocross races, then we should also consider all the other 'cross racers over the past few years who haven’t been able to transfer their 'cross results to the road (eg when Stybar was 'cross racing he wasn’t the road rider he is now).
As to how exceptional he is, he’s 24, and he’s been the best 'cross rider through the season for the last 4 years. He’s done bits and pieces of road, and got some reasonable results last year (and the Dutch road title) before the explosion this classics campaign. He’s also come second (to Nino Scheurter) in a top quality MTB race. His versatility is what makes him extra special IMO. If you look at the stars of today like Sagan, or Alaphilippe, they had similarly spectacular results on the road by this time in their career, but they had been riding a lot more road and so it was just accepted as to their natural progression. I think he is the next classics superstar (maybe alongside Van Aert). However, he’s 6 ft and 75 kg, so he’s going to have to go some to win grand tours (and I don’t know if that’s his target), and the likes of Egan Bernal and Sivakov are younger and have more stage race experience already.
From the many Trainerroad podcasts I’ve listened to I’ve not once got the impression that the guys place any real value on long road rides. For the uneducated sure, go out and see who can ride harder for longer, but I don’t see that in the Trainerroad community.
Great post.
Just some thoughts:
Sagan and Landis share a mountain biking background.
Also, watching van der Poel I had the same thought about what would Nino do to the Peleton on a road bike.
In my opinion I think that training is so advanced these days that pros are optimized for their sport. Van der Poel is just a freak of nature.
But, I could be wrong. You raise some thought provoking questions.
But arent most of major Pro Road races/stages 5/6 hours?
Whereas smaller events/crits short.
Thus this would affect your training goals/plans
Hugh
Track cyclists compete only for a few minutes but log huge amounts of low intensity miles. See for example:
http://sportscience.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm
Schumacher and Mueller (2002) demonstrated the validity of this approach in predicting “gold medal standards” for physiological testing and power output in track cycling. However, less obvious from the title was the detailed description of the training program followed by the German cyclists monitored in the study, ultimately earning a gold medal in Sydney in world-record time. These athletes trained to maintain 670 W in the lead position and ~450 W when following using a training program dominated by continuous low to moderate intensity cycling on the roads (29-35,000 km.y-1). In the 200 d preceding the Olympics, the athletes performed “low-intensity, high-mileage” training at 50-60 % of VO2max on ~140 d. Stage races took up another ~40 d. Specific track cycling at near competition intensities was performed on less than 20 d between March and September. In the ~110 d preceding the Olympic final, high-intensity interval track training was performed on only 6 d.
Unless I’m mistaken the OP is talking about the perceptions of what constitutes an impressive ride in his local cycling group.
you are correct, but that seems to be some of the criticisms I’ve read of TR…it’s so much intensity…I’m not criticizing, but that’s what people say in forums about it after a while.
to be a well rounded cycling you need a well rounded training plan IMO
Ryder Hesjedal
Robbie McEwen: BMX → Road
Now what?!? 
You sure? She excels in XCC 5 wins out of the 6 races last season. I watch a lot of the redbull coverage of the mountain bike races and they usually talk about her superior power. Most women will not be beating her in a sprint finish… maybe Neff, but sometimes watts aren’t the only thing needed to sprint well, but a nice acceleration to come with those watts.