Kuss also presents Van Aert with sufferfest, Visma star later rewarded with monster ride accompanied by climbers

Wout van Aert will start in Mol, Belgium, on December 23, but to what extent is the Belgian of Visma | Lease a Bike prepared for a cyclo-cross winter and subsequent road season? After he suffered a significant knee injury in the Vuelta a España, the first few months after that were trial and error. Van Aert's Strava files from Spain again offer all kinds of interpretations.

Based on our previous glance at his Strava account, Van Aert had already had two training weeks in his legs when he started on December 10 in Denia. Visma | Lease a Bike was welcomed with a lovely downpour. "Absorbing," Van Aert jokingly wrote of a workout of over 112 kilometers and 1,600 meters of elevation.

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"Against better judgment," writes Van Aert

On December 12 and 14, Van Aert recorded a lengthy road test of 166.31 kilometers and a running session of 7.37 kilometers. 'Against better judgment' and 'Again against better judgment' accompanied his uploads. That couldn't have been a reference to rain since it hadn't really rained in the area since early December. Was it disappointing? Or did the Belgian star with his poetic titles mean something else (again) after all? To make matters worse, the coffee outing on the 13th was also disappointing. "Too late for a cappuccino," it sounded.

They had to get on with it, as evidenced by a solid training session on Saturday. I'm on the road with Sepp Kuss, and I just asked Robert Gesink how that turned out. The now-retired Dutchman called a day with Kuss a "Sepp's Sufferfest Sunda," Van Aert didn't fare much better, judging by his Strava. "The Cheetah vs. the Road Roller: 2-0," he wrote afterward. The day was followed by a training session of over 144 kilometers. And again, the caption didn't seem too optimistic. "Nice sunglasses, wrong head."

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Van Aert gets entire team of climbers as reward

After a well-deserved 64-kilometer 'rest day,' a new (and final) week of training in Spain began with a surprising reward for Van Aert. The entire team of climbers joined him on a 195-kilometer, 3,224-meter elevation ride. "The odd one out," Van Aert said jokingly, using emoticons to refer to seven lightweights and one gorilla.

The post was accompanied by a piece of evidence, as in addition to Kuss, Jonas Vingegaard, Simon Yates, Bart Lemmen, Jorgen Nordhagen, Cian Uijtdebroeks, and Wilco Kelderman went along. Poor Van Aert, who completed the nearly six-hour workout just fine. Average: 32.6 kilometers per hour.

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Van Aert was recently scouting in Flanders

Is Van Aert still thinking about cyclo-cross World Cup?

These are all beneficial stimuli towards Mol, where Van Aert will dive into the field on December 23. After that, we'll also see him back in Loenhout ( December 27), Gullegem (January 4), Dendermonde (January 5), Benidorm (January 19), and Maasmechelen (January 25). He doesn't usually do the World Cup, although cyclo-cross coach Jan Boven allowed a little wiggle room for hope at Wielerflits last weekend. "Maybe that's still on the table; you never know. We can always adjust the programs," it sounded.

Bram van der Ploeg (Twitter: @BvdPloegg | email: [email protected])      

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