The off-season is over and preparations for 2023 are underway, with Wout van Aert and his Jumbo-Visma teammates heading out into the Flanders for an early recon of the cobbled Classics.
Although the Dutch team will hold their first full training camp in southern Spain in the middle of December, more than a third of the squad gathered in northern Belgium this week for a series of taster rides.
On Tuesday, they went out to recon the course for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and on Wednesday they were back in the same area but following the course for the Tour of Flanders.
Van Aert, the team’s Classics leader who won the Omloop and E3 Classic this year before being ruled out of Flanders with COVID-19, lead the outings alongside new signing Dylan van Baarle, the Paris-Roubaix champion.
Unable to wear his new colours until his contract switches on January 1, the Dutchman stood out among his black-and-yellow teammates in the bright orange of Ineos Grenadiers’ training kit.
Joining the pair for the rides were Christophe Laporte, who crossed the line arm-in-arm with Van Aert at E3, and Ties Benoot, who is back riding after breaking his neck this summer. Other members included new signing Tosh Van der Sande, Edoardo Affini, Maarten Wynants, and Mick and Tim Van Dijke. The only major absentee was Nathan Van Hooydonck.
“At first we wanted to bring the group together, as a kind of team building,” team director Grischa Niermann, who joined Tuesday’s ride, told Nieuwsblad (opens in new tab).
“At the same time, this is the ideal time to test the material. And if you have to do that anyway, you can just as well combine it with a reconnaissance of a course. Not all riders live in the area.
“Also because we were very lucky with the weather. Could have been a few degrees warmer, but it stayed dry all day while rain was predicted. Ideal weather for a training ride.”
Recon rides are an ideal opportunity to test bike set-up, most importantly wheels, tyres and tyre pressures, but Jumbo-Visma have the added complication of switching groupset suppliers from Shimano to SRAM, although it’s unclear if they are riding SRAM this week.
The Omloop recon on Tuesday totalled 135km, looping around the early climbs in the Flemish Ardennes before tracking the well-known finale over the Muur van Geraardsbergen and Bosberg and the run-in to Ninove.
Remarkably, Van Aert warmed up for the ride with an 8.7km run, which he…
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